But as the days went on, and May got steadily6 stronger again, a doubt began to look him in the face. He remembered the Revivalist meeting at Cambridge, and his own rejection7 of the idea that one moment, one flash of seeming revelation could change any one. He himself had faced an anxiety{235} blacker than death, had felt a relief purer than heaven. Did not that perhaps account for it all? Was not his own case as intelligible8 as that of the greengrocer who became a teetotaler? And because he was honest with himself he put himself a straightforward9 question: “Would he feel another and a fiercer anguish10 if he again got to believe that Christ was merely the best man who had ever lived and no more?” The question haunted him, but he was unwilling12 to answer it.
To his surprise Tom found Manvers waiting for him at home one evening when he came back from some party about a week after his arrival in London. The latter was sitting in the smoking-room consuming cigarettes until Tom returned.
“I hear there are three to the ménage now,” he said. “I am delighted, of course. I should so like to have a baby. There can be nothing more interesting than to see a helpless thing with nothing it can call its own, except the tendencies it inherits from oneself, slowly acquiring intelligence.”
“It’s a great responsibility,” said Tom, throwing himself into a chair and scratching his head with an air of wisdom.
Manvers stared at him incredulously.
“My dear fellow, the man who thinks about responsibilities is no longer a responsible being. It is a sign of mania13 or extreme old age. The age of responsibility begins at eighty-three or eighty-four, and I once knew a man of eighty-five who was still irresponsible. You are upset and excited. Go to Paris for a week. Paris is strangely regenerative, I always find.{236}”
Tom laughed.
“Talking of Paris, why aren’t you there?”
“I am staying with the Chathams,” said Manvers. “They were in Paris just before Easter, and they asked me to come to London and see them for a week or two, and as I had nothing to do I came. I always have a great success with middle-aged14 gentlemen. There is something peculiarly seductive about me to the mature male.”
“I don’t care for mature males much,” said Tom.
“Oh! that is a mistake. They make one feel so young. It is so easy to be seductive to them. You have to be very deferential15, but imply at the same time that it is a very great compliment, and give them the impression that you yourself have vast stores of experience at your back, but prefer that they should produce theirs.”
“Did you come here simply to make yourself seductive to Lord Chatham?”
“No, I can’t say that was my object. My coming was only the effect of my having done so. I came to see other people.”
“How is Maud? I haven’t seen her lately.”
“As charming as ever,” said Manvers with some finality.
“May is down in the country still,” said Tom, after a pause, “with my father and the baby.”
“And are you ridiculously happy still?”
“Quite ridiculously. But why still?”
“Oh, I don’t know. We are limited, and so are our emotions. I have a natural tendency myself to get tired of the things I like.{237}”
“But you said just now that Maud was as charming as ever.”
“Obviously then she is an exception.”
He rose to go.
“I must be off,” he said. “You came in so late, and I wanted to talk to you—but it’s after twelve, and they will all think it most unseductive of me to wake the house up at nameless hours. I suppose I shall see you again soon?”
“Yes, I dare say I shall come to the Chathams’ at tea-time to-morrow. I haven’t seen them for an age.”
In the thirty-two years of his life Manvers had been amused at many people, had liked a rather smaller proportion, was totally indifferent to most, and had loved none. It was consequently almost distressing16 to him to find that Maud Wrexham was losing none of her preponderance in his thoughts. He remembered how at Athens the thought that she was in love with Tom had galled17 him, but left him dumb, and he had been enormously relieved and pleased to hear of Tom’s marriage. He had not much experience of the ways of girls in the upper classes, but he supposed that in such well-regulated institutions a man who married went into a different orbit, and, ceasing to be a legitimate18 object of affection to all the world but one, naturally ceased being an object of affection at all. He gave himself not undeserved credit for having behaved really very well. He had made it quite clear to Tom that in his opinion Maud Wrexham was approachable, and Tom had rejected the notion theoretically then, and practically a short time after{238} by marrying May. He had done all that could be expected or demanded of him by the most Lycurgan codes of friendship and honour. Those claims were satisfied, and Maud was still free. His work had kept him in Paris during the year after Tom’s marriage, and he had himself felt that it would be wise to keep away for a time. He suspected that Maud had some private business to transact19 with her own emotions, and that, while she was doing that, she would not perhaps wish to be interrupted. She might, in fact, declare that she would not be interrupted. Manvers, who was essentially20 a reasonable being, had considered that a year was time enough for her to clear off her private business, and the year was now over. He disliked waiting very much, but he summoned to his aid that admirable common-sense which had stood him in such good stead at Athens, and had worked harder than ever.
During the past week his intimacy21 with Maud had advanced a good deal. She evidently found considerable pleasure in his society, and he made himself uniformly entertaining and agreeable. Lady Chatham also, in the intervals22 of what she called “the whirl of London life,” when her genius was not devoted23 to ordering carriages, and picking up people with mathematical inaccuracy at street corners, found time to talk to him, and make vague arrangements for him. Consequently next morning, after her orders had been sent to the stables, and she needed a little relaxation24, when she found him alone in the library, reading papers, she sat down and began to talk.
“My husband tells me you have to leave us on{239} Saturday,” she said. “I suppose you are going back to Paris. What day of the month will that be?”
“Saturday is the 26th, I think,” said Manvers.
“No, I am sure you are wrong. Saturday is the 25th. Well then, as you meant to go on the 26th, you can stop here till Sunday. We shall be able to send you to the station.”
“It’s very good of you,” said Manvers, “but I am afraid it is the day of the week that matters, and not the day of the month. I have to be in Paris on Saturday night.”
“And what do you do then? You ought to be settling down, you know.”
“I am afraid I shan’t settle down more than I have done already. I work very hard, you must know. But this holiday has been delightful25.”
“It must be very widening to live about from country to country as you do,” said Lady Chatham appreciatively, “but you ought to give us the benefit of your increasing width!”
Manvers laughed.
“In what way?”
“You might write a book about the comparative tendencies of English and foreign life. Something useful—not like those little scrappy books that describe mimosa trees and amber26 necklaces and the Soudan, but something that really helped one to understand the difference between one nation and another, the influence of climate—climate has a great deal to do with character. Food too—the meat we eat in a day would last an Italian for a week. That must make{240} a difference. And, as I said, you ought to settle down and marry, and become the centre of a little circle.”
“Tom always fills me with the envy for married life,” said he; “he really is ridiculously happy. But as regards the other, I don’t think I am made for a centre. I prefer circling myself.”
Lady Chatham rose to go.
“Well, it is five minutes to eleven,” she said, “and I must be off. You must think over all I have said.”
“I will think it over very seriously,” he replied.
Lord Chatham was dining at the House that night, and Maud sent a note to Tom asking him to make the fourth with Manvers and her mother. There was no one else coming, and little coats and black ties were the order of the evening.
The night was beautifully warm, and after dinner they all sat on the little terrace outside the drawing-room window.
Tom was in rather a sombre mood. His account of himself was that he had unaccountably stuck in his work and had been unable to get on. Manvers administered consolation27.
“That is one of the chiefest pleasures of being an artist,” he said: “one has the sort of feeling that one is really a channel through which inspiration flows. Now a solicitor28 or a clerk can go on copying briefs or making a digest or a précis in any mood. He is a mere11 machine. No doubt his work is more distasteful at one time than it is at another, but it goes on just the same. Nothing comes between him and it except death or very severe toothache, which shows he works without conviction, and is consequently a{241} very feeble sort of animal. It is the same with all mankind except artists and clergymen.”
“But what is one to do in the meanwhile?” asked Tom. “I don’t find these intervals, when some one cuts off the inspiration, at all inspiriting.”
“Why, do nothing,” said Manvers; “don’t think about it. You can’t force a mood. The mood forces you.”
“I can’t acquiesce29 in that,” said Tom. “I am not going to be ordered about by my own temperament30.”
“Ah, my dear fellow, what are you going to be ordered about by if you are not to be ordered about by your temperament? The temperament is the only thing that can order one about. In everything else, if one wants a thing enough one gets it.”
Maud leaned forward.
“I don’t believe that. At least it is not true for all people. Some pass their whole lives in failing to do what they want. But they have a consolation; for they are exactly the people who for the most part give other people what they want. Personally I hardly ever get what I want, and that is why I have a passion for making other people like me.”
At the least hint of anything so superlunary as the mildest metaphysics, Lady Chatham always recorded a protest.
“Maud dear,” she said deprecatingly.
But “Maud dear” was interested, and so to judge by his face was Manvers. His dark eyes had lost their look of slight amusement, and he leaned forward eagerly to hear what Maud had to say next.{242}
“It is the old story,” she said; “half the world is active, and the other half passive.”
“But you exert yourself to be passive.”
“Oh, certainly; one is simply nothing if one doesn’t exert one’s self. My mission, I am sure, is to be material for the active people.”
“But you told me once you wanted to take the world into your hand,” said Tom, “and make its heart beat fast or slow as you wished.”
“I know I did, but I have changed.”
“Radically, completely?”
Maud lifted her eyes for a moment and looked at Tom, then dropped them again.
“My desire has not changed, but I now know I can’t do it. It’s not my line at all.”
Tom looked up.
“Do you mean you acquiesce in defeat?” he asked. “Can you contemplate31 wanting a thing and not getting it?”
“He is monarch32 of all he surveys,” remarked Manvers.
“Of course I am,” said Tom, “so is everybody.”
“Oh, but we can’t all be monarchs33 of all we survey,” said Maud.
“But we can,” replied Tom, “simply because we survey so very little. All our horizons are limited. As a matter of fact, of course we are terribly limited, all of us, but we have a beautiful gift of not believing that. We can be monarchs of all we understand, which is what I mean by survey, and that is why people marry. Two people understand each other, and so as they are both monarchs of each other, it is{243} a law of nature that they should then be no longer two, but one.”
This remarkable34 statement was received in silence.
“Then what do you make of people who are failures—real failures?” said Maud at length.
“God help them!” replied Tom; “they have tried to get what they did not understand. There is nothing so pathetic as that.”
“Why did you acquiesce, Miss Wrexham?” asked Manvers.
Maud hesitated a moment, but assuming with perfect good faith that neither Tom nor Manvers could possibly guess what she meant, replied—
“Because I could not get a thing I wanted, and therefore I assumed that I was not made to get what I wanted.”
“That is a hasty generalization,” said Tom; “perhaps you did not understand it.”
“Well, I thought I did, and either I am not meant to get what I want, or I am one of those pathetic figures you alluded35 to.”
Tom laughed.
“I don’t think of you as a pathetic figure,” he said.
“Oh, one can’t appear as a pathetic figure in public,” she said. “Don’t let us forget that it is a comedy we are all acting36.”
She spoke37 bitterly, and Tom was astonished at the hard ring of her voice. But before the pause became awkward Manvers broke it.
“There is nothing more serious than taking things seriously,” he said. “I never took anything seriously yet.{244}”
“What a frightfully risky38 thing to say!” exclaimed Maud. “It’s as dangerous as saying you never had the toothache!”
Tom got up from his chair and perched himself on the edge of the balcony, and at that moment there came into Manvers’ mind the evening at Athens, when Tom had sat on the edge of the balcony, and the flash of lightning had illuminated39 Maud’s face. For the first moment he thought it was only one of those strange throbs40 of double consciousness which we all know so well, but the moment afterwards he recollected41 the prototype of the scene. And as if to confirm it in his mind, Maud went on—
“My acquiescence42 came quite suddenly, as suddenly as a flash of lightning.”
“When did it come?” asked Tom, innocently.
Manvers waited, in the act of flicking43 the ash off his cigar, for the reply, and Maud looking up saw he was watching her.
“Lord Byron woke one morning and found himself famous,” she said, “but I doubt whether a year afterwards he could have told you whether it was a Monday or a Tuesday.”
“But the occasion,” persisted Tom: “he could have told one that.”
“One occasion doesn’t change one,” said Maud, fencing; “it is always a whole string of things, half of which one forgets afterwards. It is so untrue to speak of a crisis being the effect of one moment.”
Lady Chatham rose.
“How terribly metaphysical you young people are!” she said. “I must go in and write two notes,{245} and then I think I shall go to the House in the carriage which is to fetch Chatham. Maud dear, you look rather tired. Go to bed early.”
Lady Chatham said good night and went indoors.
“That is quite true about crises,” said Tom, after a pause. “I have had one, two, three in my life, and though they all seemed the results of single moments, they were only the culmination44 of what had been going on before.”
“But the apex45 of a pyramid remains46 the highest point. There would be no pyramid without it,” objected Manvers.
“But still less would an apex be a pyramid by itself!”
“It’s your turn, Tom,” said Maud. “I’ve been talking about myself, and now you shall talk about yourself. Begin at the beginning. What were your crises?”
“The first was when I saw the Hermes at Olympia,” began Tom.
“And a most disastrous47 crisis it was,” observed Manvers. “I hope they weren’t all as cheerless as that.”
“Be quiet, Mr. Manvers,” said Maud. “It’s his turn.”
“Of course that seemed to me the whole crisis,” said Tom, “but it wasn’t. It was only the apex of the effect Athens had on me.”
“Yes, I think that’s reasonable,” said Maud. “Go on to the next.”
“The next was when I was standing48 in a bramble bush waiting for pigeons to come over, and saw May{246} walking down the path. She looked as if she had just stepped out from among the gods and goddesses on the Parthenon frieze49. You see the first crisis was really part of the second.”
Maud said nothing, so Manvers took up the part of catechist.
“And the third?”
“Oh, about that I can’t talk. But I know now that the whole of my life from the time of the second crisis, since I fell in love with May, was part of the third.”
“Oh, but do tell us,” said Maud. “I believe you have forgotten what it was.”
“It was when I first thought I was a Christian,” said Tom simply. “But——” He stopped.
If Tom had said that it was when he first began to hate May, he could not have startled them more. Manvers felt very keenly the indecency of being serious. Maud sat still for a moment. Her knack51 of turning awkward conversation on to safer lines seemed to have entirely52 deserted53 her.
“No wonder you are perfectly54 happy,” she said at length, and stopped. They sat there for a few minutes in silence, and Tom fidgeted.
“It was a crisis no doubt,” he went on; “for the time it made a most wonderful difference to me, but somehow it has faded. Why are we all so damnably limited, or rather why are we cursed with that horrible sense of proportion, which makes us realize how limited we are? The happiest moment of my life was that on the morning after the baby had been born, when I went to early celebration. It was the{247} best moment I have ever had, and I was even content. I had been horribly anxious and frightened the day before, and the relief and the joy were so immense that for the moment I was forced, so I thought then, to believe. Unhappily, common-sense is for ever telling me that it was relief and not belief that I experienced. Yet it was a crisis, for I now believe in the possibility of such convictions some day becoming mine, for for a little while they were mine, and what has happened to me temporarily may happen to me permanently55. And now,” he added, “I have committed what Manvers considers the one unpardonable breach56 of manners. I have been serious!”
Again there was silence, and neither Maud nor Manvers saw exactly how to break it. But a neighbouring clock striking eleven gave Tom an opportunity.
“It is time for me to go,” he said; “I had no idea how late it was. May comes up to-morrow, I hope.”
The other two sat where they were till the wheels of Tom’s retreating hansom had merged57 themselves in the distant muffled58 roar of the further streets. To Maud it suddenly seemed that malignant59 hands were building up again in front of her that blank wall she had been at such pains to demolish60, and that her work of the autumn was all undone61. Tom’s presence, mingled62 with his absolute unconsciousness of its effect, had again reasserted its unreasonable63 power over her. She felt again as she had begun to feel at Athens, that she was miserable64 in his presence and incomplete in his absence. But her efforts at self-control had become with her a habit, and though she was dully{248} conscious that her blank wall had rebuilt itself, she did not dash at it with dumb unavailing hands. It had to be picked down again stone by stone from the top to the bottom. The prospect65 was not a cheering one. She was also more than half conscious that Manvers was standing, as it were, on the other side of the wall, hidden from her by its intervening mass, and she dreaded66 that he would call to her, and assure her of it. That he was in love with her she could not but know, and she was quite aware that she liked him almost to any extent; but the limitations of the human race forbid us to love two people at once. Nature has provided us with two eyes, two ears, two arms, two legs, two hands, in case some accident happens to one of them, but her wise precaution has not gone so far as to provide us with two people to love simultaneously67, in case one of them gets married.
She was sitting in the chair Tom had left, and Manvers, who had been sitting a little way off, moved up and took the chair next her. She had one mad impulse to ask him not to speak, for she saw he meant to. However, if the scene was to come, it was to come, and he had the right, as a man, to know his fate. But though she knew it was to come, she wanted to put it off if only for a minute or two. She rose from her chair again, and leant on the balustrade of the balcony.
“I feel depressed68 and worried and strung up and run down to-night,” she said. “Do you remember that admirably sensible American girl at Athens, who said that all such feelings were stomach? I expect it is quite true, but I don’t see how it helps one. I do{249}n’t feel sure of myself. Tom very often makes me feel like that. He’s so wonderfully sure of himself.”
Manvers’ hands fidgeted with the arms of his chair, and he lit a cigarette, and threw it away. This sort of experience was new to him.
“And now as we’ve finished talking about Tom,” he said at length, “it is time that we should talk about me.”
Maud rushed for the loophole. She might as well have hoped to have stopped an express by stretching a piece of string across the line.
“I should like to talk a little more about him,” she said. “I was so surprised at that third crisis.”
“Tom is so honest with his crises,” said Manvers, “he faces them like a man.”
“Well, it’s no use running away from a crisis,” said Maud; “you might as well run away from a flash of lightning.”
“And I too think it is best to face a crisis,” said he, “and ... and ... my crisis has come.”
Maud sat still, waiting for the inevitable69.
“It is this,” he said suddenly, “that I love you. That I would die for you, or live for you: that I offer you myself to take into your hand.”
Maud stood up. The crisis had come, and she knew what she was going to say. It was best to leave no misunderstanding.
“It is impossible,” she said, “absolutely impossible. I will not give you any hope. I can’t encourage you by telling you to wait. It can never be. Stop, don’t speak yet. I am sorry for you, more sorry than I can say; but I am perfectly certain of it.{250}”
Manvers stood up too.
“How can you be certain?” he said. “I will take my answer like a gentleman, and not hope to win you by making myself importunate70; but how is there no hope?”
“It is quite impossible,” said Maud again.
For the moment he had forgotten about the existence of Tom and all the world, but as Maud repeated “It is quite impossible,” the cruelty of her position and of his stung him intolerably, and forced from him an involuntary protest, as sudden physical pain forces a cry from the most stoical.
“Ah, God help us both!” he said.
Maud turned and looked at him. She was standing with her back to the street, and he was opposite her, so that her face was in darkness, his in light. And in his face she saw pity, love, tenderness and the knowledge of her secret mingled together.
She had one moment of furious indignation with him for even letting her know that he knew all. But he came a step nearer and held out both hands to her.
“Oh, you poor dear! you poor dear!” he said. “Without a thought of any possible gain, I would give my right hand to spare you this. It is much worse for you than for me.”
The shadow of convention which had stood between them sank away into nothingness, for convention is born of the head, not of the heart, and when heart meets heart, there is no place for head. Maud took his two outstretched hands and pressed them.
“You are a man,” she said, “and that is the highest{251} praise of all. I have tried very hard to be a woman, but I have not succeeded so well.”
“You have succeeded very well,” he said. “No one has guessed it.”
Pride is not a dominant71 emotion, and is driven off the field as soon as the greater magnates appear.
“After all,” she thought wearily, “what does it matter?” And then because her passion was strong and she was young, she broke down utterly72. “My God, what shall I do?” she cried, “and what are you to think of me? I have thrown overboard self-respect, and reticence73, and decency50. I have nothing left but the hope that he knows nothing of it.”
Manvers lied bravely.
“I am sure he has never had an inkling of it,” he said. “It has been hard for you.”
“And all the time there is the horrible consciousness that one may break down.”
“You will not break down. When one has great physical pain, one thinks one cannot endure it a moment longer. But as a matter of fact one can and does. One endures it until it stops.”
“But who is to assure me of that? Not you, of all men, who have guessed my secret.”
“It was no fault of yours that I guessed it. It was because I fell in love with you myself.”
His voice assumed its usual tone of gentler cynicism.
“And love,” he added, “which is usually considered blind, is on the contrary extremely clear sighted. Man is a wonderful creature, as one of Tom’s Greek poets says, and we are beautifully adapted for bearing things without breaking. There is no last straw for{252} us. We go on hoping that each straw is going to be the last, that we shall break, but we can always bear some more. And there usually are some more.”
“Don’t say bitter things, Mr. Manvers. One may say bitter things to strangers, but never to friends. There’s father’s carriage; I must go upstairs. I told mother I should go to bed early. You leave us to-morrow, don’t you? I needn’t tell you how sorry I am.”
“You are very good to me,” said poor Manvers.
“I am intensely sorry for you. Spare a little sorrow for me. And you have behaved admirably. Good night.”
Manvers heard the front door close, and a few minutes afterwards the voices of Lord and Lady Chatham as they went upstairs. A servant came in to put out the lamps; but, seeing Manvers there, would have retreated. He told the man to leave him a candle, and put the lamps out; he needn’t wait up.
The house grew still, and even the noise in the streets sank to a lower murmur74 in those three hours which precede the summer dawn. It was already after twelve when the Chathams returned, and Manvers sat on in the low chair in the balcony smoking endless cigarettes and reviewing events.
He really was not cut out, he thought, for a man of sentiment. He cursed himself for ever having let himself be led into this horrible situation. He had been so happy to the full capacities of his nature in these last thoughtless successful years. He had lived for the hour in all the branches of his nature; his art was of the hour, his pleasures were of the hour, his{253} aims were of the hour. But now he had acquired a new power—he had found he was capable of loving; and a new limitation—he was incapable75 of not doing so. And where did it all lead to? Tom stood full in his road, with his careless happy face, forbidding him, or rather unconsciously making it impossible for him to pass.
The city turned in its sleep, and a strange nestful of street noises hatched, clacked, and were silent again. The short summer night was drawing to a close. A wavering hint of dawn flickered76 across the pale faces of the houses opposite, and faded out again, and the deeper blackness of the half hour before the real dawn came on in layers over the sky. Manvers rose and leaned over the balcony looking down into the street.
Why not leave all this behind and go back to Paris as it was? The hours were still hours, minutes in which to live and enjoy. But it seemed impossible. Some change had come. He was puzzled and bewildered with himself. He had always thought he knew himself as well as he knew his modelling tools, but he had given himself a great surprise. Time would heal everything, would it? He would go back to Paris and get over it by degrees, and become what he had been before, thanks to Time! But for that he thought not the better of Time and of himself, but the worse.
And what of Tom? He would sit here again and again, talking to Maud with intimate freedom, amusing himself, laying down the law about art with a big A, and she would sit opposite him with her uncommunicated incommunicable secret, longing77, loving, rejecting. Why had he gone to Athens, why had that series of a hundred trivial events happened, which had forged together this double iron chain, pulling two ways, yielding in neither? Damn Tom!
There was no conclusion. To-morrow he went to Paris. He was going to a little dinner given by one of the cleverest and most realistic artists of the day, to celebrate the admission of a picture to the Luxembourg. He had promised himself an amusing evening. Paris was the only place fit to dine in. Then he had to set to work again. He congratulated himself that his work sprang from the head, not the heart. It was summer in Paris by now. The cafés would have their rows of little tables in the street, and their green tubs of oleanders. There would be the smell of asphalt in the boulevards. The new advertisements of the year would be out. Chéret had done two at least, which were quite admirable: one was a Parisienne of the Parisiennes in a long black boa, and balloon sleeves in the new mode; the other a woman in a yellow dress carrying a red lamp. How stupid and distasteful it all seemed!
One by one the stars paled, as the first colourless light of dawn crept from the east over the sky. It was morning already. There came the sound of heavy wheels, and a string of vans passed eastwards78 with their loads of flowers and fruit to Covent Garden. They left behind them in the still air a vague perfume of flowers and ripe fruit and vegetables, which floated even up to where he was sitting. How very short, how infinitely79 long the night had been! It was impossible to go to bed; he would go out. He went to his room, and put on a grey coat instead of his dining-jacket, and let himself silently out of the house.
It was exactly at that hour when night and morning meet; cabs and carriages went westwards with women in ball dresses yawning dismally80, while eastwards trailed the vans and carts. A woman at the street corner accosted81 him. Manvers gave her ten shillings, and told her to get home for God’s sake. Then he fairly laughed at himself. He was giving himself all sorts of surprises. But he could not bear the thought that one of the sex to which the one woman belonged should stand there.
And in the cool temperate82 dawn he faced his life and himself temperately83. His old life was impossible for reasons which he could not grasp. He had no feeling that it was wrong or immoral84; he approached it from a different side. His taste simply revolted against it. He had said once that he could not possibly feel the least liking85 for a man who ate cheese with his knife. The two were on the same footing. The old life was out of the question, but where was the new? And for that he had no answer ready.
He walked eastwards for an hour or so and then turned back, and as he reached the door the pitiless day had broken in a flood of yellow sunshine over the drowsy86 town.
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plunged
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| v.颠簸( plunge的过去式和过去分词 )；暴跌；骤降；突降 | |
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vigour
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| （=vigor）n.智力，体力，精力 | |
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sordid
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| adj.肮脏的，不干净的，卑鄙的，暗淡的 | |
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impure
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| adj.不纯净的，不洁的；不道德的，下流的 | |
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morbid
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| adj.病的；致病的；病态的；可怕的 | |
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steadily
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| adv.稳定地；不变地；持续地 | |
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rejection
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| n.拒绝，被拒，抛弃，被弃 | |
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intelligible
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| adj.可理解的，明白易懂的，清楚的 | |
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9
straightforward
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| adj.正直的，坦率的；易懂的，简单的 | |
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anguish
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| n.(尤指心灵上的)极度痛苦，烦恼 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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unwilling
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| adj.不情愿的 | |
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mania
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| n.疯狂；躁狂症，狂热，癖好 | |
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middle-aged
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| adj.中年的 | |
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deferential
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| adj. 敬意的，恭敬的 | |
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distressing
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| a.使人痛苦的 | |
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17
galled
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| v.使…擦痛( gall的过去式和过去分词 )；擦伤；烦扰；侮辱 | |
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18
legitimate
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| adj.合法的，合理的，合乎逻辑的；v.使合法 | |
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transact
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| v.处理；做交易；谈判 | |
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essentially
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| adv.本质上，实质上，基本上 | |
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21
intimacy
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| n.熟悉，亲密，密切关系，亲昵的言行 | |
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intervals
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| n.[军事]间隔( interval的名词复数 )；间隔时间；[数学]区间；（戏剧、电影或音乐会的）幕间休息 | |
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23
devoted
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| adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的 | |
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relaxation
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| n.松弛，放松；休息；消遣；娱乐 | |
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delightful
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| adj.令人高兴的，使人快乐的 | |
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amber
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| n.琥珀；琥珀色；adj.琥珀制的 | |
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consolation
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| n.安慰，慰问 | |
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solicitor
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| n.初级律师，事务律师 | |
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29
acquiesce
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| vi.默许，顺从，同意 | |
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30
temperament
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| n.气质，性格，性情 | |
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contemplate
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| vt.盘算，计议；周密考虑；注视，凝视 | |
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monarch
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| n.帝王，君主，最高统治者 | |
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monarchs
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| 君主，帝王( monarch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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alluded
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| 提及，暗指( allude的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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acting
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| n.演戏，行为，假装；adj.代理的，临时的，演出用的 | |
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spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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risky
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| adj.有风险的，冒险的 | |
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illuminated
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| adj.被照明的；受启迪的 | |
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throbs
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| 体内的跳动( throb的名词复数 ) | |
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recollected
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| adj.冷静的；镇定的；被回忆起的；沉思默想的v.记起，想起( recollect的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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acquiescence
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| n.默许；顺从 | |
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43
flicking
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| （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） | |
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culmination
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| n.顶点；最高潮 | |
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apex
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| n.顶点，最高点 | |
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remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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disastrous
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| adj.灾难性的，造成灾害的；极坏的，很糟的 | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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frieze
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| n.(墙上的)横饰带，雕带 | |
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decency
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| n.体面，得体，合宜，正派，庄重 | |
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knack
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| n.诀窍，做事情的灵巧的，便利的方法 | |
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entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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deserted
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| adj.荒芜的，荒废的，无人的，被遗弃的 | |
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perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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permanently
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| adv.永恒地，永久地，固定不变地 | |
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breach
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| n.违反，不履行；破裂；vt.冲破，攻破 | |
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merged
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| （使）混合( merge的过去式和过去分词 )； 相融； 融入； 渐渐消失在某物中 | |
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muffled
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| adj.（声音）被隔的；听不太清的；（衣服）裹严的；蒙住的v.压抑，捂住( muffle的过去式和过去分词 )；用厚厚的衣帽包着（自己） | |
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malignant
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| adj.恶性的，致命的；恶意的，恶毒的 | |
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demolish
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| v.拆毁(建筑物等)，推翻(计划、制度等) | |
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undone
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| a.未做完的，未完成的 | |
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mingled
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| 混合，混入( mingle的过去式和过去分词 )； 混进，与…交往[联系] | |
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unreasonable
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| adj.不讲道理的，不合情理的，过度的 | |
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miserable
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| adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的 | |
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prospect
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| n.前景，前途；景色，视野 | |
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dreaded
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| adj.令人畏惧的；害怕的v.害怕，恐惧，担心( dread的过去式和过去分词) | |
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simultaneously
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| adv.同时发生地，同时进行地 | |
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depressed
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| adj.沮丧的，抑郁的，不景气的，萧条的 | |
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inevitable
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| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
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importunate
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| adj.强求的；纠缠不休的 | |
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dominant
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| adj.支配的，统治的；占优势的；显性的；n.主因，要素，主要的人(或物)；显性基因 | |
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utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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reticence
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| n.沉默，含蓄 | |
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74
murmur
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| n.低语，低声的怨言；v.低语，低声而言 | |
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incapable
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| adj.无能力的，不能做某事的 | |
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76
flickered
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| （通常指灯光）闪烁，摇曳( flicker的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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longing
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| n.（for）渴望 | |
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78
eastwards
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| adj.向东方（的），朝东（的）；n.向东的方向 | |
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infinitely
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| adv.无限地，无穷地 | |
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dismally
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| adv.阴暗地，沉闷地 | |
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81
accosted
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| v.走过去跟…讲话( accost的过去式和过去分词 )；跟…搭讪；（乞丐等）上前向…乞讨；（妓女等）勾搭 | |
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82
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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temperately
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| adv.节制地，适度地 | |
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84
immoral
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| adj.不道德的，淫荡的，荒淫的，有伤风化的 | |
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85
liking
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| n.爱好；嗜好；喜欢 | |
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drowsy
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| adj.昏昏欲睡的，令人发困的 | |
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