Chapter 17

 Jean had only three days left to prepare for his examination foradmission to the Ministry¹ of Finance. These he spent at home,where the faces of father, aunt, and apprentice² seemed strange andunfamiliar, so completely had they disappeared from his thoughts.

Monsieur Servien was displeased³ with his son, but was too timidas well as too tactful to make any overt⁴ reproaches. His auntoverwhelmed him with garrulous⁵ expressions of doting⁶ affection;at night she would creep into his room to see if he was soundasleep, while all day long she wearied him with the tale of herpetty grievances⁷ and dislikes.

Once she had caught the apprentice with her spectacles, her sacredspectacles, perched on his nose, and the profanation⁸ had lefta kind of religious horror in her mind.

"That boy is capable of anything," she used to say. One of theboy's pet diversions was to execute behind the old lady's back awar-dance of the Cannibal Islanders he had seen once at a theatre.

Sticking feathers he had plucked from a feather-broom in his hair,and holding a big knife without a handle between his teeth, hewould creep nearer and nearer, crouching⁹ low and advancing bylittle leaps and bounds, with ferocious¹⁰ grimaces¹¹ which graduallygave place to a look of disappointed appetite, as a closer scrutinyshowed how tough and leathery his victim was. Jean could nothelp laughing at this buffoonery, trivial and ill-bred as itwas. His aunt had never got clearly to the bottom of the littlefarce that dogged her heels, but more than once, turning her headsharply, she had found reason to suspect something disrespectfulwas going on. Nevertheless, she put up with the lad because ofhis lowly origin. The only folks she really hated were the rich.

She was furious because the butcher's wife had gone to a weddingin a silk dress.

At the upper end of the _Rue de Rennes_, beside a plot of wasteand, was a stall where an old woman sold dusty ginger-bread andsticks of stale barley-sugar. She had a face the colour of brickdust under a striped cotton sun-bonnet, and eyes of a pale,steely blue. Her whole stock-in-trade had not cost a couple offrancs, and on windy days the white dust from houses buildingin the neighbourhood covered it like a coat of whitewash¹². Nursesand mothers would anxiously pull away their little ones who werecasting sheep's eyes at the sweetstuff:

"Dirty!" they would say dissuasively; "dirty!"But the woman never seemed to hear; perhaps she was past feelinganything. She did not beg. Mademoiselle Servien used to bid hergood-day in passing, address her by name and fall into talk withher before the stall, sometimes for a quarter of an hour at atime. The staple¹³ of conversation with them both was the neighbours,accidents that had occurred in the public thoroughfares, casesof coachmen ill-using their horses, the troubles and trials oflife and the ways of Providence¹⁴, "which are not always just."Jean happened to be present at one of these colloquies¹⁵. He wasa plebeian¹⁶ himself, and this glimpse of the petty lives of thepoor, this peep into sordid¹⁷ existences of idle sloth¹⁸ and spiritlessresignation, stirred all the blood in his veins¹⁹. In an instant,as he stood between the two old crones, with their drab facesand no outlook on life save that of the streets, now gloomy andempty, now full of sunshine and crowded traffic, the young manlearned more of human conditions than he had ever been taughtat school. His thoughts flew from this woman to that other, whowas so beautiful and whom he loved, and he saw life before himas a whole--a melancholy²⁰ panorama²¹. He told himself they mustdie both of them, and a hideous²² old woman, squatted²³ before afew sodden²⁴ sweetmeats, gave him the same impression of solemnserenity he had experienced at sight of the jewels from the Queenof Egypt's sepulchre.

1 ministry   

n.(政府的)部；牧师

参考例句：

• They sent a deputation to the ministry to complain.他们派了一个代表团到部里投诉。
• We probed the Air Ministry statements.我们调查了空军部的记录。

2 apprentice   

n.学徒，徒弟

参考例句：

• My son is an apprentice in a furniture maker's workshop.我的儿子在一家家具厂做学徒。
• The apprentice is not yet out of his time.这徒工还没有出徒。

3 displeased   

a.不快的

参考例句：

• The old man was displeased and darted an angry look at me. 老人不高兴了，瞪了我一眼。
• He was displeased about the whole affair. 他对整个事情感到很不高兴。

4 overt   

adj.公开的，明显的，公然的

参考例句：

• His opponent's intention is quite overt.他的对手的意图很明显。
• We should learn to fight with enemy in an overt and covert way.我们应学会同敌人做公开和隐蔽的斗争。

5 garrulous   

adj.唠叨的，多话的

参考例句：

• He became positively garrulous after a few glasses of wine.他几杯葡萄酒下肚之后便唠唠叨叨说个没完。
• My garrulous neighbour had given away the secret.我那爱唠叨的邻居已把秘密泄露了。

6 doting   

adj.溺爱的，宠爱的

参考例句：

• His doting parents bought him his first racing bike at 13.宠爱他的父母在他13岁时就给他买了第一辆竞速自行车。
• The doting husband catered to his wife's every wish.这位宠爱妻子的丈夫总是高度满足太太的各项要求。

7 grievances   

n.委屈( grievance的名词复数 )；苦衷；不满；牢骚

参考例句：

• The trade union leader spoke about the grievances of the workers. 工会领袖述说工人们的苦情。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
• He gave air to his grievances. 他申诉了他的冤情。 来自《简明英汉词典》

8 profanation   

n.亵渎

参考例句：

• He felt it as a profanation to break upon that enchanted strain. 他觉得打断这迷人的音乐是极不礼貌。 来自辞典例句

9 crouching   

v.屈膝，蹲伏( crouch的现在分词 )

参考例句：

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

10 ferocious   

adj.凶猛的，残暴的，极度的，十分强烈的

参考例句：

• The ferocious winds seemed about to tear the ship to pieces.狂风仿佛要把船撕成碎片似的。
• The ferocious panther is chasing a rabbit.那只凶猛的豹子正追赶一只兔子。

11 grimaces   

n.（表蔑视、厌恶等）面部扭曲，鬼脸( grimace的名词复数 )v.扮鬼相，做鬼脸( grimace的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• Mr. Clark winked at the rude child making grimaces. 克拉克先生假装没有看见那个野孩子做鬼脸。 来自辞典例句
• The most ridiculous grimaces were purposely or unconsciously indulged in. 故意或者无心地扮出最滑稽可笑的鬼脸。 来自辞典例句

12 whitewash   

v.粉刷，掩饰；n.石灰水，粉刷，掩饰

参考例句：

• They tried hard to whitewash themselves.他们力图粉饰自己。
• What he said was a load of whitewash.他所说的是一大堆粉饰之词。

13 staple   

n.主要产物，常用品，主要要素，原料，订书钉，钩环；adj.主要的，重要的；vt.分类

参考例句：

• Tea is the staple crop here.本地产品以茶叶为大宗。
• Potatoes are the staple of their diet.土豆是他们的主要食品。

14 providence   

n.深谋远虑，天道，天意；远见；节约；上帝

参考例句：

• It is tempting Providence to go in that old boat.乘那艘旧船前往是冒大险。
• To act as you have done is to fly in the face of Providence.照你的所作所为那样去行事，是违背上帝的意志的。

15 colloquies   

n.谈话，对话( colloquy的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• In such colloquies the mother and the child passed a great deal of their time together. 娘儿两个这样谈体己话，一谈就是好些时候。 来自辞典例句

16 plebeian   

adj.粗俗的；平民的；n.平民；庶民

参考例句：

• He is a philosophy professor with a cockney accent and an alarmingly plebeian manner.他是个有一口伦敦土腔、举止粗俗不堪的哲学教授。
• He spent all day playing rackets on the beach,a plebeian sport if there ever was one.他一整天都在海滩玩壁球，再没有比这更不入流的运动了。

17 sordid   

adj.肮脏的，不干净的，卑鄙的，暗淡的

参考例句：

• He depicts the sordid and vulgar sides of life exclusively.他只描写人生肮脏和庸俗的一面。
• They lived in a sordid apartment.他们住在肮脏的公寓房子里。

18 sloth   

n.[动]树懒；懒惰，懒散

参考例句：

• Absence of competition makes for sloth.没有竞争会导致懒惰。
• The sloth spends most of its time hanging upside down from the branches.大部分时间里树懒都是倒挂在树枝上。

19 veins   

n.纹理；矿脉( vein的名词复数 )；静脉；叶脉；纹理

参考例句：

• The blood flows from the capillaries back into the veins. 血从毛细血管流回静脉。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• I felt a pleasant glow in all my veins from the wine. 喝过酒后我浑身的血都热烘烘的，感到很舒服。 来自《简明英汉词典》

20 melancholy   

n.忧郁，愁思；adj.令人感伤（沮丧）的，忧郁的

参考例句：

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

21 panorama   

n.全景，全景画，全景摄影，全景照片[装置]

参考例句：

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

22 hideous   

adj.丑陋的，可憎的，可怕的，恐怖的

参考例句：

• The whole experience had been like some hideous nightmare.整个经历就像一场可怕的噩梦。
• They're not like dogs,they're hideous brutes.它们不像狗，是丑陋的畜牲。

23 squatted   

v.像动物一样蹲下( squat的过去式和过去分词 )；非法擅自占用（土地或房屋）；为获得其所有权；而占用某片公共用地。

参考例句：

• He squatted down beside the footprints and examined them closely. 他蹲在脚印旁仔细地观察。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He squatted in the grass discussing with someone. 他蹲在草地上与一个人谈话。 来自《简明英汉词典》

24 sodden   

adj.浑身湿透的；v.使浸透；使呆头呆脑

参考例句：

• We stripped off our sodden clothes.我们扒下了湿透的衣服。
• The cardboard was sodden and fell apart in his hands.纸板潮得都发酥了，手一捏就碎。