4All these things, the chimneys and the girders, were crushingly larger than the men who laboured amongst them. The men seemed of pigmy size as they pushed their hand-trucks along the floor of the big gallery. They pushed them down the narrow passage-ways left between the vats8. The gallery was full of vats, set in pairs down the whole length of the building; square vats twenty feet each way, as large and as deep as an ordinary room. Some of the vats were empty, temporarily not in use; some were only half full; but in most the hot, liquid soap boiled and bubbled right up to the rim9.
The smell which filled the gallery was the smell of the soap, pungent10 and acrid11 on the surface, but fat and nauseating12 underneath13, rasping the throat of the chance visitor before it penetrated14 deeper with its hot, furry15 smell that tickled16 and disgusted the sensitiveness at the back of his nose. The chance visitor rarely lingered long in the gallery. He would stand for a few moments watching the men that came and went in their splashed overalls17, indifferent to his presence; then he would turn to go carefully down the steep iron stair into the pleasanter rooms where white powder was heaped on the floor in miniature mountains, and where lines of 5girls seated on high stools were occupied in tying ribbons with the twist of dexterity18 round the necks of scent19 bottles, and the room was filled with scent like a garden of orange-trees in blossom.
Up in the gallery, the soap in the vats moved uneasily with the motion of an evil quicksand. The soap was yellow, and its consistency20 one of slimy liquidity21. If the vat7 were not sufficiently22 full, the quantity increased mysteriously from below, the level rising thanks to the unseen source of supply. It was not hard to believe that the recesses23 of the vat were inhabited by some foul24 and secret monster whose jaws25 emitted the viscid, yellow stream to conceal26 his abode27. The soap moved restlessly, boiling and bursting into little craters28, which subsided30, leaving wrinkles and circles on the surface. Quiet for a moment, it heaved in another place; heaved slowly and deliberately31, but did not break; heaved again; broke with a spout32 of steam and a sluggish33 splash as the walls of the crater29 fell in. It was never altogether still. It seemed alive, because it swelled34 and breathed and vomited35, or at least it seemed as though some live creature dwelt within, occasioning by its movements the disturbances36 and eruptions37 of the slime.
6In other vats a wrinkled brown skin had formed over the cooling soap, a skin puckered38 and broken up into valleys and chasms39, plains and ridges40, so that of all things it most resembled the physical map of a country. The parallel was exact as to colour, even to the greenish stretches at the bottom of the valleys. Mountain ridges three inches high, chasms three inches deep, plateaux six inches across, the landscape of some dead but perpetually changing world. For here the slime moved also, but with a difference; it did not seethe41, it did not erupt; it rather subsided; was a dead, rather than a living thing. The monster that dwelt in those depths had died, and lay at the bottom, a heap of corruption42 the imagination would not willingly picture.
Other vats were empty, and if the hot boiling soap resembled a shifting quicksand, and the cooling soap the desolation of a dead world, the empty vats resembled the sea-bottom. The others, with their hint of greed and evil, might be more terrifying; these empty vats were infinitely43 more fantastic. Their sides were caked with the dry soap, brown-yellow, and their depths were surprisingly revealed; ending in a blunt point, like the point of a cone44; they were sunk lower than the floor of the gallery 7into an unlighted chamber45 of corresponding size below. In these empty vats, various portions of apparatus46 were brought to light: immense chains, caked and corroded47, hung like ship’s cables and were lost in the deposit at the bottom; vast strainers swung against the sides; ropes, stiffened48 hard as wood, spanned diagonally from side to side; and, emerging from the tapering49 depths, stumps50 of wreckage51 stood up, transformed from their original shape to stalagmites of dry frangible matter, that would chip away, crisp and powdery, betraying the nature of their kernel,—was it a shovel52? was it an anchor? was it the decaying bones of the ancient monster?—and the low parapets of the vats were coated with the same brittle53 dryness that yellowed the walls of those grotesque54 and extraordinary pits.
点击收听单词发音
1 utilitarian | |
adj.实用的,功利的 | |
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2 inflexible | |
adj.不可改变的,不受影响的,不屈服的 | |
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3 machinery | |
n.(总称)机械,机器;机构 | |
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4 muffled | |
adj.(声音)被隔的;听不太清的;(衣服)裹严的;蒙住的v.压抑,捂住( muffle的过去式和过去分词 );用厚厚的衣帽包着(自己) | |
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5 murmur | |
n.低语,低声的怨言;v.低语,低声而言 | |
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6 plumes | |
羽毛( plume的名词复数 ); 羽毛饰; 羽毛状物; 升上空中的羽状物 | |
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7 vat | |
n.(=value added tax)增值税,大桶 | |
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8 vats | |
varieties 变化,多样性,种类 | |
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9 rim | |
n.(圆物的)边,轮缘;边界 | |
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10 pungent | |
adj.(气味、味道)刺激性的,辛辣的;尖锐的 | |
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11 acrid | |
adj.辛辣的,尖刻的,刻薄的 | |
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12 nauseating | |
adj.令人恶心的,使人厌恶的v.使恶心,作呕( nauseate的现在分词 ) | |
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13 underneath | |
adj.在...下面,在...底下;adv.在下面 | |
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14 penetrated | |
adj. 击穿的,鞭辟入里的 动词penetrate的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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15 furry | |
adj.毛皮的;似毛皮的;毛皮制的 | |
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16 tickled | |
(使)发痒( tickle的过去式和过去分词 ); (使)愉快,逗乐 | |
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17 overalls | |
n.(复)工装裤;长罩衣 | |
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18 dexterity | |
n.(手的)灵巧,灵活 | |
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19 scent | |
n.气味,香味,香水,线索,嗅觉;v.嗅,发觉 | |
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20 consistency | |
n.一贯性,前后一致,稳定性;(液体的)浓度 | |
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21 liquidity | |
n.流动性,偿债能力,流动资产 | |
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22 sufficiently | |
adv.足够地,充分地 | |
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23 recesses | |
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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24 foul | |
adj.污秽的;邪恶的;v.弄脏;妨害;犯规;n.犯规 | |
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25 jaws | |
n.口部;嘴 | |
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26 conceal | |
v.隐藏,隐瞒,隐蔽 | |
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27 abode | |
n.住处,住所 | |
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28 craters | |
n.火山口( crater的名词复数 );弹坑等 | |
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29 crater | |
n.火山口,弹坑 | |
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30 subsided | |
v.(土地)下陷(因在地下采矿)( subside的过去式和过去分词 );减弱;下降至较低或正常水平;一下子坐在椅子等上 | |
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31 deliberately | |
adv.审慎地;蓄意地;故意地 | |
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32 spout | |
v.喷出,涌出;滔滔不绝地讲;n.喷管;水柱 | |
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33 sluggish | |
adj.懒惰的,迟钝的,无精打采的 | |
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34 swelled | |
增强( swell的过去式和过去分词 ); 肿胀; (使)凸出; 充满(激情) | |
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35 vomited | |
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36 disturbances | |
n.骚乱( disturbance的名词复数 );打扰;困扰;障碍 | |
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37 eruptions | |
n.喷发,爆发( eruption的名词复数 ) | |
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38 puckered | |
v.(使某物)起褶子或皱纹( pucker的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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39 chasms | |
裂缝( chasm的名词复数 ); 裂口; 分歧; 差别 | |
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40 ridges | |
n.脊( ridge的名词复数 );山脊;脊状突起;大气层的)高压脊 | |
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41 seethe | |
vi.拥挤,云集;发怒,激动,骚动 | |
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42 corruption | |
n.腐败,堕落,贪污 | |
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43 infinitely | |
adv.无限地,无穷地 | |
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44 cone | |
n.圆锥体,圆锥形东西,球果 | |
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45 chamber | |
n.房间,寝室;会议厅;议院;会所 | |
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46 apparatus | |
n.装置,器械;器具,设备 | |
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47 corroded | |
已被腐蚀的 | |
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48 stiffened | |
加强的 | |
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49 tapering | |
adj.尖端细的 | |
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50 stumps | |
(被砍下的树的)树桩( stump的名词复数 ); 残肢; (板球三柱门的)柱; 残余部分 | |
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51 wreckage | |
n.(失事飞机等的)残骸,破坏,毁坏 | |
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52 shovel | |
n.铁锨,铲子,一铲之量;v.铲,铲出 | |
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53 brittle | |
adj.易碎的;脆弱的;冷淡的;(声音)尖利的 | |
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54 grotesque | |
adj.怪诞的,丑陋的;n.怪诞的图案,怪人(物) | |
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