Promptly3 discharged from the employ of the sheep-raisers after the lamentable4 accident near the Long Trestle, Vanamee had presented himself to Harran, asking for employment. The season was beginning; on all the ranches5 work was being resumed. The rain had put the ground into admirable condition for ploughing, and Annixter, Broderson, and Osterman all had their gangs at work. Thus, Vanamee was vastly surprised to find Los Muertos idle, the horses still in the barns, the men gathering6 in the shade of the bunk-house and eating-house, smoking, dozing7, or going aimlessly about, their arms dangling8. The ploughs for which Magnus and Harran were waiting in a fury of impatience9 had not yet arrived, and since the management of Los Muertos had counted upon having these in hand long before this time, no provision had been made for keeping the old stock in repair; many of these old ploughs were useless, broken, and out of order; some had been sold. It could not be said definitely when the new ploughs would arrive. Harran had decided10 to wait one week longer, and then, in case of their non-appearance, to buy a consignment11 of the old style of plough from the dealers12 in Bonneville. He could afford to lose the money better than he could afford to lose the season.
Failing of work on Los Muertos, Vanamee had gone to Quien Sabe. Annixter, whom he had spoken to first, had sent him across the ranch to one of his division superintendents14, and this latter, after assuring himself of Vanamee's familiarity with horses and his previous experience—even though somewhat remote—on Los Muertos, had taken him on as a driver of one of the gang ploughs, then at work on his division.
The evening before, when the foreman had blown his whistle at six o'clock, the long line of ploughs had halted upon the instant, and the drivers, unharnessing their teams, had taken them back to the division barns—leaving the ploughs as they were in the furrows16. But an hour after daylight the next morning the work was resumed. After breakfast, Vanamee, riding one horse and leading the others, had returned to the line of ploughs together with the other drivers. Now he was busy harnessing the team. At the division blacksmith shop—temporarily put up—he had been obliged to wait while one of his lead horses was shod, and he had thus been delayed quite five minutes. Nearly all the other teams were harnessed, the drivers on their seats, waiting for the foreman's signal.
“All ready here?” inquired the foreman, driving up to Vanamee's team in his buggy.
“All ready, sir,” answered Vanamee, buckling18 the last strap19.
He climbed to his seat, shaking out the reins20, and turning about, looked back along the line, then all around him at the landscape inundated21 with the brilliant glow of the early morning.
The day was fine. Since the first rain of the season, there had been no other. Now the sky was without a cloud, pale blue, delicate, luminous22, scintillating23 with morning. The great brown earth turned a huge flank to it, exhaling24 the moisture of the early dew. The atmosphere, washed clean of dust and mist, was translucent25 as crystal. Far off to the east, the hills on the other side of Broderson Creek26 stood out against the pallid28 saffron of the horizon as flat and as sharply outlined as if pasted on the sky. The campanile of the ancient Mission of San Juan seemed as fine as frost work. All about between the horizons, the carpet of the land unrolled itself to infinity29. But now it was no longer parched30 with heat, cracked and warped31 by a merciless sun, powdered with dust. The rain had done its work; not a clod that was not swollen32 with fertility, not a fissure33 that did not exhale34 the sense of fecundity35. One could not take a dozen steps upon the ranches without the brusque sensation that underfoot the land was alive; roused at last from its sleep, palpitating with the desire of reproduction. Deep down there in the recesses36 of the soil, the great heart throbbed38 once more, thrilling with passion, vibrating with desire, offering itself to the caress39 of the plough, insistent40, eager, imperious. Dimly one felt the deep-seated trouble of the earth, the uneasy agitation41 of its members, the hidden tumult42 of its womb, demanding to be made fruitful, to reproduce, to disengage the eternal renascent43 germ of Life that stirred and struggled in its loins.
The ploughs, thirty-five in number, each drawn45 by its team of ten, stretched in an interminable line, nearly a quarter of a mile in length, behind and ahead of Vanamee. They were arranged, as it were, en echelon46, not in file—not one directly behind the other, but each succeeding plough its own width farther in the field than the one in front of it. Each of these ploughs held five shears47, so that when the entire company was in motion, one hundred and seventy-five furrows were made at the same instant. At a distance, the ploughs resembled a great column of field artillery48. Each driver was in his place, his glance alternating between his horses and the foreman nearest at hand. Other foremen, in their buggies or buckboards, were at intervals49 along the line, like battery lieutenants51. Annixter himself, on horseback, in boots and campaign hat, a cigar in his teeth, overlooked the scene.
The division superintendent15, on the opposite side of the line, galloped52 past to a position at the head. For a long moment there was a silence. A sense of preparedness ran from end to end of the column. All things were ready, each man in his place. The day's work was about to begin.
Suddenly, from a distance at the head of the line came the shrill53 trilling of a whistle. At once the foreman nearest Vanamee repeated it, at the same time turning down the line, and waving one arm. The signal was repeated, whistle answering whistle, till the sounds lost themselves in the distance. At once the line of ploughs lost its immobility, moving forward, getting slowly under way, the horses straining in the traces. A prolonged movement rippled55 from team to team, disengaging in its passage a multitude of sounds—-the click of buckles56, the creak of straining leather, the subdued57 clash of machinery58, the cracking of whips, the deep breathing of nearly four hundred horses, the abrupt59 commands and cries of the drivers, and, last of all, the prolonged, soothing60 murmur61 of the thick brown earth turning steadily62 from the multitude of advancing shears.
The ploughing thus commenced, continued. The sun rose higher. Steadily the hundred iron hands kneaded and furrowed63 and stroked the brown, humid earth, the hundred iron teeth bit deep into the Titan's flesh. Perched on his seat, the moist living reins slipping and tugging64 in his hands, Vanamee, in the midst of this steady confusion of constantly varying sensation, sight interrupted by sound, sound mingling65 with sight, on this swaying, vibrating seat, quivering with the prolonged thrill of the earth, lapsed67 to a sort of pleasing numbness68, in a sense, hypnotised by the weaving maze69 of things in which he found himself involved. To keep his team at an even, regular gait, maintaining the precise interval50, to run his furrows as closely as possible to those already made by the plough in front—this for the moment was the entire sum of his duties. But while one part of his brain, alert and watchful70, took cognisance of these matters, all the greater part was lulled71 and stupefied with the long monotony of the affair.
The ploughing, now in full swing, enveloped72 him in a vague, slow-moving whirl of things. Underneath73 him was the jarring, jolting74, trembling machine; not a clod was turned, not an obstacle encountered, that he did not receive the swift impression of it through all his body, the very friction75 of the damp soil, sliding incessantly77 from the shiny surface of the shears, seemed to reproduce itself in his finger-tips and along the back of his head. He heard the horse-hoofs78 by the myriads79 crushing down easily, deeply, into the loam80, the prolonged clinking of trace-chains, the working of the smooth brown flanks in the harness, the clatter81 of wooden hames, the champing of bits, the click of iron shoes against pebbles82, the brittle83 stubble of the surface ground crackling and snapping as the furrows turned, the sonorous84, steady breaths wrenched86 from the deep, labouring chests, strap-bound, shining with sweat, and all along the line the voices of the men talking to the horses. Everywhere there were visions of glossy87 brown backs, straining, heaving, swollen with muscle; harness streaked89 with specks91 of froth, broad, cup-shaped hoofs, heavy with brown loam, men's faces red with tan, blue overalls92 spotted93 with axle-grease; muscled hands, the knuckles94 whitened in their grip on the reins, and through it all the ammoniacal smell of the horses, the bitter reek27 of perspiration95 of beasts and men, the aroma96 of warm leather, the scent44 of dead stubble—and stronger and more penetrating97 than everything else, the heavy, enervating98 odour of the upturned, living earth.
At intervals, from the tops of one of the rare, low swells100 of the land, Vanamee overlooked a wider horizon. On the other divisions of Quien Sabe the same work was in progress. Occasionally he could see another column of ploughs in the adjoining division—sometimes so close at hand that the subdued murmur of its movements reached his ear; sometimes so distant that it resolved itself into a long, brown streak88 upon the grey of the ground. Farther off to the west on the Osterman ranch other columns came and went, and, once, from the crest101 of the highest swell99 on his division, Vanamee caught a distant glimpse of the Broderson ranch. There, too, moving specks indicated that the ploughing was under way. And farther away still, far off there beyond the fine line of the horizons, over the curve of the globe, the shoulder of the earth, he knew were other ranches, and beyond these others, and beyond these still others, the immensities multiplying to infinity.
Everywhere throughout the great San Joaquin, unseen and unheard, a thousand ploughs up-stirred the land, tens of thousands of shears clutched deep into the warm, moist soil.
It was the long stroking caress, vigorous, male, powerful, for which the Earth seemed panting. The heroic embrace of a multitude of iron hands, gripping deep into the brown, warm flesh of the land that quivered responsive and passionate102 under this rude advance, so robust103 as to be almost an assault, so violent as to be veritably brutal104. There, under the sun and under the speckless105 sheen of the sky, the wooing of the Titan began, the vast primal106 passion, the two world-forces, the elemental Male and Female, locked in a colossal108 embrace, at grapples in the throes of an infinite desire, at once terrible and divine, knowing no law, untamed, savage109, natural, sublime110.
From time to time the gang in which Vanamee worked halted on the signal from foreman or overseer. The horses came to a standstill, the vague clamour of the work lapsed away. Then the minutes passed. The whole work hung suspended. All up and down the line one demanded what had happened. The division superintendent galloped past, perplexed111 and anxious. For the moment, one of the ploughs was out of order, a bolt had slipped, a lever refused to work, or a machine had become immobilised in heavy ground, or a horse had lamed112 himself. Once, even, toward noon, an entire plough was taken out of the line, so out of gear that a messenger had to be sent to the division forge to summon the machinist.
Annixter had disappeared. He had ridden farther on to the other divisions of his ranch, to watch the work in progress there. At twelve o'clock, according to his orders, all the division superintendents put themselves in communication with him by means of the telephone wires that connected each of the division houses, reporting the condition of the work, the number of acres covered, the prospects114 of each plough traversing its daily average of twenty miles.
At half-past twelve, Vanamee and the rest of the drivers ate their lunch in the field, the tin buckets having been distributed to them that morning after breakfast. But in the evening, the routine of the previous day was repeated, and Vanamee, unharnessing his team, riding one horse and leading the others, returned to the division barns and bunk-house.
It was between six and seven o'clock. The half hundred men of the gang threw themselves upon the supper the Chinese cooks had set out in the shed of the eating-house, long as a bowling115 alley116, unpainted, crude, the seats benches, the table covered with oil cloth. Overhead a half-dozen kerosene117 lamps flared118 and smoked.
The table was taken as if by assault; the clatter of iron knives upon the tin plates was as the reverberation119 of hail upon a metal roof. The ploughmen rinsed120 their throats with great draughts121 of wine, and, their elbows wide, their foreheads flushed, resumed the attack upon the beef and bread, eating as though they would never have enough. All up and down the long table, where the kerosene lamps reflected themselves deep in the oil-cloth cover, one heard the incessant76 sounds of mastication122, and saw the uninterrupted movement of great jaws123. At every moment one or another of the men demanded a fresh portion of beef, another pint124 of wine, another half-loaf of bread. For upwards125 of an hour the gang ate. It was no longer a supper. It was a veritable barbecue, a crude and primitive126 feasting, barbaric, homeric.
But in all this scene Vanamee saw nothing repulsive127. Presley would have abhorred128 it—this feeding of the People, this gorging129 of the human animal, eager for its meat. Vanamee, simple, uncomplicated, living so close to nature and the rudimentary life, understood its significance. He knew very well that within a short half-hour after this meal the men would throw themselves down in their bunks130 to sleep without moving, inert131 and stupefied with fatigue132, till the morning. Work, food, and sleep, all life reduced to its bare essentials, uncomplex, honest, healthy. They were strong, these men, with the strength of the soil they worked, in touch with the essential things, back again to the starting point of civilisation133, coarse, vital, real, and sane134.
For a brief moment immediately after the meal, pipes were lit, and the air grew thick with fragrant135 tobacco smoke. On a corner of the dining-room table, a game of poker136 was begun. One of the drivers, a Swede, produced an accordion137; a group on the steps of the bunk-house listened, with alternate gravity and shouts of laughter, to the acknowledged story-teller of the gang. But soon the men began to turn in, stretching themselves at full length on the horse blankets in the racklike bunks. The sounds of heavy breathing increased steadily, lights were put out, and before the afterglow had faded from the sky, the gang was asleep.
Vanamee, however, remained awake. The night was fine, warm; the sky silver-grey with starlight. By and by there would be a moon. In the first watch after the twilight138, a faint puff139 of breeze came up out of the south. From all around, the heavy penetrating smell of the new-turned earth exhaled140 steadily into the darkness. After a while, when the moon came up, he could see the vast brown breast of the earth turn toward it. Far off, distant objects came into view: The giant oak tree at Hooven's ranch house near the irrigating141 ditch on Los Muertos, the skeleton-like tower of the windmill on Annixter's Home ranch, the clump142 of willows143 along Broderson Creek close to the Long Trestle, and, last of all, the venerable tower of the Mission of San Juan on the high ground beyond the creek.
Thitherward, like homing pigeons, Vanamee's thoughts turned irresistibly145. Near to that tower, just beyond, in the little hollow, hidden now from his sight, was the Seed ranch where Angele Varian had lived. Straining his eyes, peering across the intervening levels, Vanamee fancied he could almost see the line of venerable pear trees in whose shadow she had been accustomed to wait for him. On many such a night as this he had crossed the ranches to find her there. His mind went back to that wonderful time of his life sixteen years before this, when Angele was alive, when they two were involved in the sweet intricacies of a love so fine, so pure, so marvellous that it seemed to them a miracle, a manifestation147, a thing veritably divine, put into the life of them and the hearts of them by God Himself. To that they had been born. For this love's sake they had come into the world, and the mingling of their lives was to be the Perfect Life, the intended, ordained148 union of the soul of man with the soul of woman, indissoluble, harmonious149 as music, beautiful beyond all thought, a foretaste of Heaven, a hostage of immortality150.
No, he, Vanamee, could never, never forget, never was the edge of his grief to lose its sharpness, never would the lapse66 of time blunt the tooth of his pain. Once more, as he sat there, looking off across the ranches, his eyes fixed151 on the ancient campanile of the Mission church, the anguish152 that would not die leaped at his throat, tearing at his heart, shaking him and rending153 him with a violence as fierce and as profound as if it all had been but yesterday. The ache returned to his heart a physical keen pain; his hands gripped tight together, twisting, interlocked, his eyes filled with tears, his whole body shaken and riven from head to heel.
He had lost her. God had not meant it, after all. The whole matter had been a mistake. That vast, wonderful love that had come upon them had been only the flimsiest mockery. Abruptly154 Vanamee rose. He knew the night that was before him. At intervals throughout the course of his prolonged wanderings, in the desert, on the mesa, deep in the canon, lost and forgotten on the flanks of unnamed mountains, alone under the stars and under the moon's white eye, these hours came to him, his grief recoiling156 upon him like the recoil155 of a vast and terrible engine. Then he must fight out the night, wrestling with his sorrow, praying sometimes, incoherent, hardly conscious, asking “Why” of the night and of the stars.
Such another night had come to him now. Until dawn he knew he must struggle with his grief, torn with memories, his imagination assaulted with visions of a vanished happiness. If this paroxysm of sorrow was to assail157 him again that night, there was but one place for him to be. He would go to the Mission—he would see Father Sarria; he would pass the night in the deep shadow of the aged158 pear trees in the Mission garden.
He struck out across Quien Sabe, his face, the face of an ascetic159, lean, brown, infinitely160 sad, set toward the Mission church. In about an hour he reached and crossed the road that led northward161 from Guadalajara toward the Seed ranch, and, a little farther on, forded Broderson Creek where it ran through one corner of the Mission land. He climbed the hill and halted, out of breath from his brisk wall, at the end of the colonnade162 of the Mission itself.
Until this moment Vanamee had not trusted himself to see the Mission at night. On the occasion of his first daytime visit with Presley, he had hurried away even before the twilight had set in, not daring for the moment to face the crowding phantoms163 that in his imagination filled the Mission garden after dark. In the daylight, the place had seemed strange to him. None of his associations with the old building and its surroundings were those of sunlight and brightness. Whenever, during his long sojourns164 in the wilderness165 of the Southwest, he had called up the picture in the eye of his mind, it had always appeared to him in the dim mystery of moonless nights, the venerable pear trees black with shadow, the fountain a thing to be heard rather than seen.
But as yet he had not entered the garden. That lay on the other side of the Mission. Vanamee passed down the colonnade, with its uneven166 pavement of worn red bricks, to the last door by the belfry tower, and rang the little bell by pulling the leather thong167 that hung from a hole in the door above the knob.
But the maid-servant, who, after a long interval opened the door, blinking and confused at being roused from her sleep, told Vanamee that Sarria was not in his room. Vanamee, however, was known to her as the priest's protege and great friend, and she allowed him to enter, telling him that, no doubt, he would find Sarria in the church itself. The servant led the way down the cool adobe168 passage to a larger room that occupied the entire width of the bottom of the belfry tower, and whence a flight of aged steps led upward into the dark. At the foot of the stairs was a door opening into the church. The servant admitted Vanamee, closing the door behind her.
The interior of the Mission, a great oblong of white-washed adobe with a flat ceiling, was lighted dimly by the sanctuary169 lamp that hung from three long chains just over the chancel rail at the far end of the church, and by two or three cheap kerosene lamps in brackets of imitation bronze. All around the walls was the inevitable170 series of pictures representing the Stations of the Cross. They were of a hideous171 crudity172 of design and composition, yet were wrought173 out with an innocent, unquestioning sincerity174 that was not without its charm. Each picture framed alike in gilt175, bore its suitable inscription176 in staring black letters. “Simon, The Cyrenean, Helps Jesus to Carry His Cross.” “Saint Veronica Wipes the Face of Jesus.” “Jesus Falls for the Fourth Time,” and so on. Half-way up the length of the church the pews began, coffin-like boxes of blackened oak, shining from years of friction, each with its door; while over them, and built out from the wall, was the pulpit, with its tarnished177 gilt sounding-board above it, like the raised cover of a great hat-box. Between the pews, in the aisle178, the violent vermilion of a strip of ingrain carpet assaulted the eye. Farther on were the steps to the altar, the chancel rail of worm-riddled oak, the high altar, with its napery from the bargain counters of a San Francisco store, the massive silver candlesticks, each as much as one man could lift, the gift of a dead Spanish queen, and, last, the pictures of the chancel, the Virgin179 in a glory, a Christ in agony on the cross, and St. John the Baptist, the patron saint of the Mission, the San Juan Bautista, of the early days, a gaunt grey figure, in skins, two fingers upraised in the gesture of benediction180.
The air of the place was cool and damp, and heavy with the flat, sweet scent of stale incense181 smoke. It was of a vault-like stillness, and the closing of the door behind Vanamee reechoed from corner to corner with a prolonged reverberation of thunder.
However, Father Sarria was not in the church. Vanamee took a couple of turns the length of the aisle, looking about into the chapels182 on either side of the chancel. But the building was deserted183. The priest had been there recently, nevertheless, for the altar furniture was in disarray184, as though he had been rearranging it but a moment before. On both sides of the church and half-way up their length, the walls were pierced by low archways, in which were massive wooden doors, clamped with iron bolts. One of these doors, on the pulpit side of the church, stood ajar, and stepping to it and pushing it wide open, Vanamee looked diagonally across a little patch of vegetables—beets, radishes, and lettuce—to the rear of the building that had once contained the cloisters186, and through an open window saw Father Sarria diligently187 polishing the silver crucifix that usually stood on the high altar. Vanamee did not call to the priest. Putting a finger to either temple, he fixed his eyes steadily upon him for a moment as he moved about at his work. In a few seconds he closed his eyes, but only part way. The pupils contracted; his forehead lowered to an expression of poignant188 intensity189. Soon afterward190 he saw the priest pause abruptly in the act of drawing the cover over the crucifix, looking about him from side to side. He turned again to his work, and again came to a stop, perplexed, curious. With uncertain steps, and evidently wondering why he did so, he came to the door of the room and opened it, looking out into the night. Vanamee, hidden in the deep shadow of the archway, did not move, but his eyes closed, and the intense expression deepened on his face. The priest hesitated, moved forward a step, turned back, paused again, then came straight across the garden patch, brusquely colliding with Vanamee, still motionless in the recess37 of the archway.
Sarria gave a great start, catching191 his breath.
“Oh—oh, it's you. Was it you I heard calling? No, I could not have heard—I remember now. What a strange power! I am not sure that it is right to do this thing, Vanamee. I—I HAD to come. I do not know why. It is a great force—a power—I don't like it. Vanamee, sometimes it frightens me.”
Vanamee put his chin in the air.
“If I had wanted to, sir, I could have made you come to me from back there in the Quien Sabe ranch.”
The priest shook his head.
“It troubles me,” he said, “to think that my own will can count for so little. Just now I could not resist. If a deep river had been between us, I must have crossed it. Suppose I had been asleep now?” “It would have been all the easier,” answered Vanamee. “I understand as little of these things as you. But I think if you had been asleep, your power of resistance would have been so much the more weakened.”
“Perhaps I should not have waked. Perhaps I should have come to you in my sleep.”
“Perhaps.”
Sarria crossed himself. “It is occult,” he hazarded. “No; I do not like it. Dear fellow,” he put his hand on Vanamee's shoulder, “don't—call me that way again; promise. See,” he held out his hand, “I am all of a tremble. There, we won't speak of it further. Wait for me a moment. I have only to put the cross in its place, and a fresh altar cloth, and then I am done. To-morrow is the feast of The Holy Cross, and I am preparing against it. The night is fine. We will smoke a cigar in the cloister185 garden.”
A few moments later the two passed out of the door on the other side of the church, opposite the pulpit, Sarria adjusting a silk skull192 cap on his tonsured193 head. He wore his cassock now, and was far more the churchman in appearance than when Vanamee and Presley had seen him on a former occasion.
They were now in the cloister garden. The place was charming. Everywhere grew clumps194 of palms and magnolia trees. A grapevine, over a century old, occupied a trellis in one angle of the walls which surrounded the garden on two sides. Along the third side was the church itself, while the fourth was open, the wall having crumbled195 away, its site marked only by a line of eight great pear trees, older even than the grapevine, gnarled, twisted, bearing no fruit. Directly opposite the pear trees, in the south wall of the garden, was a round, arched portal, whose gate giving upon the esplanade in front of the Mission was always closed. Small gravelled walks, well kept, bordered with mignonette, twisted about among the flower beds, and underneath the magnolia trees. In the centre was a little fountain in a stone basin green with moss196, while just beyond, between the fountain and the pear trees, stood what was left of a sun dial, the bronze gnomon, green with the beatings of the weather, the figures on the half-circle of the dial worn away, illegible197.
But on the other side of the fountain, and directly opposite the door of the Mission, ranged against the wall, were nine graves—three with headstones, the rest with slabs198. Two of Sarria's predecessors199 were buried here; three of the graves were those of Mission Indians. One was thought to contain a former alcalde of Guadalajara; two more held the bodies of De La Cuesta and his young wife (taking with her to the grave the illusion of her husband's love), and the last one, the ninth, at the end of the line, nearest the pear trees, was marked by a little headstone, the smallest of any, on which, together with the proper dates—only sixteen years apart—was cut the name “Angele Varian.”
But the quiet, the repose200, the isolation201 of the little cloister garden was infinitely delicious. It was a tiny corner of the great valley that stretched in all directions around it—shut off, discreet202, romantic, a garden of dreams, of enchantments203, of illusions. Outside there, far off, the great grim world went clashing through its grooves204, but in here never an echo of the grinding of its wheels entered to jar upon the subdued modulation205 of the fountain's uninterrupted murmur.
Sarria and Vanamee found their way to a stone bench against the side wall of the Mission, near the door from which they had just issued, and sat down, Sarria lighting206 a cigar, Vanamee rolling and smoking cigarettes in Mexican fashion.
All about them widened the vast calm night. All the stars were out. The moon was coming up. There was no wind, no sound. The insistent flowing of the fountain seemed only as the symbol of the passing of time, a thing that was understood rather than heard, inevitable, prolonged. At long intervals, a faint breeze, hardly more than a breath, found its way into the garden over the enclosing walls, and passed overhead, spreading everywhere the delicious, mingled207 perfume of magnolia blossoms, of mignonette, of moss, of grass, and all the calm green life silently teeming208 within the enclosure of the walls.
From where he sat, Vanamee, turning his head, could look out underneath the pear trees to the north. Close at hand, a little valley lay between the high ground on which the Mission was built, and the line of low hills just beyond Broderson Creek on the Quien Sabe. In here was the Seed ranch, which Angele's people had cultivated, a unique and beautiful stretch of five hundred acres, planted thick with roses, violets, lilies, tulips, iris209, carnations210, tube-roses, poppies, heliotrope211—all manner and description of flowers, five hundred acres of them, solid, thick, exuberant212; blooming and fading, and leaving their seed or slips to be marketed broadcast all over the United States. This had been the vocation213 of Angele's parents—raising flowers for their seeds. All over the country the Seed ranch was known. Now it was arid214, almost dry, but when in full flower, toward the middle of summer, the sight of these half-thousand acres royal with colour—vermilion, azure215, flaming yellow—was a marvel146. When an east wind blew, men on the streets of Bonneville, nearly twelve miles away, could catch the scent of this valley of flowers, this chaos216 of perfume.
And into this life of flowers, this world of colour, this atmosphere oppressive and clogged217 and cloyed218 and thickened with sweet odour, Angele had been born. There she had lived her sixteen years. There she had died. It was not surprising that Vanamee, with his intense, delicate sensitiveness to beauty, his almost abnormal capacity for great happiness, had been drawn to her, had loved her so deeply.
She came to him from out of the flowers, the smell of the roses in her hair of gold, that hung in two straight plaits on either side of her face; the reflection of the violets in the profound dark blue of her eyes, perplexing, heavy-lidded, almond-shaped, oriental; the aroma and the imperial red of the carnations in her lips, with their almost Egyptian fulness; the whiteness of the lilies, the perfume of the lilies, and the lilies' slender balancing grace in her neck. Her hands disengaged the odour of the heliotropes. The folds of her dress gave off the enervating scent of poppies. Her feet were redolent of hyacinths.
For a long time after sitting down upon the bench, neither the priest nor Vanamee spoke13. But after a while Sarria took his cigar from his lips, saying:
“How still it is! This is a beautiful old garden, peaceful, very quiet. Some day I shall be buried here. I like to remember that; and you, too, Vanamee.”
“Quien sabe?”
“Yes, you, too. Where else? No, it is better here, yonder, by the side of the little girl.”
“I am not able to look forward yet, sir. The things that are to be are somehow nothing to me at all. For me they amount to nothing.”
“They amount to everything, my boy.”
“Yes, to one part of me, but not to the part of me that belonged to Angele—the best part. Oh, you don't know,” he exclaimed with a sudden movement, “no one can understand. What is it to me when you tell me that sometime after I shall die too, somewhere, in a vague place you call Heaven, I shall see her again? Do you think that the idea of that ever made any one's sorrow easier to bear? Ever took the edge from any one's grief?”
“But you believe that——”
“Oh, believe, believe!” echoed the other. “What do I believe? I don't know. I believe, or I don't believe. I can remember what she WAS, but I cannot hope what she will be. Hope, after all, is only memory seen reversed. When I try to see her in another life—whatever you call it—in Heaven—beyond the grave—this vague place of yours; when I try to see her there, she comes to my imagination only as what she was, material, earthly, as I loved her. Imperfect, you say; but that is as I saw her, and as I saw her, I loved her; and as she WAS, material, earthly, imperfect, she loved me. It's that, that I want,” he exclaimed. “I don't want her changed. I don't want her spiritualised, exalted219, glorified220, celestial221. I want HER. I think it is only this feeling that has kept me from killing222 myself. I would rather be unhappy in the memory of what she actually was, than be happy in the realisation of her transformed, changed, made celestial. I am only human. Her soul! That was beautiful, no doubt. But, again, it was something very vague, intangible, hardly more than a phrase. But the touch of her hand was real, the sound of her voice was real, the clasp of her arms about my neck was real. Oh,” he cried, shaken with a sudden wrench85 of passion, “give those back to me. Tell your God to give those back to me—the sound of her voice, the touch of her hand, the clasp of her dear arms, REAL, REAL, and then you may talk to me of Heaven.”
Sarria shook his head. “But when you meet her again,” he observed, “in Heaven, you, too, will be changed. You will see her spiritualised, with spiritual eyes. As she is now, she does not appeal to you. I understand that. It is because, as you say, you are only human, while she is divine. But when you come to be like her, as she is now, you will know her as she really is, not as she seemed to be, because her voice was sweet, because her hair was pretty, because her hand was warm in yours. Vanamee, your talk is that of a foolish child. You are like one of the Corinthians to whom Paul wrote. Do you remember? Listen now. I can recall the words, and such words, beautiful and terrible at the same time, such a majesty223. They march like soldiers with trumpets224. 'But some man will say'—as you have said just now—'How are the dead raised up? And with what body do they come? Thou fool! That which thou sowest is not quickened except it die, and that which thou sowest, thou sowest not that body that shall be, but bare grain. It may chance of wheat, or of some other grain. But God giveth it a body as it hath pleased him, and to every seed his own body.... It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body.' It is because you are a natural body that you cannot understand her, nor wish for her as a spiritual body, but when you are both spiritual, then you shall know each other as you are—know as you never knew before. Your grain of wheat is your symbol of immortality. You bury it in the earth. It dies, and rises again a thousand times more beautiful. Vanamee, your dear girl was only a grain of humanity that we have buried here, and the end is not yet. But all this is so old, so old. The world learned it a thousand years ago, and yet each man that has ever stood by the open grave of any one he loved must learn it all over again from the beginning.”
Vanamee was silent for a moment, looking off with unseeing eyes between the trunks of the pear trees, over the little valley.
“That may all be as you say,” he answered after a while. “I have not learned it yet, in any case. Now, I only know that I love her—oh, as if it all were yesterday—and that I am suffering, suffering, always.”
He leaned forward, his head supported on his clenched225 fists, the infinite sadness of his face deepening like a shadow, the tears brimming in his deep-set eyes. A question that he must ask, which involved the thing that was scarcely to be thought of, occurred to him at this moment. After hesitating for a long moment, he said:
“I have been away a long time, and I have had no news of this place since I left. Is there anything to tell, Father? Has any discovery been made, any suspicion developed, as to—the Other?”
The priest shook his head.
“Not a word, not a whisper. It is a mystery. It always will be.”
Vanamee clasped his head between his clenched fists, rocking himself to and fro.
“Oh, the terror of it,” he murmured. “The horror of it. And she—think of it, Sarria, only sixteen, a little girl; so innocent, that she never knew what wrong meant, pure as a little child is pure, who believed that all things were good; mature only in her love. And to be struck down like that, while your God looked down from Heaven and would not take her part.” All at once he seemed to lose control of himself. One of those furies of impotent grief and wrath226 that assailed227 him from time to time, blind, insensate, incoherent, suddenly took possession of him. A torrent228 of words issued from his lips, and he flung out an arm, the fist clenched, in a fierce, quick gesture, partly of despair, partly of defiance229, partly of supplication230. “No, your God would not take her part. Where was God's mercy in that? Where was Heaven's protection in that? Where was the loving kindness you preach about? Why did God give her life if it was to be stamped out? Why did God give her the power of love if it was to come to nothing? Sarria, listen to me. Why did God make her so divinely pure if He permitted that abomination? Ha!” he exclaimed bitterly, “your God! Why, an Apache buck17 would have been more merciful. Your God! There is no God. There is only the Devil. The Heaven you pray to is only a joke, a wretched trick, a delusion231. It is only Hell that is real.”
Sarria caught him by the arm.
“You are a fool and a child,” he exclaimed, “and it is blasphemy232 that you are saying. I forbid it. You understand? I forbid it.”
Vanamee turned on him with a sudden cry. “Then, tell your God to give her back to me!”
Sarria started away from him, his eyes widening in astonishment233, surprised out of all composure by the other's outburst. Vanamee's swarthy face was pale, the sunken cheeks and deep-set eyes were marked with great black shadows. The priest no longer recognised him. The face, that face of the ascetic, lean, framed in its long black hair and pointed234 beard, was quivering with the excitement of hallucination. It was the face of the inspired shepherds of the Hebraic legends, living close to nature, the younger prophets of Israel, dwellers235 in the wilderness, solitary236, imaginative, believing in the Vision, having strange delusions237, gifted with strange powers. In a brief second of thought, Sarria understood. Out into the wilderness, the vast arid desert of the Southwest, Vanamee had carried his grief. For days, for weeks, months even, he had been alone, a solitary speck90 lost in the immensity of the horizons; continually he was brooding, haunted with his sorrow, thinking, thinking, often hard put to it for food. The body was ill-nourished, and the mind, concentrated forever upon one subject, had recoiled238 upon itself, had preyed239 upon the naturally nervous temperament240, till the imagination had become exalted, morbidly241 active, diseased, beset242 with hallucinations, forever in search of the manifestation, of the miracle. It was small wonder that, bringing a fancy so distorted back to the scene of a vanished happiness, Vanamee should be racked with the most violent illusions, beset in the throes of a veritable hysteria.
“Tell your God to give her back to me,” he repeated with fierce insistence243.
It was the pitch of mysticism, the imagination harassed244 and goaded245 beyond the normal round, suddenly flipping246 from the circumference247, spinning off at a tangent, out into the void, where all things seemed possible, hurtling through the dark there, groping for the supernatural, clamouring for the miracle. And it was also the human, natural protest against the inevitable, the irrevocable; the spasm248 of revolt under the sting of death, the rebellion of the soul at the victory of the grave.
“He can give her back to me if He only will,” Vanamee cried. “Sarria, you must help me. I tell you—I warn you, sir, I can't last much longer under it. My head is all wrong with it—I've no more hold on my mind. Something must happen or I shall lose my senses. I am breaking down under it all, my body and my mind alike. Bring her to me; make God show her to me. If all tales are true, it would not be the first time. If I cannot have her, at least let me see her as she was, real, earthly, not her spirit, her ghost. I want her real self, undefiled again. If this is dementia, then let me be demented. But help me, you and your God; create the delusion, do the miracle.”
“Stop!” cried the priest again, shaking him roughly by the shoulder. “Stop. Be yourself. This is dementia; but I shall NOT let you be demented. Think of what you are saying. Bring her back to you! Is that the way of God? I thought you were a man; this is the talk of a weak-minded girl.”
Vanamee stirred abruptly in his place, drawing a long breath and looking about him vaguely249, as if he came to himself.
“You are right,” he muttered. “I hardly know what I am saying at times. But there are moments when my whole mind and soul seem to rise up in rebellion against what has happened; when it seems to me that I am stronger than death, and that if I only knew how to use the strength of my will, concentrate my power of thought—volition—that I could—I don't know—not call her back—but—something——”
“A diseased and distorted mind is capable of hallucinations, if that is what you mean,” observed Sarria.
“Perhaps that is what I mean. Perhaps I want only the delusion, after all.”
Sarria did not reply, and there was a long silence. In the damp south corners of the walls a frog began to croak250 at exact intervals. The little fountain rippled monotonously251, and a magnolia flower dropped from one of the trees, falling straight as a plummet252 through the motionless air, and settling upon the gravelled walk with a faint rustling253 sound. Otherwise the stillness was profound.
A little later, the priest's cigar, long since out, slipped from his fingers to the ground. He began to nod gently. Vanamee touched his arm.
“Asleep, sir?”
The other started, rubbing his eyes.
“Upon my word, I believe I was.”
“Better go to bed, sir. I am not tired. I think I shall sit out here a little longer.”
“Well, perhaps I would be better off in bed. YOUR bed is always ready for you here whenever you want to use it.”
“No—I shall go back to Quien Sabe—later. Good-night, sir.”
“Good-night, my boy.”
Vanamee was left alone. For a long time he sat motionless in his place, his elbows on his knees, his chin propped254 in his hands. The minutes passed—then the hours. The moon climbed steadily higher among the stars. Vanamee rolled and smoked cigarette after cigarette, the blue haze255 of smoke hanging motionless above his head, or drifting in slowly weaving filaments256 across the open spaces of the garden.
But the influence of the old enclosure, this corner of romance and mystery, this isolated257 garden of dreams, savouring of the past, with its legends, its graves, its crumbling258 sun dial, its fountain with its rime259 of moss, was not to be resisted. Now that the priest had left him, the same exaltation of spirit that had seized upon Vanamee earlier in the evening, by degrees grew big again in his mind and imagination. His sorrow assaulted him like the flagellations of a fine whiplash, and his love for Angele rose again in his heart, it seemed to him never so deep, so tender, so infinitely strong. No doubt, it was his familiarity with the Mission garden, his clear-cut remembrance of it, as it was in the days when he had met Angele there, tallying260 now so exactly with the reality there under his eyes, that brought her to his imagination so vividly261. As yet he dared not trust himself near her grave, but, for the moment, he rose and, his hands clasped behind him, walked slowly from point to point amid the tiny gravelled walks, recalling the incidents of eighteen years ago. On the bench he had quitted he and Angele had often sat. Here by the crumbling sun dial, he recalled the night when he had kissed her for the first time. Here, again, by the rim107 of the fountain, with its fringe of green, she once had paused, and, baring her arm to the shoulder, had thrust it deep into the water, and then withdrawing it, had given it to him to kiss, all wet and cool; and here, at last, under the shadow of the pear trees they had sat, evening after evening, looking off over the little valley below them, watching the night build itself, dome-like, from horizon to zenith.
Brusquely Vanamee turned away from the prospect113. The Seed ranch was dark at this time of the year, and flowerless. Far off toward its centre, he had caught a brief glimpse of the house where Angele had lived, and a faint light burning in its window. But he turned from it sharply. The deep-seated travail262 of his grief abruptly reached the paroxysm. With long strides he crossed the garden and reentered the Mission church itself, plunging263 into the coolness of its atmosphere as into a bath. What he searched for he did not know, or, rather, did not define. He knew only that he was suffering, that a longing264 for Angele, for some object around which his great love could enfold itself, was tearing at his heart with iron teeth. He was ready to be deluded265; craved266 the hallucination; begged pitifully for the illusion; anything rather than the empty, tenantless267 night, the voiceless silence, the vast loneliness of the overspanning arc of the heavens.
Before the chancel rail of the altar, under the sanctuary lamp, Vanamee sank upon his knees, his arms folded upon the rail, his head bowed down upon them. He prayed, with what words he could not say for what he did not understand—for help, merely, for relief, for an Answer to his cry.
It was upon that, at length, that his disordered mind concentrated itself, an Answer—he demanded, he implored268 an Answer. Not a vague visitation of Grace, not a formless sense of Peace; but an Answer, something real, even if the reality were fancied, a voice out of the night, responding to his, a hand in the dark clasping his groping fingers, a breath, human, warm, fragrant, familiar, like a soft, sweet caress on his shrunken cheeks. Alone there in the dim half-light of the decaying Mission, with its crumbling plaster, its naive269 crudity of ornament270 and picture, he wrestled271 fiercely with his desires—words, fragments of sentences, inarticulate, incoherent, wrenched from his tight-shut teeth.
But the Answer was not in the church. Above him, over the high altar, the Virgin in a glory, with downcast eyes and folded hands, grew vague and indistinct in the shadow, the colours fading, tarnished by centuries of incense smoke. The Christ in agony on the Cross was but a lamentable vision of tormented272 anatomy273, grey flesh, spotted with crimson274. The St. John, the San Juan Bautista, patron saint of the Mission, the gaunt figure in skins, two fingers upraised in the gesture of benediction, gazed stolidly275 out into the half-gloom under the ceiling, ignoring the human distress276 that beat itself in vain against the altar rail below, and Angele remained as before—only a memory, far distant, intangible, lost.
Vanamee rose, turning his back upon the altar with a vague gesture of despair. He crossed the church, and issuing from the low-arched door opposite the pulpit, once more stepped out into the garden. Here, at least, was reality. The warm, still air descended277 upon him like a cloak, grateful, comforting, dispelling278 the chill that lurked279 in the damp mould of plaster and crumbling adobe.
But now he found his way across the garden on the other side of the fountain, where, ranged against the eastern wall, were nine graves. Here Angele was buried, in the smallest grave of them all, marked by the little headstone, with its two dates, only sixteen years apart. To this spot, at last, he had returned, after the years spent in the desert, the wilderness—after all the wanderings of the Long Trail. Here, if ever, he must have a sense of her nearness. Close at hand, a short four feet under that mound280 of grass, was the form he had so often held in the embrace of his arms; the face, the very face he had kissed, that face with the hair of gold making three-cornered the round white forehead, the violet-blue eyes, heavy-lidded, with their strange oriental slant281 upward toward the temples; the sweet full lips, almost Egyptian in their fulness—all that strange, perplexing, wonderful beauty, so troublous, so enchanting282, so out of all accepted standards.
He bent283 down, dropping upon one knee, a hand upon the headstone, and read again the inscription. Then instinctively284 his hand left the stone and rested upon the low mound of turf, touching285 it with the softness of a caress; and then, before he was aware of it, he was stretched at full length upon the earth, beside the grave, his arms about the low mound, his lips pressed against the grass with which it was covered. The pent-up grief of nearly twenty years rose again within his heart, and overflowed286, irresistible287, violent, passionate. There was no one to see, no one to hear. Vanamee had no thought of restraint. He no longer wrestled with his pain—strove against it. There was even a sense of relief in permitting himself to be overcome. But the reaction from this outburst was equally violent. His revolt against the inevitable, his protest against the grave, shook him from head to foot, goaded him beyond all bounds of reason, hounded him on and into the domain288 of hysteria, dementia. Vanamee was no longer master of himself—no longer knew what he was doing.
At first, he had been content with merely a wild, unreasoned cry to Heaven that Angele should be restored to him, but the vast egotism that seems to run through all forms of disordered intelligence gave his fancy another turn. He forgot God. He no longer reckoned with Heaven. He arrogated289 their powers to himself—struggled to be, of his own unaided might, stronger than death, more powerful than the grave. He had demanded of Sarria that God should restore Angele to him, but now he appealed directly to Angele herself. As he lay there, his arms clasped about her grave, she seemed so near to him that he fancied she MUST hear. And suddenly, at this moment, his recollection of his strange compelling power—the same power by which he had called Presley to him half-way across the Quien Sabe ranch, the same power which had brought Sarria to his side that very evening—recurred to him. Concentrating his mind upon the one object with which it had so long been filled, Vanamee, his eyes closed, his face buried in his arms, exclaimed:
“Come to me—Angele—don't you hear? Come to me.”
But the Answer was not in the Grave. Below him the voiceless Earth lay silent, moveless, withholding290 the secret, jealous of that which it held so close in its grip, refusing to give up that which had been confided291 to its keeping, untouched by the human anguish that above there, on its surface, clutched with despairing hands at a grave long made. The Earth that only that morning had been so eager, so responsive to the lightest summons, so vibrant292 with Life, now at night, holding death within its embrace, guarding inviolate293 the secret of the Grave, was deaf to all entreaty294, refused the Answer, and Angele remained as before, only a memory, far distant, intangible, lost.
Vanamee lifted his head, looking about him with unseeing eyes, trembling with the exertion295 of his vain effort. But he could not as yet allow himself to despair. Never before had that curious power of attraction failed him. He felt himself to be so strong in this respect that he was persuaded if he exerted himself to the limit of his capacity, something—he could not say what—must come of it. If it was only a self-delusion, an hallucination, he told himself that he would be content.
Almost of its own accord, his distorted mind concentrated itself again, every thought, all the power of his will riveting296 themselves upon Angele. As if she were alive, he summoned her to him. His eyes, fixed upon the name cut into the headstone, contracted, the pupils growing small, his fists shut tight, his nerves braced297 rigid298.
For a few seconds he stood thus, breathless, expectant, awaiting the manifestation, the Miracle. Then, without knowing why, hardly conscious of what was transpiring299, he found that his glance was leaving the headstone, was turning from the grave. Not only this, but his whole body was following the direction of his eyes. Before he knew it, he was standing300 with his back to Angele's grave, was facing the north, facing the line of pear trees and the little valley where the Seed ranch lay. At first, he thought this was because he had allowed his will to weaken, the concentrated power of his mind to grow slack. And once more turning toward the grave, he banded all his thoughts together in a consummate301 effort, his teeth grinding together, his hands pressed to his forehead. He forced himself to the notion that Angele was alive, and to this creature of his imagination he addressed himself:
“Angele!” he cried in a low voice; “Angele, I am calling you—do you hear? Come to me—come to me now, now.”
Instead of the Answer he demanded, that inexplicable302 counter-influence cut across the current of his thought. Strive as he would against it, he must veer303 to the north, toward the pear trees. Obeying it, he turned, and, still wondering, took a step in that direction, then another and another. The next moment he came abruptly to himself, in the black shadow of the pear trees themselves, and, opening his eyes, found himself looking off over the Seed ranch, toward the little house in the centre where Angele had once lived.
Perplexed, he returned to the grave, once more calling upon the resources of his will, and abruptly, so soon as these reached a certain point, the same cross-current set in. He could no longer keep his eyes upon the headstone, could no longer think of the grave and what it held. He must face the north; he must be drawn toward the pear trees, and there left standing in their shadow, looking out aimlessly over the Seed ranch, wondering, bewildered. Farther than this the influence never drew him, but up to this point—the line of pear trees—it was not to be resisted.
For a time the peculiarity304 of the affair was of more interest to Vanamee than even his own distress of spirit, and once or twice he repeated the attempt, almost experimentally, and invariably with the same result: so soon as he seemed to hold Angele in the grip of his mind, he was moved to turn about toward the north, and hurry toward the pear trees on the crest of the hill that over-looked the little valley.
But Vanamee's unhappiness was too keen this night for him to dwell long upon the vagaries305 of his mind. Submitting at length, and abandoning the grave, he flung himself down in the black shade of the pear trees, his chin in his hands, and resigned himself finally and definitely to the inrush of recollection and the exquisite306 grief of an infinite regret.
To his fancy, she came to him again. He put himself back many years. He remembered the warm nights of July and August, profoundly still, the sky encrusted with stars, the little Mission garden exhaling the mingled perfumes that all through the scorching307 day had been distilled308 under the steady blaze of a summer's sun. He saw himself as another person, arriving at this, their rendezvous309. All day long she had been in his mind. All day long he had looked forward to this quiet hour that belonged to her. It was dark. He could see nothing, but, by and by, he heard a step, a gentle rustle310 of the grass on the slope of the hill pressed under an advancing foot. Then he saw the faint gleam of pallid gold of her hair, a barely visible glow in the starlight, and heard the murmur of her breath in the lapse of the over-passing breeze. And then, in the midst of the gentle perfumes of the garden, the perfumes of the magnolia flowers, of the mignonette borders, of the crumbling walls, there expanded a new odour, or the faint mingling of many odours, the smell of the roses that lingered in her hair, of the lilies that exhaled from her neck, of the heliotrope that disengaged itself from her hands and arms, and of the hyacinths with which her little feet were redolent, And then, suddenly, it was herself—her eyes, heavy-lidded, violet blue, full of the love of him; her sweet full lips speaking his name; her hands clasping his hands, his shoulders, his neck—her whole dear body giving itself into his embrace; her lips against his; her hands holding his head, drawing his face down to hers.
Vanamee, as he remembered all this, flung out an arm with a cry of pain, his eyes searching the gloom, all his mind in strenuous311 mutiny against the triumph of Death. His glance shot swiftly out across the night, unconsciously following the direction from which Angele used to come to him.
“Come to me now,” he exclaimed under his breath, tense and rigid with the vast futile312 effort of his will. “Come to me now, now. Don't you hear me, Angele? You must, you must come.”
Suddenly Vanamee returned to himself with the abruptness313 of a blow. His eyes opened. He half raised himself from the ground. Swiftly his scattered314 wits readjusted themselves. Never more sane, never more himself, he rose to his feet and stood looking off into the night across the Seed ranch.
“What was it?” he murmured, bewildered.
He looked around him from side to side, as if to get in touch with reality once more. He looked at his hands, at the rough bark of the pear tree next which he stood, at the streaked and rain-eroded walls of the Mission and garden. The exaltation of his mind calmed itself; the unnatural315 strain under which he laboured slackened. He became thoroughly316 master of himself again, matter-of-fact, practical, keen.
But just so sure as his hands were his own, just so sure as the bark of the pear tree was rough, the mouldering317 adobe of the Mission walls damp—just so sure had Something occurred. It was vague, intangible, appealing only to some strange, nameless sixth sense, but none the less perceptible. His mind, his imagination, sent out from him across the night, across the little valley below him, speeding hither and thither144 through the dark, lost, confused, had suddenly paused, hovering318, had found Something. It had not returned to him empty-handed. It had come back, but now there was a change—mysterious, illusive319. There were no words for this that had transpired320. But for the moment, one thing only was certain. The night was no longer voiceless, the dark was no longer empty. Far off there, beyond the reach of vision, unlocalised, strange, a ripple54 had formed on the still black pool of the night, had formed, flashed one instant to the stars, then swiftly faded again. The night shut down once more. There was no sound—nothing stirred.
For the moment, Vanamee stood transfixed, struck rigid in his place, stupefied, his eyes staring, breathless with utter amazement321. Then, step by step, he shrank back into the deeper shadow, treading with the infinite precaution of a prowling leopard322. A qualm of something very much like fear seized upon him. But immediately on the heels of this first impression came the doubt of his own senses. Whatever had happened had been so ephemeral, so faint, so intangible, that now he wondered if he had not deceived himself, after all. But the reaction followed. Surely, there had been Something. And from that moment began for him the most poignant uncertainty323 of mind. Gradually he drew back into the garden, holding his breath, listening to every faintest sound, walking upon tiptoe. He reached the fountain, and wetting his hands, passed them across his forehead and eyes. Once more he stood listening. The silence was profound.
Troubled, disturbed, Vanamee went away, passing out of the garden, descending324 the hill. He forded Broderson Creek where it intersected the road to Guadalajara, and went on across Quien Sabe, walking slowly, his head bent down, his hands clasped behind his back, thoughtful, perplexed.
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ranch
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| n.大牧场，大农场 | |
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helping
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| n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的 | |
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promptly
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| adv.及时地，敏捷地 | |
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lamentable
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ranches
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| 大农场， （兼种果树，养鸡等的）大牧场( ranch的名词复数 ) | |
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gathering
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| n.集会，聚会，聚集 | |
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dozing
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| v.打瞌睡,假寐 n.瞌睡 | |
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dangling
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| 悬吊着( dangle的现在分词 )； 摆动不定； 用某事物诱惑…； 吊胃口 | |
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impatience
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decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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consignment
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| n.寄售；发货；委托；交运货物 | |
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dealers
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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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superintendents
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| 警长( superintendent的名词复数 )； （大楼的）管理人； 监管人； （美国）警察局长 | |
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superintendent
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| n.监督人，主管，总监；(英国)警务长 | |
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furrows
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| n.犁沟( furrow的名词复数 )；（脸上的）皱纹v.犁田，开沟( furrow的第三人称单数 ) | |
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buck
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| n.雄鹿，雄兔；v.马离地跳跃 | |
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18
buckling
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| 扣住 | |
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19
strap
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| n.皮带，带子；v.用带扣住，束牢；用绷带包扎 | |
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20
reins
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| 感情，激情； 缰( rein的名词复数 )； 控制手段； 掌管； （成人带着幼儿走路以防其走失时用的）保护带 | |
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21
inundated
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| v.淹没( inundate的过去式和过去分词 )；（洪水般地）涌来；充满；给予或交予（太多事物）使难以应付 | |
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22
luminous
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| adj.发光的，发亮的；光明的；明白易懂的；有启发的 | |
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23
scintillating
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| adj．才气横溢的,闪闪发光的; 闪烁的 | |
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24
exhaling
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| v.呼出，发散出( exhale的现在分词 )；吐出（肺中的空气、烟等），呼气 | |
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translucent
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| adj.半透明的；透明的 | |
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26
creek
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| n.小溪，小河，小湾 | |
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27
reek
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| v.发出臭气；n.恶臭 | |
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28
pallid
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| adj.苍白的，呆板的 | |
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29
infinity
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| n.无限，无穷，大量 | |
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30
parched
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| adj.焦干的；极渴的；v.（使）焦干 | |
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31
warped
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| adj.反常的；乖戾的；（变）弯曲的；变形的v.弄弯，变歪( warp的过去式和过去分词 )；使（行为等）不合情理，使乖戾， | |
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32
swollen
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| adj.肿大的，水涨的；v.使变大，肿胀 | |
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33
fissure
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| n.裂缝；裂伤 | |
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34
exhale
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| v.呼气，散出，吐出，蒸发 | |
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35
fecundity
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| n.生产力；丰富 | |
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36
recesses
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| n.壁凹( recess的名词复数 )；（工作或业务活动的）中止或暂停期间；学校的课间休息；某物内部的凹形空间v.把某物放在墙壁的凹处( recess的第三人称单数 )；将（墙）做成凹形，在（墙）上做壁龛；休息，休会，休庭 | |
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37
recess
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| n.短期休息，壁凹（墙上装架子，柜子等凹处） | |
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38
throbbed
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| 抽痛( throb的过去式和过去分词 )； （心脏、脉搏等）跳动 | |
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39
caress
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| vt./n.爱抚，抚摸 | |
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40
insistent
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| adj.迫切的，坚持的 | |
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41
agitation
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| n.搅动；搅拌；鼓动，煽动 | |
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42
tumult
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| n.喧哗；激动，混乱；吵闹 | |
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43
renascent
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| adj.新生的 | |
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44
scent
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| n.气味，香味，香水，线索，嗅觉；v.嗅，发觉 | |
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45
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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46
echelon
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| n.梯队；组织系统中的等级；v.排成梯队 | |
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47
shears
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| n.大剪刀 | |
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48
artillery
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| n.(军)火炮，大炮；炮兵(部队) | |
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49
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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50
interval
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| n.间隔，间距；幕间休息，中场休息 | |
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51
lieutenants
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| n.陆军中尉( lieutenant的名词复数 )；副职官员；空军；仅低于…官阶的官员 | |
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52
galloped
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| （使马）飞奔，奔驰( gallop的过去式和过去分词 )； 快速做[说]某事 | |
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53
shrill
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| adj.尖声的；刺耳的；v尖叫 | |
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54
ripple
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| n.涟波，涟漪，波纹，粗钢梳；vt.使...起涟漪，使起波纹； vi.呈波浪状，起伏前进 | |
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55
rippled
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| 使泛起涟漪（ripple的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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56
buckles
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| 搭扣，扣环( buckle的名词复数 ) | |
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57
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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58
machinery
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| n.(总称)机械，机器；机构 | |
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59
abrupt
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| adj.突然的，意外的；唐突的，鲁莽的 | |
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60
soothing
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| adj.慰藉的；使人宽心的；镇静的 | |
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61
murmur
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| n.低语，低声的怨言；v.低语，低声而言 | |
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62
steadily
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| adv.稳定地；不变地；持续地 | |
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63
furrowed
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| v.犁田，开沟( furrow的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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64
tugging
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| n.牵引感v.用力拉，使劲拉，猛扯( tug的现在分词 ) | |
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65
mingling
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| adj.混合的 | |
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66
lapse
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| n.过失，流逝，失效，抛弃信仰，间隔；vi.堕落，停止，失效，流逝；vt.使失效 | |
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67
lapsed
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| adj.流失的，堕落的v.退步( lapse的过去式和过去分词 )；陷入；倒退；丧失 | |
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68
numbness
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| n.无感觉，麻木，惊呆 | |
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69
maze
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| n.迷宫，八阵图，混乱，迷惑 | |
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70
watchful
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| adj.注意的，警惕的 | |
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71
lulled
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| vt.使镇静，使安静（lull的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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72
enveloped
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| v.包围，笼罩，包住( envelop的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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73
underneath
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|
| adj.在...下面，在...底下；adv.在下面 | |
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74
jolting
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| adj.令人震惊的 | |
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75
friction
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| n.摩擦，摩擦力 | |
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76
incessant
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| adj.不停的，连续的 | |
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77
incessantly
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| ad.不停地 | |
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78
hoofs
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| n.（兽的）蹄，马蹄( hoof的名词复数 )v.（兽的）蹄，马蹄( hoof的第三人称单数 ) | |
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79
myriads
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| n.无数，极大数量( myriad的名词复数 ) | |
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80
loam
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| n.沃土 | |
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81
clatter
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| v./n.(使)发出连续而清脆的撞击声 | |
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82
pebbles
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| [复数]鹅卵石； 沙砾； 卵石，小圆石( pebble的名词复数 ) | |
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83
brittle
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| adj.易碎的；脆弱的；冷淡的；(声音)尖利的 | |
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84
sonorous
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|
| adj.响亮的，回响的；adv.圆润低沉地；感人地；n.感人，堂皇 | |
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85
wrench
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| v.猛拧；挣脱；使扭伤；n.扳手；痛苦，难受 | |
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86
wrenched
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| v.（猛力地）扭( wrench的过去式和过去分词 )；扭伤；使感到痛苦；使悲痛 | |
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87
glossy
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| adj.平滑的；有光泽的 | |
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88
streak
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| n.条理，斑纹，倾向，少许，痕迹；v.加条纹，变成条纹，奔驰，快速移动 | |
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89
streaked
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| adj.有条斑纹的，不安的v.快速移动( streak的过去式和过去分词 )；使布满条纹 | |
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90
speck
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| n.微粒，小污点，小斑点 | |
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91
specks
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| n.眼镜；斑点，微粒，污点( speck的名词复数 ) | |
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92
overalls
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| n.（复）工装裤；长罩衣 | |
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93
spotted
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| adj.有斑点的，斑纹的，弄污了的 | |
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94
knuckles
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| n.（指人）指关节( knuckle的名词复数 )；（指动物）膝关节，踝v.（指人）指关节( knuckle的第三人称单数 )；（指动物）膝关节，踝 | |
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95
perspiration
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| n.汗水；出汗 | |
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96
aroma
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| n.香气，芬芳，芳香 | |
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97
penetrating
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|
| adj.（声音）响亮的，尖锐的adj.（气味）刺激的adj.（思想）敏锐的，有洞察力的 | |
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98
enervating
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| v.使衰弱，使失去活力( enervate的现在分词 ) | |
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99
swell
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| vi.膨胀，肿胀；增长，增强 | |
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100
swells
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| 增强( swell的第三人称单数 )； 肿胀； （使）凸出； 充满（激情） | |
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101
crest
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| n.顶点；饰章；羽冠；vt.达到顶点；vi.形成浪尖 | |
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102
passionate
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| adj.热情的，热烈的，激昂的，易动情的，易怒的，性情暴躁的 | |
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103
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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104
brutal
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| adj.残忍的，野蛮的，不讲理的 | |
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105
speckless
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| adj.无斑点的，无瑕疵的 | |
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106
primal
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| adj.原始的；最重要的 | |
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107
rim
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| n.(圆物的)边，轮缘；边界 | |
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108
colossal
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| adj.异常的，庞大的 | |
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109
savage
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| adj.野蛮的；凶恶的，残暴的；n.未开化的人 | |
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110
sublime
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| adj.崇高的，伟大的；极度的，不顾后果的 | |
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111
perplexed
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| adj.不知所措的 | |
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112
lamed
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| 希伯莱语第十二个字母 | |
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113
prospect
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| n.前景，前途；景色，视野 | |
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114
prospects
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| n.希望，前途(恒为复数) | |
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115
bowling
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| n.保龄球运动 | |
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116
alley
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| n.小巷，胡同；小径，小路 | |
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117
kerosene
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| n.(kerosine)煤油，火油 | |
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118
Flared
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| adj. 端部张开的, 爆发的, 加宽的, 漏斗式的 动词flare的过去式和过去分词 | |
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119
reverberation
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| 反响； 回响； 反射； 反射物 | |
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120
rinsed
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| v.漂洗( rinse的过去式和过去分词 )；冲洗；用清水漂洗掉（肥皂泡等）；（用清水）冲掉 | |
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121
draughts
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| n. <英>国际跳棋 | |
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122
mastication
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| n.咀嚼 | |
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123
jaws
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| n.口部；嘴 | |
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124
pint
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| n.品脱 | |
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125
upwards
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| adv.向上，在更高处...以上 | |
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126
primitive
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| adj.原始的；简单的；n.原(始)人，原始事物 | |
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127
repulsive
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| adj.排斥的，使人反感的 | |
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128
abhorred
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| v.憎恶( abhor的过去式和过去分词 )；（厌恶地）回避；拒绝；淘汰 | |
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129
gorging
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| v.（用食物把自己）塞饱，填饱( gorge的现在分词 )；作呕 | |
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130
bunks
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| n.（车、船等倚壁而设的）铺位( bunk的名词复数 )；空话，废话v.（车、船等倚壁而设的）铺位( bunk的第三人称单数 )；空话，废话 | |
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131
inert
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| adj.无活动能力的，惰性的；迟钝的 | |
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132
fatigue
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| n.疲劳，劳累 | |
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133
civilisation
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| n.文明，文化，开化，教化 | |
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134
sane
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| adj.心智健全的，神志清醒的，明智的，稳健的 | |
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135
fragrant
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| adj.芬香的，馥郁的，愉快的 | |
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136
poker
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| n.扑克；vt.烙制 | |
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137
accordion
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| n.手风琴；adj.可折叠的 | |
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138
twilight
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| n.暮光，黄昏；暮年，晚期，衰落时期 | |
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139
puff
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| n.一口(气)；一阵(风)；v.喷气，喘气 | |
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140
exhaled
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| v.呼出，发散出( exhale的过去式和过去分词 )；吐出（肺中的空气、烟等），呼气 | |
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141
irrigating
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| 灌溉( irrigate的现在分词 )； 冲洗（伤口） | |
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142
clump
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| n.树丛，草丛；vi.用沉重的脚步行走 | |
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143
willows
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| n.柳树( willow的名词复数 )；柳木 | |
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144
thither
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| adv.向那里；adj.在那边的，对岸的 | |
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145
irresistibly
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| adv.无法抵抗地，不能自持地；极为诱惑人地 | |
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146
marvel
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| vi.(at)惊叹vt.感到惊异；n.令人惊异的事 | |
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147
manifestation
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| n.表现形式；表明；现象 | |
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148
ordained
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| v.任命（某人）为牧师( ordain的过去式和过去分词 )；授予（某人）圣职；（上帝、法律等）命令；判定 | |
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149
harmonious
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| adj.和睦的，调和的，和谐的，协调的 | |
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150
immortality
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| n.不死，不朽 | |
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151
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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152
anguish
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| n.(尤指心灵上的)极度痛苦，烦恼 | |
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153
rending
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| v.撕碎( rend的现在分词 )；分裂；（因愤怒、痛苦等而）揪扯（衣服或头发等）；（声音等）刺破 | |
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154
abruptly
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| adv.突然地，出其不意地 | |
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155
recoil
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| vi.退却，退缩，畏缩 | |
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156
recoiling
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| v.畏缩( recoil的现在分词 )；退缩；报应；返回 | |
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157
assail
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| v.猛烈攻击，抨击，痛斥 | |
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158
aged
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| adj.年老的，陈年的 | |
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159
ascetic
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| adj.禁欲的；严肃的 | |
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160
infinitely
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| adv.无限地，无穷地 | |
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161
northward
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| adv.向北；n.北方的地区 | |
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162
colonnade
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| n.柱廊 | |
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163
phantoms
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| n.鬼怪，幽灵( phantom的名词复数 ) | |
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164
sojourns
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| n.逗留，旅居( sojourn的名词复数 ) | |
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165
wilderness
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| n.杳无人烟的一片陆地、水等，荒漠 | |
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166
uneven
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| adj.不平坦的，不规则的，不均匀的 | |
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167
thong
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| n.皮带；皮鞭；v.装皮带 | |
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168
adobe
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| n.泥砖，土坯，美国Adobe公司 | |
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169
sanctuary
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| n.圣所，圣堂，寺庙；禁猎区，保护区 | |
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170
inevitable
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| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
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171
hideous
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| adj.丑陋的，可憎的，可怕的，恐怖的 | |
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172
crudity
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| n.粗糙，生硬；adj.粗略的 | |
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173
wrought
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| v.引起；以…原料制作；运转；adj.制造的 | |
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174
sincerity
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| n.真诚，诚意；真实 | |
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175
gilt
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| adj.镀金的；n.金边证券 | |
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176
inscription
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| n.（尤指石块上的）刻印文字，铭文，碑文 | |
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177
tarnished
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| （通常指金属）（使）失去光泽，（使）变灰暗( tarnish的过去式和过去分词 )； 玷污，败坏 | |
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178
aisle
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| n.（教堂、教室、戏院等里的）过道，通道 | |
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179
virgin
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| n.处女，未婚女子；adj.未经使用的；未经开发的 | |
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180
benediction
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| n.祝福；恩赐 | |
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181
incense
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| v.激怒；n.香，焚香时的烟，香气 | |
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182
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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183
deserted
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| adj.荒芜的，荒废的，无人的，被遗弃的 | |
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184
disarray
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| n.混乱，紊乱，凌乱 | |
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185
cloister
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| n.修道院；v.隐退，使与世隔绝 | |
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186
cloisters
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| n.（学院、修道院、教堂等建筑的）走廊( cloister的名词复数 )；回廊；修道院的生活；隐居v.隐退，使与世隔绝( cloister的第三人称单数 ) | |
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187
diligently
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| ad.industriously;carefully | |
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188
poignant
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| adj.令人痛苦的，辛酸的，惨痛的 | |
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189
intensity
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| n.强烈，剧烈；强度；烈度 | |
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190
afterward
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| adv.后来；以后 | |
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191
catching
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| adj.易传染的，有魅力的，迷人的，接住 | |
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192
skull
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| n.头骨；颅骨 | |
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193
tonsured
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| v.剃( tonsure的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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194
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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195
crumbled
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| （把…）弄碎， （使）碎成细屑( crumble的过去式和过去分词 )； 衰落； 坍塌； 损坏 | |
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196
moss
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| n.苔，藓，地衣 | |
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197
illegible
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| adj.难以辨认的，字迹模糊的 | |
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198
slabs
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| n.厚板，平板，厚片( slab的名词复数 )；厚胶片 | |
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199
predecessors
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| n.前任( predecessor的名词复数 )；前辈；（被取代的）原有事物；前身 | |
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200
repose
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| v.(使)休息；n.安息 | |
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201
isolation
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| n.隔离，孤立，分解，分离 | |
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202
discreet
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| adj.(言行)谨慎的；慎重的；有判断力的 | |
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203
enchantments
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| n.魅力( enchantment的名词复数 )；迷人之处；施魔法；着魔 | |
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204
grooves
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| n.沟( groove的名词复数 )；槽；老一套；（某种）音乐节奏v.沟( groove的第三人称单数 )；槽；老一套；（某种）音乐节奏 | |
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205
modulation
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| n.调制 | |
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206
lighting
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| n.照明，光线的明暗，舞台灯光 | |
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207
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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208
teeming
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| adj.丰富的v.充满( teem的现在分词 )；到处都是；（指水、雨等）暴降；倾注 | |
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209
iris
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| n.虹膜，彩虹 | |
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210
carnations
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| n.麝香石竹，康乃馨( carnation的名词复数 ) | |
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211
heliotrope
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| n.天芥菜；淡紫色 | |
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212
exuberant
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| adj.充满活力的；（植物）繁茂的 | |
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213
vocation
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| n.职业，行业 | |
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214
arid
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| adj.干旱的；(土地)贫瘠的 | |
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215
azure
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| adj.天蓝色的，蔚蓝色的 | |
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216
chaos
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| n.混乱，无秩序 | |
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217
clogged
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| （使）阻碍( clog的过去式和过去分词 )； 淤滞 | |
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218
cloyed
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| v.发腻，倒胃口( cloy的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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219
exalted
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| adj.(地位等)高的，崇高的；尊贵的，高尚的 | |
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220
glorified
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| 美其名的，变荣耀的 | |
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221
celestial
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| adj.天体的；天上的 | |
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222
killing
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| n.巨额利润；突然赚大钱，发大财 | |
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223
majesty
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| n.雄伟，壮丽，庄严，威严；最高权威，王权 | |
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224
trumpets
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| 喇叭( trumpet的名词复数 )； 小号； 喇叭形物； （尤指）绽开的水仙花 | |
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225
clenched
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| v.紧握，抓紧，咬紧( clench的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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226
wrath
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| n.愤怒，愤慨，暴怒 | |
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227
assailed
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| v.攻击( assail的过去式和过去分词 )；困扰；质问；毅然应对 | |
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228
torrent
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| n.激流，洪流；爆发，(话语等的)连发 | |
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229
defiance
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| n.挑战，挑衅，蔑视，违抗 | |
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230
supplication
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| n.恳求，祈愿，哀求 | |
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231
delusion
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| n.谬见，欺骗，幻觉，迷惑 | |
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232
blasphemy
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| n.亵渎，渎神 | |
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233
astonishment
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| n.惊奇，惊异 | |
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234
pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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235
dwellers
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| n.居民，居住者( dweller的名词复数 ) | |
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236
solitary
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| adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士 | |
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237
delusions
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| n.欺骗( delusion的名词复数 )；谬见；错觉；妄想 | |
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238
recoiled
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| v.畏缩( recoil的过去式和过去分词 )；退缩；报应；返回 | |
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239
preyed
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| v.掠食( prey的过去式和过去分词 )；掠食；折磨；（人）靠欺诈为生 | |
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240
temperament
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| n.气质，性格，性情 | |
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241
morbidly
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| adv.病态地 | |
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242
beset
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| v.镶嵌；困扰，包围 | |
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243
insistence
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| n.坚持；强调；坚决主张 | |
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244
harassed
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| adj. 疲倦的，厌烦的 动词harass的过去式和过去分词 | |
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245
goaded
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| v.刺激( goad的过去式和过去分词 )；激励；（用尖棒）驱赶；驱使（或怂恿、刺激）某人 | |
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246
flipping
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| 讨厌之极的 | |
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247
circumference
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| n.圆周，周长，圆周线 | |
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248
spasm
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| n.痉挛，抽搐；一阵发作 | |
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249
vaguely
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| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
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250
croak
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| vi.嘎嘎叫，发牢骚 | |
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251
monotonously
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| adv.单调地，无变化地 | |
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252
plummet
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| vi.(价格、水平等)骤然下跌；n.铅坠；重压物 | |
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253
rustling
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| n. 瑟瑟声，沙沙声 adj. 发沙沙声的 | |
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254
propped
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| 支撑，支持，维持( prop的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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255
haze
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| n.霾，烟雾；懵懂，迷糊；vi.(over)变模糊 | |
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256
filaments
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| n.（电灯泡的）灯丝( filament的名词复数 )；丝极；细丝；丝状物 | |
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257
isolated
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| adj.与世隔绝的 | |
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258
crumbling
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| adj.摇摇欲坠的 | |
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259
rime
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| n.白霜；v.使蒙霜 | |
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260
tallying
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| v.计算，清点( tally的现在分词 )；加标签（或标记）于；（使）符合；（使）吻合 | |
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261
vividly
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| adv.清楚地，鲜明地，生动地 | |
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262
travail
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| n.阵痛；努力 | |
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263
plunging
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| adj.跳进的，突进的v.颠簸( plunge的现在分词 )；暴跌；骤降；突降 | |
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264
longing
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| n.（for）渴望 | |
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265
deluded
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| v.欺骗，哄骗( delude的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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266
craved
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| 渴望，热望( crave的过去式 )； 恳求，请求 | |
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267
tenantless
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| adj.无人租赁的，无人居住的 | |
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268
implored
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| 恳求或乞求（某人）( implore的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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269
naive
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| adj.幼稚的，轻信的；天真的 | |
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270
ornament
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| v.装饰，美化；n.装饰，装饰物 | |
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271
wrestled
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| v.（与某人）搏斗( wrestle的过去式和过去分词 )；扭成一团；扭打；（与…）摔跤 | |
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272
tormented
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| 饱受折磨的 | |
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273
anatomy
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| n.解剖学，解剖；功能，结构，组织 | |
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274
crimson
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| n./adj.深(绯)红色(的)；vi.脸变绯红色 | |
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275
stolidly
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| adv.迟钝地，神经麻木地 | |
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276
distress
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| n.苦恼，痛苦，不舒适；不幸；vt.使悲痛 | |
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277
descended
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| a.为...后裔的，出身于...的 | |
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278
dispelling
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| v.驱散，赶跑( dispel的现在分词 ) | |
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279
lurked
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| vi.潜伏，埋伏（lurk的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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280
mound
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| n.土墩，堤，小山；v.筑堤，用土堆防卫 | |
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281
slant
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| v.倾斜，倾向性地编写或报道；n.斜面，倾向 | |
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282
enchanting
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| a.讨人喜欢的 | |
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283
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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284
instinctively
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| adv.本能地 | |
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285
touching
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| adj.动人的，使人感伤的 | |
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286
overflowed
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| 溢出的 | |
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287
irresistible
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| adj.非常诱人的，无法拒绝的，无法抗拒的 | |
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domain
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| n.(活动等)领域，范围；领地，势力范围 | |
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289
arrogated
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| v.冒称，妄取( arrogate的过去式和过去分词 )；没来由地把…归属（于） | |
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290
withholding
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| 扣缴税款 | |
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291
confided
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| v.吐露（秘密，心事等）( confide的过去式和过去分词 )；（向某人）吐露（隐私、秘密等） | |
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292
vibrant
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| adj.震颤的，响亮的，充满活力的，精力充沛的，(色彩)鲜明的 | |
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293
inviolate
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| adj.未亵渎的，未受侵犯的 | |
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294
entreaty
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| n.恳求，哀求 | |
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295
exertion
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| n.尽力，努力 | |
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296
riveting
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| adj.动听的，令人着迷的，完全吸引某人注意力的；n.铆接（法） | |
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braced
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| adj.拉牢的v.支住( brace的过去式和过去分词 )；撑牢；使自己站稳；振作起来 | |
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298
rigid
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| adj.严格的，死板的；刚硬的，僵硬的 | |
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299
transpiring
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| （事实，秘密等）被人知道( transpire的现在分词 )； 泄露； 显露； 发生 | |
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300
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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301
consummate
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| adj.完美的；v.成婚；使完美 [反]baffle | |
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302
inexplicable
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| adj.无法解释的，难理解的 | |
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303
veer
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| vt.转向，顺时针转，改变；n.转向 | |
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304
peculiarity
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| n.独特性，特色；特殊的东西；怪癖 | |
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305
vagaries
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| n.奇想( vagary的名词复数 )；异想天开；异常行为；难以预测的情况 | |
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306
exquisite
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| adj.精美的；敏锐的；剧烈的，感觉强烈的 | |
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307
scorching
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| adj. 灼热的 | |
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308
distilled
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| adj.由蒸馏得来的v.蒸馏( distil的过去式和过去分词 )；从…提取精华 | |
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309
rendezvous
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| n.约会，约会地点，汇合点；vi.汇合，集合；vt.使汇合，使在汇合地点相遇 | |
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310
rustle
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| v.沙沙作响；偷盗(牛、马等)；n.沙沙声声 | |
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311
strenuous
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| adj.奋发的，使劲的；紧张的；热烈的，狂热的 | |
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312
futile
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| adj.无效的，无用的，无希望的 | |
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313
abruptness
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| n. 突然，唐突 | |
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314
scattered
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| adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的 | |
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315
unnatural
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| adj.不自然的；反常的 | |
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316
thoroughly
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| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
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317
mouldering
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| v.腐朽( moulder的现在分词 )；腐烂，崩塌 | |
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318
hovering
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| 鸟( hover的现在分词 )； 靠近（某事物）； （人）徘徊； 犹豫 | |
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319
illusive
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| adj.迷惑人的，错觉的 | |
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320
transpired
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| （事实，秘密等）被人知道( transpire的过去式和过去分词 )； 泄露； 显露； 发生 | |
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321
amazement
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| n.惊奇，惊讶 | |
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322
leopard
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| n.豹 | |
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323
uncertainty
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| n.易变，靠不住，不确知，不确定的事物 | |
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324
descending
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| n. 下行 adj. 下降的 | |
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