They both greeted the sculptor9 with a familiar kindness which reminded him of the days when Hilda and they and he had lived so happily together, before the mysterious adventure of the catacomb. What a succession of sinister10 events had followed one spectral11 figure out of that gloomy labyrinth12.
“It is carnival13 time, you know,” said Miriam, as if in explanation of Donatello’s and her own costume. “Do you remember how merrily we spent the Carnival, last year?”
“It seems many years ago,” replied Kenyon. “We are all so changed!”
When individuals approach one another with deep purposes on both sides, they seldom come at once to the matter which they have most at heart. They dread14 the electric shock of a too sudden contact with it. A natural impulse leads them to steal gradually onward15, hiding themselves, as it were, behind a closer, and still a closer topic, until they stand face to face with the true point of interest. Miriam was conscious of this impulse, and partially16 obeyed it.
“So your instincts as a sculptor have brought you into the presence of our newly discovered statue,” she observed. “Is it not beautiful? A far truer image of immortal17 womanhood than the poor little damsel at Florence, world famous though she be.”
“Most beautiful,” said Kenyon, casting an indifferent glance at the Venus. “The time has been when the sight of this statue would have been enough to make the day memorable18.”
“And will it not do so now?” Miriam asked.
“I fancied so, indeed, when we discovered it two days ago. It is Donatello’s prize. We were sitting here together, planning an interview with you, when his keen eyes detected the fallen goddess, almost entirely19 buried under that heap of earth, which the clumsy excavators showered down upon her, I suppose. We congratulated ourselves, chiefly for your sake. The eyes of us three are the only ones to which she has yet revealed herself. Does it not frighten you a little, like the apparition20 of a lovely woman that livid of old, and has long lain in the grave?”
“Ah, Miriam! I cannot respond to you,” said the sculptor, with irrepressible impatience21. “Imagination and the love of art have both died out of me.”
“Miriam,” interposed Donatello with gentle gravity, “why should we keep our friend in suspense22? We know what anxiety he feels. Let us give him what intelligence we can.”
“You are so direct and immediate23, my beloved friend!” answered Miriam with an unquiet smile. “There are several reasons why I should like to play round this matter a little while, and cover it with fanciful thoughts, as we strew24 a grave with flowers.”
“A grave!” exclaimed the sculptor.
“No grave in which your heart need be buried,” she replied; “you have no such calamity25 to dread. But I linger and hesitate, because every word I speak brings me nearer to a crisis from which I shrink. Ah, Donatello! let us live a little longer the life of these last few days! It is so bright, so airy, so childlike, so without either past or future! Here, on the wild Campagna, you seem to have found, both for yourself and me, the life that belonged to you in early youth; the sweet irresponsible life which you inherited from your mythic ancestry26, the Fauns of Monte Beni. Our stern and black reality will come upon us speedily enough. But, first, a brief time more of this strange happiness.”
“I dare not linger upon it,” answered Donatello, with an expression that reminded the sculptor of the gloomiest days of his remorse27 at Monte Beni. “I dare to be so happy as you have seen me, only because I have felt the time to be so brief.”
“One day, then!” pleaded Miriam. “One more day in the wild freedom of this sweet-scented air.”
“Well, one more day,” said Donatello, smiling; and his smile touched Kenyon with a pathos28 beyond words, there being gayety and sadness both melted into it; “but here is Hilda’s friend, and our own. Comfort him, at least, and set his heart at rest, since you have it partly in your power.”
“Ah, surely he might endure his pangs29 a little longer!” cried Miriam, turning to Kenyon with a tricksy, fitful kind of mirth, that served to hide some solemn necessity, too sad and serious to be looked at in its naked aspect. “You love us both, I think, and will be content to suffer for our sakes, one other day. Do I ask too much?”
“Tell me of Hilda,” replied the sculptor; “tell me only that she is safe, and keep back what else you will.”
“Hilda is safe,” said Miriam. “There is a Providence30 purposely for Hilda, as I remember to have told you long ago. But a great trouble—an evil deed, let us acknowledge it has spread out its dark branches so widely, that the shadow falls on innocence31 as well as guilt32. There was one slight link that connected your sweet Hilda with a crime which it was her unhappy fortune to witness, but of which I need not say she was as guiltless as the angels that looked out of heaven, and saw it too. No matter, now, what the consequence has been. You shall have your lost Hilda back, and—who knows?—perhaps tenderer than she was.”
“But when will she return?” persisted the sculptor; “tell me the when, and where, and how!”
“A little patience. Do not press me so,” said Miriam; and again Kenyon was struck by the sprite-like, fitful characteristic of her manner, and a sort of hysteric gayety, which seemed to be a will-o’-the-wisp from a sorrow stagnant33 at her heart. “You have more time to spare than I. First, listen to something that I have to tell. We will talk of Hilda by and by.”
Then Miriam spoke34 of her own life, and told facts that threw a gleam of light over many things which had perplexed35 the sculptor in all his previous knowledge of her. She described herself as springing from English parentage, on the mother’s side, but with a vein36, likewise, of Jewish blood; yet connected, through her father, with one of those few princely families of Southern Italy, which still retain great wealth and influence. And she revealed a name at which her auditor37 started and grew pale; for it was one that, only a few years before, had been familiar to the world in connection with a mysterious and terrible event. The reader, if he think it worth while to recall some of the strange incidents which have been talked of, and forgotten, within no long time past, will remember Miriam’s name.
“No; you were innocent,” replied the sculptor. “I shudder at the fatality40 that seems to haunt your footsteps, and throws a shadow of crime about your path, you being guiltless.”
“There was such a fatality,” said Miriam; “yes; the shadow fell upon me, innocent, but I went astray in it, and wandered—as Hilda could tell you—into crime.”
She went on to say that, while yet a child, she had lost her English mother. From a very early period of her life, there had been a contract of betrothal41 between herself and a certain marchese, the representative of another branch of her paternal42 house,—a family arrangement between two persons of disproportioned ages, and in which feeling went for nothing. Most Italian girls of noble rank would have yielded themselves to such a marriage as an affair of course. But there was something in Miriam’s blood, in her mixed race, in her recollections of her mother,—some characteristic, finally, in her own nature,—which had given her freedom of thought, and force of will, and made this prearranged connection odious43 to her. Moreover, the character of her destined44 husband would have been a sufficient and insuperable objection; for it betrayed traits so evil, so treacherous45, so vile46, and yet so strangely subtle, as could only be accounted for by the insanity47 which often develops itself in old, close-kept races of men, when long unmixed with newer blood. Reaching the age when the marriage contract should have been fulfilled, Miriam had utterly48 repudiated49 it.
Some time afterwards had occurred that terrible event to which Miriam had alluded50 when she revealed her name; an event, the frightful51 and mysterious circumstances of which will recur52 to many minds, but of which few or none can have found for themselves a satisfactory explanation. It only concerns the present narrative, inasmuch as the suspicion of being at least an accomplice53 in the crime fell darkly and directly upon Miriam herself.
“But you know that I am innocent!” she cried, interrupting herself again, and looking Kenyon in the face.
“I know it by my deepest consciousness,” he answered; “and I know it by Hilda’s trust and entire affection, which you never could have won had you been capable of guilt.”
“That is sure ground, indeed, for pronouncing me innocent,” said Miriam, with the tears gushing54 into her eyes. “Yet I have since become a horror to your saint-like Hilda, by a crime which she herself saw me help to perpetrate!”
She proceeded with her story. The great influence of her family connections had shielded her from some of the consequences of her imputed55 guilt. But, in her despair, she had fled from home, and had surrounded her flight with such circumstances as rendered it the most probable conclusion that she had committed suicide. Miriam, however, was not of the feeble nature which takes advantage of that obvious and poor resource in earthly difficulties. She flung herself upon the world, and speedily created a new sphere, in which Hilda’s gentle purity, the sculptor’s sensibility, clear thought, and genius, and Donatello’s genial56 simplicity57 had given her almost her first experience of happiness. Then came that ill-omened adventure of the catacomb, The spectral figure which she encountered there was the evil fate that had haunted her through life.
Looking back upon what had happened, Miriam observed, she now considered him a madman. Insanity must have been mixed up with his original composition, and developed by those very acts of depravity which it suggested, and still more intensified58, by the remorse that ultimately followed them. Nothing was stranger in his dark career than the penitence59 which often seemed to go hand in hand with crime. Since his death she had ascertained60 that it finally led him to a convent, where his severe and self-inflicted penance61 had even acquired him the reputation of unusual sanctity, and had been the cause of his enjoying greater freedom than is commonly allowed to monks62.
“Need I tell you more?” asked Miriam, after proceeding63 thus far. “It is still a dim and dreary64 mystery, a gloomy twilight65 into which I guide you; but possibly you may catch a glimpse of much that I myself can explain only by conjecture66. At all events, you can comprehend what my situation must have been, after that fatal interview in the catacomb. My persecutor67 had gone thither68 for penance, but followed me forth69 with fresh impulses to crime. He had me in his power. Mad as he was, and wicked as he was, with one word he could have blasted me in the belief of all the world. In your belief too, and Hilda’s! Even Donatello would have shrunk from me with horror!”
“Never,” said Donatello, “my instinct would have known you innocent.”
“Hilda and Donatello and myself,—we three would have acquitted70 you,” said Kenyon, “let the world say what it might. Ah, Miriam, you should have told us this sad story sooner!”
“I thought often of revealing it to you,” answered Miriam; “on one occasion, especially,—it was after you had shown me your Cleopatra; it seemed to leap out of my heart, and got as far as my very lips. But finding you cold to accept my confidence, I thrust it back again. Had I obeyed my first impulse, all would have turned out differently.”
“And Hilda!” resumed the sculptor. “What can have been her connection with these dark incidents?”
“She will, doubtless, tell you with her own lips,” replied Miriam. “Through sources of information which I possess in Rome, I can assure you of her safety. In two days more—by the help of the special Providence that, as I love to tell you, watches over Hilda—she shall rejoin you.”
“Still two days more!” murmured the sculptor.
“Ah, you are cruel now! More cruel than you know!” exclaimed Miriam, with another gleam of that fantastic, fitful gayety, which had more than once marked her manner during this interview. “Spare your poor friends!”
“I know not what you mean, Miriam,” said Kenyon.
“No matter,” she replied; “you will understand hereafter. But could you think it? Here is Donatello haunted with strange remorse, and an unmitigable resolve to obtain what he deems justice upon himself. He fancies, with a kind of direct simplicity, which I have vainly tried to combat, that, when a wrong has been done, the doer is bound to submit himself to whatsoever71 tribunal takes cognizance of such things, and abide72 its judgment73. I have assured him that there is no such thing as earthly justice, and especially none here, under the head of Christendom.”
“We will not argue the point again,” said Donatello, smiling. “I have no head for argument, but only a sense, an impulse, an instinct, I believe, which sometimes leads me right. But why do we talk now of what may make us sorrowful? There are still two days more. Let us be happy!”
It appeared to Kenyon that since he last saw Donatello, some of the sweet and delightful74 characteristics of the antique Faun had returned to him. There were slight, careless graces, pleasant and simple peculiarities75, that had been obliterated76 by the heavy grief through which he was passing at Monte Beni, and out of which he had hardly emerged when the sculptor parted with Miriam and him beneath the bronze pontiffs outstretched hand. These happy blossoms had now reappeared. A playfulness came out of his heart, and glimmered77 like firelight in his actions, alternating, or even closely intermingled, with profound sympathy and serious thought.
“Is he not beautiful?” said Miriam, watching the sculptor’s eye as it dwelt admiringly on Donatello. “So changed, yet still, in a deeper sense, so much the same! He has travelled in a circle, as all things heavenly and earthly do, and now comes back to his original self, with an inestimable treasure of improvement won from an experience of pain. How wonderful is this! I tremble at my own thoughts, yet must needs probe them to their depths. Was the crime—in which he and I were wedded—was it a blessing78, in that strange disguise? Was it a means of education, bringing a simple and imperfect nature to a point of feeling and intelligence which it could have reached under no other discipline?”
“You stir up deep and perilous79 matter, Miriam,” replied Kenyon. “I dare not follow you into the unfathomable abysses whither you are tending.”
“Yet there is a pleasure in them! I delight to brood on the verge80 of this great mystery,” returned she. “The story of the fall of man! Is it not repeated in our romance of Monte Beni? And may we follow the analogy yet further? Was that very sin,—into which Adam precipitated81 himself and all his race, was it the destined means by which, over a long pathway of toil82 and sorrow, we are to attain83 a higher, brighter, and profounder happiness, than our lost birthright gave? Will not this idea account for the permitted existence of sin, as no other theory can?”
“It is too dangerous, Miriam! I cannot follow you!” repeated the sculptor. “Mortal man has no right to tread on the ground where you now set your feet.”
“Ask Hilda what she thinks of it,” said Miriam, with a thoughtful smile. “At least, she might conclude that sin—which man chose instead of good—has been so beneficently handled by omniscience84 and omnipotence85, that, whereas our dark enemy sought to destroy us by it, it has really become an instrument most effective in the education of intellect and soul.”
Miriam paused a little longer among these meditations86, which the sculptor rightly felt to be so perilous; she then pressed his hand, in token of farewell.
“The day after to-morrow,” said she, “an hour before sunset, go to the Corso, and stand in front of the fifth house on your left, beyond the Antonine column. You will learn tidings of a friend.”
Kenyon would have besought87 her for more definite intelligence, but she shook her head, put her finger on her lips, and turned away with an illusive88 smile. The fancy impressed him that she too, like Donatello, had reached a wayside paradise, in their mysterious life journey, where they both threw down the burden of the before and after, and, except for this interview with himself, were happy in the flitting moment. To-day Donatello was the sylvan89 Faun; to-day Miriam was his fit companion, a Nymph of grove90 or fountain; to-morrow—a remorseful91 man and woman, linked by a marriage bond of crime—they would set forth towards an inevitable92 goal.
点击收听单词发音
1 descended | |
a.为...后裔的,出身于...的 | |
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2 excavation | |
n.挖掘,发掘;被挖掘之地 | |
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3 buckled | |
a. 有带扣的 | |
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4 garb | |
n.服装,装束 | |
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5 kindled | |
(使某物)燃烧,着火( kindle的过去式和过去分词 ); 激起(感情等); 发亮,放光 | |
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6 scarlet | |
n.深红色,绯红色,红衣;adj.绯红色的 | |
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7 embroidery | |
n.绣花,刺绣;绣制品 | |
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8 melancholy | |
n.忧郁,愁思;adj.令人感伤(沮丧)的,忧郁的 | |
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9 sculptor | |
n.雕刻家,雕刻家 | |
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10 sinister | |
adj.不吉利的,凶恶的,左边的 | |
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11 spectral | |
adj.幽灵的,鬼魂的 | |
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12 labyrinth | |
n.迷宫;难解的事物;迷路 | |
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13 carnival | |
n.嘉年华会,狂欢,狂欢节,巡回表演 | |
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14 dread | |
vt.担忧,忧虑;惧怕,不敢;n.担忧,畏惧 | |
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15 onward | |
adj.向前的,前进的;adv.向前,前进,在先 | |
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16 partially | |
adv.部分地,从某些方面讲 | |
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17 immortal | |
adj.不朽的;永生的,不死的;神的 | |
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18 memorable | |
adj.值得回忆的,难忘的,特别的,显著的 | |
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19 entirely | |
ad.全部地,完整地;完全地,彻底地 | |
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20 apparition | |
n.幽灵,神奇的现象 | |
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21 impatience | |
n.不耐烦,急躁 | |
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22 suspense | |
n.(对可能发生的事)紧张感,担心,挂虑 | |
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23 immediate | |
adj.立即的;直接的,最接近的;紧靠的 | |
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24 strew | |
vt.撒;使散落;撒在…上,散布于 | |
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25 calamity | |
n.灾害,祸患,不幸事件 | |
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26 ancestry | |
n.祖先,家世 | |
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27 remorse | |
n.痛恨,悔恨,自责 | |
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28 pathos | |
n.哀婉,悲怆 | |
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29 pangs | |
突然的剧痛( pang的名词复数 ); 悲痛 | |
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30 providence | |
n.深谋远虑,天道,天意;远见;节约;上帝 | |
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31 innocence | |
n.无罪;天真;无害 | |
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32 guilt | |
n.犯罪;内疚;过失,罪责 | |
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33 stagnant | |
adj.不流动的,停滞的,不景气的 | |
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34 spoke | |
n.(车轮的)辐条;轮辐;破坏某人的计划;阻挠某人的行动 v.讲,谈(speak的过去式);说;演说;从某种观点来说 | |
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35 perplexed | |
adj.不知所措的 | |
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36 vein | |
n.血管,静脉;叶脉,纹理;情绪;vt.使成脉络 | |
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37 auditor | |
n.审计员,旁听着 | |
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38 shudder | |
v.战粟,震动,剧烈地摇晃;n.战粟,抖动 | |
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39 narrative | |
n.叙述,故事;adj.叙事的,故事体的 | |
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40 fatality | |
n.不幸,灾祸,天命 | |
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41 betrothal | |
n. 婚约, 订婚 | |
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42 paternal | |
adj.父亲的,像父亲的,父系的,父方的 | |
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43 odious | |
adj.可憎的,讨厌的 | |
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44 destined | |
adj.命中注定的;(for)以…为目的地的 | |
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45 treacherous | |
adj.不可靠的,有暗藏的危险的;adj.背叛的,背信弃义的 | |
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46 vile | |
adj.卑鄙的,可耻的,邪恶的;坏透的 | |
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47 insanity | |
n.疯狂,精神错乱;极端的愚蠢,荒唐 | |
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48 utterly | |
adv.完全地,绝对地 | |
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49 repudiated | |
v.(正式地)否认( repudiate的过去式和过去分词 );拒绝接受;拒绝与…往来;拒不履行(法律义务) | |
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50 alluded | |
提及,暗指( allude的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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51 frightful | |
adj.可怕的;讨厌的 | |
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52 recur | |
vi.复发,重现,再发生 | |
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53 accomplice | |
n.从犯,帮凶,同谋 | |
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54 gushing | |
adj.迸出的;涌出的;喷出的;过分热情的v.喷,涌( gush的现在分词 );滔滔不绝地说话 | |
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55 imputed | |
v.把(错误等)归咎于( impute的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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56 genial | |
adj.亲切的,和蔼的,愉快的,脾气好的 | |
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57 simplicity | |
n.简单,简易;朴素;直率,单纯 | |
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58 intensified | |
v.(使)增强, (使)加剧( intensify的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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59 penitence | |
n.忏悔,赎罪;悔过 | |
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60 ascertained | |
v.弄清,确定,查明( ascertain的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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61 penance | |
n.(赎罪的)惩罪 | |
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62 monks | |
n.修道士,僧侣( monk的名词复数 ) | |
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63 proceeding | |
n.行动,进行,(pl.)会议录,学报 | |
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64 dreary | |
adj.令人沮丧的,沉闷的,单调乏味的 | |
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65 twilight | |
n.暮光,黄昏;暮年,晚期,衰落时期 | |
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66 conjecture | |
n./v.推测,猜测 | |
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67 persecutor | |
n. 迫害者 | |
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68 thither | |
adv.向那里;adj.在那边的,对岸的 | |
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69 forth | |
adv.向前;向外,往外 | |
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70 acquitted | |
宣判…无罪( acquit的过去式和过去分词 ); 使(自己)作出某种表现 | |
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71 whatsoever | |
adv.(用于否定句中以加强语气)任何;pron.无论什么 | |
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72 abide | |
vi.遵守;坚持;vt.忍受 | |
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73 judgment | |
n.审判;判断力,识别力,看法,意见 | |
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74 delightful | |
adj.令人高兴的,使人快乐的 | |
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75 peculiarities | |
n. 特质, 特性, 怪癖, 古怪 | |
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76 obliterated | |
v.除去( obliterate的过去式和过去分词 );涂去;擦掉;彻底破坏或毁灭 | |
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77 glimmered | |
v.发闪光,发微光( glimmer的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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78 blessing | |
n.祈神赐福;祷告;祝福,祝愿 | |
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79 perilous | |
adj.危险的,冒险的 | |
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80 verge | |
n.边,边缘;v.接近,濒临 | |
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81 precipitated | |
v.(突如其来地)使发生( precipitate的过去式和过去分词 );促成;猛然摔下;使沉淀 | |
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82 toil | |
vi.辛劳工作,艰难地行动;n.苦工,难事 | |
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83 attain | |
vt.达到,获得,完成 | |
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84 omniscience | |
n.全知,全知者,上帝 | |
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85 omnipotence | |
n.全能,万能,无限威力 | |
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86 meditations | |
默想( meditation的名词复数 ); 默念; 沉思; 冥想 | |
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87 besought | |
v.恳求,乞求(某事物)( beseech的过去式和过去分词 );(beseech的过去式与过去分词) | |
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88 illusive | |
adj.迷惑人的,错觉的 | |
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89 sylvan | |
adj.森林的 | |
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90 grove | |
n.林子,小树林,园林 | |
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91 remorseful | |
adj.悔恨的 | |
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92 inevitable | |
adj.不可避免的,必然发生的 | |
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