For a firm-rooted believer in such immeasurable ideas as these, which he punctuated5 with brisk application of the poker6 to the brave sparkle and glow of the fire, Anthony has a very pleasant appreciation7 of the measurable and the finite, and nobody with whom I have acquaintance has so keen a zest8 for life and its enjoyments9 as he. He had given us this evening an admirable dinner, had passed round a port beyond praise, and had illuminated10 the jolly hours with the light of his infectious optimism. Now the small company had melted away, and I was left with him over the fire in his study. Outside the tattoo11 of wind-driven sleet12 was audible on the window-panes, over-scoring now and again the flap[248] of the flames on the open hearth13, and the thought of the chilly14 blasts and the snow-covered pavement in Brompton Square, across which, to skidding15 taxicabs, the last of his other guests had scurried16, made my position, resident here till to-morrow morning, the more delicately delightful17. Above all there was this stimulating18 and suggestive companion, who, whether he talked of the great abstractions which were so intensely real and practical to him, or of the very remarkable19 experiences which he had encountered among these conventions of time and space, was equally fascinating to the listener.
“I adore life,” he said. “I find it the most entrancing plaything. It’s a delightful game, and, as you know very well, the only conceivable way to play a game is to treat it extremely seriously. If you say to yourself, ‘It’s only a game,’ you cease to take the slightest interest in it. You have to know that it’s only a game, and behave as if it was the one object of existence. I should like it to go on for many years yet. But all the time one has to be living on the true plane as well, which is eternity and infinity. If you come to think of it, the one thing which the human mind cannot grasp is the finite, not the infinite, the temporary, not the eternal.”
“That sounds rather paradoxical,” said I.
“Only because you’ve made a habit of thinking about things that seem bounded and limited. Look it in the face for a minute. Try to imagine finite Time and Space, and you find you can’t. Go back a million years, and multiply that million of years by another million, and you find that you can’t conceive of a beginning. What happened before[249] that beginning? Another beginning and another beginning? And before that? Look at it like that, and you find that the only solution comprehensible to you is the existence of an eternity, something that never began and will never end. It’s the same about space. Project yourself to the farthest star, and what comes beyond that? Emptiness? Go on through the emptiness, and you can’t imagine it being finite and having an end. It must needs go on for ever: that’s the only thing you can understand. There’s no such thing as before or after, or beginning or end, and what a comfort that is! I should fidget myself to death if there wasn’t the huge soft cushion of eternity to lean one’s head against. Some people say—I believe I’ve heard you say it yourself—that the idea of eternity is so tiring; you feel that you want to stop. But that’s because you are thinking of eternity in terms of Time, and mumbling20 in your brain, ‘And after that, and after that?’ Don’t you grasp the idea that in eternity there isn’t any ‘after,’ any more than there is any ‘before’? It’s all one. Eternity isn’t a quantity: it’s a quality.”
Sometimes, when Anthony talks in this manner, I seem to get a glimpse of that which to his mind is so transparently21 clear and solidly real, at other times (not having a brain that readily envisages22 abstractions) I feel as though he was pushing me over a precipice23, and my intellectual faculties24 grasp wildly at anything tangible25 or comprehensible. This was the case now, and I hastily interrupted.
“But there is a ‘before’ and ‘after,’” I said. “A few hours ago you gave us an admirable dinner,[250] and after that—yes, after—we played bridge. And now you are going to explain things a little more clearly to me, and after that I shall go to bed——”
He laughed.
“You shall do exactly as you like,” he said, “and you shan’t be a slave to Time either to-night or to-morrow morning. We won’t even mention an hour for breakfast, but you shall have it in eternity whenever you awake. And as I see it is not midnight yet, we’ll slip the bonds of Time, and talk quite infinitely26. I will stop the clock, if that will assist you in getting rid of your illusion, and then I’ll tell you a story, which to my mind, shows how unreal so-called realities are; or, at any rate, how fallacious are our senses as judges of what is real and what is not.”
“Something occult, something spookish?” I asked, pricking27 up my ears, for Anthony has the strangest clairvoyances and visions of things unseen by the normal eye.
“I suppose you might call some of it occult,” he said, “though there’s a certain amount of rather grim reality mixed up in it.”
“Go on; excellent mixture,” said I.
He threw a fresh log on the fire.
“It’s a longish story,” he said. “You may stop me as soon as you’ve had enough. But there will come a point for which I claim your consideration. You, who cling to your ‘before’ and ‘after,’ has it ever occurred to you how difficult it is to say when an incident takes place? Say that a man commits some crime of violence, can we not, with a good deal of truth, say that he really commits that crime when[251] he definitely plans and determines upon it, dwelling28 on it with gusto? The actual commission of it, I think we can reasonably argue, is the mere29 material sequel of his resolve: he is guilty of it when he makes that determination. When, therefore, in the term of ‘before’ and ‘after,’ does the crime truly take place? There is also in my story a further point for your consideration. For it seems certain that the spirit of a man, after the death of his body, is obliged to re-enact such a crime, with a view, I suppose we may guess, to his remorse30 and his eventual31 redemption. Those who have second sight have seen such re-enactments. Perhaps he may have done his deed blindly in this life; but then his spirit re-commits it with its spiritual eyes open, and able to comprehend its enormity. So, shall we view the man’s original determination and the material commission of his crime only as preludes32 to the real commission of it, when with eyes unsealed he does it and repents33 of it?... That all sounds very obscure when I speak in the abstract, but I think you will see what I mean, if you follow my tale. Comfortable? Got everything you want? Here goes, then.”
“The story that I am about to tell you,” he said, “had its beginning a month ago, when you were away in Switzerland. It reached its conclusion, so I imagine, last night. I do not, at any rate, expect to experience any more of it. Well, a month ago I was returning late on a very wet night from dining out. There was not a taxi to be had, and I[252] hurried through the pouring rain to the tube-station at Piccadilly Circus, and thought myself very lucky to catch the last train in this direction. The carriage into which I stepped was quite empty except for one other passenger, who sat next the door immediately opposite to me. I had never, to my knowledge, seen him before, but I found my attention vividly35 fixed36 on him, as if he somehow concerned me. He was a man of middle age, in dress-clothes, and his face wore an expression of intense thought, as if in his mind he was pondering some very significant matter, and his hand which was resting on his knee clenched37 and unclenched itself. Suddenly he looked up and stared me in the face, and I saw there suspicion and fear, as if I had surprised him in some secret deed.
“At that moment we stopped at Dover Street, and the conductor threw open the doors, announced the station and added, ‘Change here for Hyde Park Corner and Gloucester Road.’ That was all right for me since it meant that the train would stop at Brompton Road, which was my destination. It was all right apparently38, too, for my companion, for he certainly did not get out, and after a moment’s stop, during which no one else got in, we went on. I saw him, I must insist, after the doors were closed and the train had started. But when I looked again, as we rattled39 on, I saw that there was no one there. I was quite alone in the carriage.
“Now you may think that I had had one of those swift momentary40 dreams which flash in and out of the mind in the space of a second, but I did not believe it was so myself, for I felt that I had experienced some sort of premonition or clairvoyant41 vision. A[253] man, the semblance42 of whom, astral body or whatever you may choose to call it, I had just seen, would sometime sit in that seat opposite to me, pondering and planning.”
“But why?” I asked. “Why should it have been the astral body of a living man which you thought you had seen? Why not the ghost of a dead one?”
“Because of my own sensations. The sight of the spirit of someone dead, which has occurred to me two or three times in my life, has always been accompanied by a physical shrinking and fear, and by the sensation of cold and of loneliness. I believed, at any rate, that I had seen a phantom43 of the living, and that impression was confirmed, I might say proved, the next day. For I met the man himself. And the next night, as you shall hear, I met the phantom again. We will take them in order.
“I was lunching, then, the next day with my neighbour Mrs. Stanley: there was a small party, and when I arrived we waited but for the final guest. He entered while I was talking to some friend, and presently at my elbow I heard Mrs. Stanley’s voice—
“‘Let me introduce you to Sir Henry Payle,’ she said.
“I turned and saw my vis-à-vis of the night before. It was quite unmistakably he, and as we shook hands he looked at me I thought with vague and puzzled recognition.
“For the moment I forgot the strange manner of his disappearance45 from the carriage, and thought[254] that it had been the man himself whom I had seen last night.
“‘Surely, and not so long ago,’ I said. ‘For we sat opposite each other in the last tube-train from Piccadilly Circus yesterday night.’
“He still looked at me, frowning, puzzled, and shook his head.
“‘That can hardly be,’ he said. ‘I only came up from the country this morning.’
“Now this interested me profoundly, for the astral body, we are told, abides46 in some half-conscious region of the mind or spirit, and has recollections of what has happened to it, which it can convey only very vaguely47 and dimly to the conscious mind. All lunch-time I could see his eyes again and again directed to me with the same puzzled and perplexed48 air, and as I was taking my departure he came up to me.
“‘I shall recollect some day,’ he said, ‘where we met before, and I hope we may meet again. Was it not——?’—and he stopped. ‘No: it has gone from me,’ he added.”
The log that Anthony had thrown on the fire was burning bravely now, and its high-flickering flame lit up his face.
“Now, I don’t know whether you believe in coincidences as chance things,” he said, “but if you do, get rid of the notion. Or if you can’t at once, call it a coincidence that that very night I again caught the last train on the tube going westwards. This time, so far from my being a solitary49 passenger, there was a considerable crowd waiting at Dover Street, where I entered, and just as the noise of the[255] approaching train began to reverberate50 in the tunnel I caught sight of Sir Henry Payle standing51 near the opening from which the train would presently emerge, apart from the rest of the crowd. And I thought to myself how odd it was that I should have seen the phantom of him at this very hour last night and the man himself now, and I began walking towards him with the idea of saying, ‘Anyhow, it is in the tube that we meet to-night.’... And then a terrible and awful thing happened. Just as the train emerged from the tunnel he jumped down on to the line in front of it, and the train swept along over him up the platform.
“For a moment I was stricken with horror at the sight, and I remember covering my eyes against the dreadful tragedy. But then I perceived that, though it had taken place in full sight of those who were waiting, no one seemed to have seen it except myself. The driver, looking out from his window, had not applied52 his brakes, there was no jolt53 from the advancing train, no scream, no cry, and the rest of the passengers began boarding the train with perfect nonchalance54. I must have staggered, for I felt sick and faint with what I had seen, and some kindly55 soul put his arm round me and supported me into the train. He was a doctor, he told me, and asked if I was in pain, or what ailed56 me. I told him what I thought I had seen, and he assured me that no such accident had taken place.
“It was clear then to my own mind that I had seen the second act, so to speak, in this psychical57 drama, and I pondered next morning over the problem as to what I should do. Already I had glanced at the[256] morning paper, which, as I knew would be the case, contained no mention whatever of what I had seen. The thing had certainly not happened, but I knew in myself that it would happen. The flimsy veil of Time had been withdrawn58 from my eyes, and I had seen into what you would call the future. In terms of Time of course it was the future, but from my point of view the thing was just as much in the past as it was in the future. It existed, and waited only for its material fulfilment. The more I thought about it, the more I saw that I could do nothing.”
“You did nothing?” I exclaimed. “Surely you might have taken some step in order to try to avert61 the tragedy.”
He shook his head.
“What step precisely62?” he said. “Was I to go to Sir Henry and tell him that once more I had seen him in the tube in the act of committing suicide? Look at it like this. Either what I had seen was pure illusion, pure imagination, in which case it had no existence or significance at all, or it was actual and real, and essentially63 it had happened. Or take it, though not very logically, somewhere between the two. Say that the idea of suicide, for some cause of which I knew nothing, had occurred to him or would occur. Should I not, if that was the case, be doing a very dangerous thing, by making such a suggestion to him? Might not the fact of my telling him what I had seen put the idea into his mind, or, if it was already there, confirm it and strengthen it? ‘It’s a ticklish64 matter to play with souls,’ as Browning says.”
“What interference?” asked he. “What attempt?”
The human instinct in me still seemed to cry aloud at the thought of doing nothing to avert such a tragedy, but it seemed to be beating itself against something austere67 and inexorable. And cudgel my brain as I would, I could not combat the sense of what he had said. I had no answer for him, and he went on.
“You must recollect, too,” he said, “that I believed then and believe now that the thing had happened. The cause of it, whatever that was, had begun to work, and the effect, in this material sphere, was inevitable68. That is what I alluded69 to when, at the beginning of my story, I asked you to consider how difficult it was to say when an action took place. You still hold that this particular action, this suicide of Sir Henry, had not yet taken place, because he had not yet thrown himself under the advancing train. To me that seems a materialistic70 view. I hold that in all but the endorsement71 of it, so to speak, it had taken place. I fancy that Sir Henry, for instance, now free from the material dusks, knows that himself.”
Exactly as he spoke there swept through the warm lit room a current of ice-cold air, ruffling72 my hair as it passed me, and making the wood flames on the hearth to dwindle73 and flare74. I looked round to see if the door at my back had opened, but nothing stirred there, and over the closed window the curtains were fully1 drawn59. As it reached Anthony, he sat[258] up quickly in his chair and directed his glance this way and that about the room.
“Did you feel that?” he asked.
“Anything else?” he asked. “Any other sensation?”
I paused before I answered, for at the moment there occurred to me Anthony’s differentiation76 of the effects produced on the beholder77 by a phantasm of the living and the apparition78 of the dead. It was the latter which accurately79 described my sensations now, a certain physical shrinking, a fear, a feeling of desolation. But yet I had seen nothing. “I felt rather creepy,” I said.
As I spoke I drew my chair rather closer to the fire, and sent a swift and, I confess, a somewhat apprehensive80 scrutiny81 round the walls of the brightly lit room. I noticed at the same time that Anthony was peering across to the chimney-piece, on which, just below a sconce holding two electric lights, stood the clock which at the beginning of our talk he had offered to stop. The hands I noticed pointed82 to twenty-five minutes to one.
“But you saw nothing?” he asked.
“Nothing whatever,” I said. “Why should I? What was there to see? Or did you——”
“I don’t think so,” he said.
Somehow this answer got on my nerves, for the queer feeling which had accompanied that cold current of air had not left me. If anything it had become more acute.
“But surely you know whether you saw anything or not?” I said.
[259]“One can’t always be certain,” said he. “I say that I don’t think I saw anything. But I’m not sure, either, whether the story I am telling you was quite concluded last night. I think there may be a further incident. If you prefer it, I will leave the rest of it, as far as I know it, unfinished till to-morrow morning, and you can go off to bed now.”
“But why should I do that?” I asked.
Again he looked round on the bright walls.
“Well, I think something entered the room just now,” he said, “and it may develop. If you don’t like the notion, you had better go. Of course there’s nothing to be alarmed at; whatever it is, it can’t hurt us. But it is close on the hour when on two successive nights I saw what I have already told you, and an apparition usually occurs at the same time. Why that is so, I cannot say, but certainly it looks as if a spirit that is earth-bound is still subject to certain conventions, the conventions of time for instance. I think that personally I shall see something before long, but most likely you won’t. You’re not such a sufferer as I from these—these delusions——”
I was frightened and knew it, but I was also intensely interested, and some perverse85 pride wriggled86 within me at his last words. Why, so I asked myself, shouldn’t I see whatever was to be seen?...
“I don’t want to go in the least,” I said. “I want to hear the rest of your story.”
“Where was I, then? Ah, yes: you were wondering why I didn’t do something after I saw[260] the train move up to the platform, and I said that there was nothing to be done. If you think it over, I fancy you will agree with me.... A couple of days passed, and on the third morning I saw in the paper that there had come fulfilment to my vision. Sir Henry Payle, who had been waiting on the platform of Dover Street Station for the last train to South Kensington, had thrown himself in front of it as it came into the station. The train had been pulled up in a couple of yards, but a wheel had passed over his chest, crushing it in and instantly killing87 him.
“An inquest was held, and there emerged at it one of those dark stories which, on occasions like these, sometimes fall like a midnight shadow across a life that the world perhaps had thought prosperous. He had long been on bad terms with his wife, from whom he had lived apart, and it appeared that not long before this he had fallen desperately88 in love with another woman. The night before his suicide he had appeared very late at his wife’s house, and had a long and angry scene with her in which he entreated89 her to divorce him, threatening otherwise to make her life a hell to her. She refused, and in an ungovernable fit of passion he attempted to strangle her. There was a struggle, and the noise of it caused her manservant to come up, who succeeded in over-mastering him. Lady Payle threatened to proceed against him for assault with the intention to murder her. With this hanging over his head, the next night, as I have already told you, he committed suicide.”
He glanced at the clock again, and I saw that the hands now pointed to ten minutes to one. The[261] fire was beginning to burn low and the room surely was growing strangely cold.
“That’s not quite all,” said Anthony, again looking round. “Are you sure you wouldn’t prefer to hear it to-morrow?”
The mixture of shame and pride and curiosity again prevailed.
“No: tell me the rest of it at once,” I said.
Before speaking, he peered suddenly at some point behind my chair, shading his eyes. I followed his glance, and knew what he meant by saying that sometimes one could not be sure whether one saw something or not. But was that an outlined shadow that intervened between me and the wall? It was difficult to focus; I did not know whether it was near the wall or near my chair. It seemed to clear away, anyhow, as I looked more closely at it.
“You see nothing?” asked Anthony.
“No: I don’t think so,” said I. “And you?”
“I think I do,” he said, and his eyes followed something which was invisible to mine. They came to rest between him and the chimney-piece. Looking steadily90 there, he spoke again.
“All this happened some weeks ago,” he said, “when you were out in Switzerland, and since then, up till last night, I saw nothing further. But all the time I was expecting something further. I felt that, as far as I was concerned, it was not all over yet, and last night, with the intention of assisting any communication to come through to me from—from beyond, I went into the Dover Street tube-station at a few minutes before one o’clock, the hour at which both the assault and the suicide had taken place.[262] The platform when I arrived on it was absolutely empty, or appeared to be so, but presently, just as I began to hear the roar of the approaching train, I saw there was the figure of a man standing some twenty yards from me, looking into the tunnel. He had not come down with me in the lift, and the moment before he had not been there. He began moving towards me, and then I saw who it was, and I felt a stir of wind icy-cold coming towards me as he approached. It was not the draught that heralds91 the approach of a train, for it came from the opposite direction. He came close up to me, and I saw there was recognition in his eyes. He raised his face towards me and I saw his lips move, but, perhaps in the increasing noise from the tunnel, I heard nothing come from them. He put out his hand, as if entreating92 me to do something, and with a cowardice93 from which I cannot forgive myself, I shrank from him, for I knew, by the sign that I have told you, that this was one from the dead, and my flesh quaked before him, drowning for the moment all pity and all desire to help him, if that was possible. Certainly he had something which he wanted of me, but I recoiled94 from him. And by now the train was emerging from the tunnel, and next moment, with a dreadful gesture of despair, he threw himself in front of it.”
As he finished speaking he got up quickly from his chair, still looking fixedly95 in front of him. I saw his pupils dilate96, and his mouth worked.
“It is coming,” he said. “I am to be given a chance of atoning97 for my cowardice. There is nothing to be afraid of: I must remember that myself....”
[263]As he spoke there came from the panelling above the chimney-piece one loud shattering crack, and the cold wind again circled about my head. I found myself shrinking back in my chair with my hands held in front of me as instinctively98 I screened myself against something which I knew was there but which I could not see. Every sense told me that there was a presence in the room other than mine and Anthony’s, and the horror of it was that I could not see it. Any vision, however terrible, would, I felt, be more tolerable than this clear certain knowledge that close to me was this invisible thing. And yet what horror might not be disclosed of the face of the dead and the crushed chest.... But all I could see, as I shuddered99 in this cold wind, was the familiar walls of the room, and Anthony standing in front of me stiff and firm, making, as I knew, a call on his courage. His eyes were focused on something quite close to him, and some semblance of a smile quivered on his mouth. And then he spoke again.
“Yes, I know you,” he said. “And you want something of me. Tell me, then, what it is.”
There was absolute silence, but what was silence to my ears could not have been so to his, for once or twice he nodded, and once he said, “Yes: I see. I will do it.” And with the knowledge that, even as there was someone here whom I could not see, so there was speech going on which I could not hear, this terror of the dead and of the unknown rose in me with the sense of powerlessness to move that accompanies nightmare. I could not stir, I could not speak. I could only strain my ears for the inaudible and my eyes for the unseen, while the cold wind[264] from the very valley of the shadow of death streamed over me. It was not that the presence of death itself was terrible; it was that from its tranquillity and serene100 keeping there had been driven some unquiet soul unable to rest in peace for whatever ultimate awakening101 rouses the countless102 generations of those who have passed away, driven, no less, from whatever activities are theirs, back into the material world from which it should have been delivered. Never, until the gulf103 between the living and the dead was thus bridged, had it seemed so immense and so unnatural104. It is possible that the dead may have communication with the living, and it was not that exactly that so terrified me, for such communication, as we know it, comes voluntarily from them. But here was something icy-cold and crime-laden, that was chased back from the peace that would not pacify105 it.
And then, most horrible of all, there came a change in these unseen conditions. Anthony was silent now, and from looking straight and fixedly in front of him, he began to glance sideways to where I sat and back again, and with that I felt that the unseen presence had turned its attention from him to me. And now, too, gradually and by awful degrees I began to see....
There came an outline of shadow across the chimney-piece and the panels above it. It took shape: it fashioned itself into the outline of a man. Within the shape of the shadow details began to form themselves, and I saw wavering in the air, like something concealed106 by haze107, the semblance of a face, stricken and tragic108, and burdened with such[265] a weight of woe109 as no human face had ever worn. Next, the shoulders outlined themselves, and a stain livid and red spread out below them, and suddenly the vision leaped into clearness. There he stood, the chest crushed in and drowned in the red stain, from which broken ribs110, like the bones of a wrecked111 ship, protruded112. The mournful, terrible eyes were fixed on me, and it was from them, so I knew, that the bitter wind proceeded....
Then, quick as the switching off of a lamp, the spectre vanished, and the bitter wind was still, and opposite to me stood Anthony, in a quiet, bright-lit room. There was no sense of an unseen presence any more; he and I were then alone, with an interrupted conversation still dangling113 between us in the warm air. I came round to that, as one comes round after an an?sthetic. It all swam into sight again, unreal at first, and gradually assuming the texture114 of actuality.
“You were talking to somebody, not to me,” I said. “Who was it? What was it?”
“A soul in hell,” he said.
Now it is hard ever to recall mere physical sensations, when they have passed. If you have been cold and are warmed, it is difficult to remember what cold was like: if you have been hot and have got cool, it is difficult to realise what the oppression of heat really meant. Just so, with the passing of that presence, I found myself unable to recapture the sense of the terror with which, a few moments ago only, it had invaded and inspired me.
[266]“A soul in hell?” I said. “What are you talking about?”
He moved about the room for a minute or so, and then came and sat on the arm of my chair.
“I don’t know what you saw,” he said, “or what you felt, but there has never in all my life happened to me anything more real than what these last few minutes have brought. I have talked to a soul in the hell of remorse, which is the only possible hell. He knew, from what happened last night, that he could perhaps establish communication through me with the world he had quitted, and he sought me and found me. I am charged with a mission to a woman I have never seen, a message from the contrite116.... You can guess who it is....”
“Let’s verify it anyhow,” he said. “He gave me the street and the number. Ah, there’s the telephone book! Would it be a coincidence merely if I found that at No. 20 in Chasemore Street, South Kensington, there lived a Lady Payle?”
He turned over the leaves of the bulky volume.
“Yes, that’s right,” he said.
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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eternity
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| n.不朽，来世；永恒，无穷 | |
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infinity
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encompass
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punctuated
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poker
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appreciation
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zest
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enjoyments
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illuminated
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tattoo
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sleet
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hearth
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chilly
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skidding
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scurried
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| v.急匆匆地走( scurry的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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delightful
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| adj.令人高兴的，使人快乐的 | |
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18
stimulating
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| adj.有启发性的，能激发人思考的 | |
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19
remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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20
mumbling
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| 含糊地说某事，叽咕，咕哝( mumble的现在分词 ) | |
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21
transparently
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| 明亮地，显然地，易觉察地 | |
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22
envisages
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| 想像，设想( envisage的第三人称单数 ) | |
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23
precipice
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| n.悬崖，危急的处境 | |
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24
faculties
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| n.能力( faculty的名词复数 )；全体教职员；技巧；院 | |
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25
tangible
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| adj.有形的，可触摸的，确凿的，实际的 | |
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26
infinitely
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| adv.无限地，无穷地 | |
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27
pricking
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| 刺，刺痕，刺痛感 | |
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28
dwelling
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| n.住宅，住所，寓所 | |
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29
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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30
remorse
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| n.痛恨，悔恨，自责 | |
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31
eventual
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| adj.最后的，结局的，最终的 | |
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32
preludes
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| n.开端( prelude的名词复数 )；序幕；序曲；短篇作品 | |
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33
repents
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| 对（自己的所为）感到懊悔或忏悔( repent的第三人称单数 ) | |
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34
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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35
vividly
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| adv.清楚地，鲜明地，生动地 | |
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36
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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37
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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38
apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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39
rattled
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| 慌乱的，恼火的 | |
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40
momentary
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| adj.片刻的，瞬息的；短暂的 | |
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41
clairvoyant
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| adj.有预见的；n.有预见的人 | |
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42
semblance
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| n.外貌，外表 | |
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43
phantom
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| n.幻影，虚位，幽灵；adj.错觉的，幻影的，幽灵的 | |
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44
recollect
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| v.回忆，想起，记起，忆起，记得 | |
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45
disappearance
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| n.消失，消散，失踪 | |
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46
abides
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| 容忍( abide的第三人称单数 )； 等候； 逗留； 停留 | |
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47
vaguely
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| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
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48
perplexed
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| adj.不知所措的 | |
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49
solitary
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| adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士 | |
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50
reverberate
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| v.使回响，使反响 | |
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51
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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52
applied
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| adj.应用的；v.应用，适用 | |
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53
jolt
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| v.（使）摇动，（使）震动，（使）颠簸 | |
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54
nonchalance
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| n.冷淡，漠不关心 | |
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55
kindly
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| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
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56
ailed
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| v.生病( ail的过去式和过去分词 )；感到不舒服；处境困难；境况不佳 | |
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57
psychical
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| adj.有关特异功能现象的；有关特异功能官能的；灵魂的；心灵的 | |
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58
withdrawn
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| vt.收回；使退出；vi.撤退，退出 | |
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59
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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60
narrative
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| n.叙述，故事；adj.叙事的，故事体的 | |
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61
avert
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| v.防止，避免；转移(目光、注意力等) | |
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62
precisely
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| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
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63
essentially
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| adv.本质上，实质上，基本上 | |
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64
ticklish
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| adj.怕痒的；问题棘手的；adv.怕痒地；n.怕痒，小心处理 | |
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65
inhuman
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| adj.残忍的，不人道的，无人性的 | |
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66
interfere
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| v.(in)干涉，干预；(with)妨碍，打扰 | |
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67
austere
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| adj.艰苦的；朴素的，朴实无华的；严峻的 | |
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68
inevitable
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| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
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69
alluded
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| 提及，暗指( allude的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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70
materialistic
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| a.唯物主义的，物质享乐主义的 | |
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71
endorsement
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| n.背书；赞成，认可，担保；签(注)，批注 | |
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72
ruffling
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| 弄皱( ruffle的现在分词 )； 弄乱； 激怒； 扰乱 | |
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73
dwindle
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| v.逐渐变小（或减少） | |
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74
flare
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| v.闪耀，闪烁；n.潮红；突发 | |
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75
draught
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| n.拉，牵引，拖；一网（饮，吸，阵)；顿服药量，通风；v.起草，设计 | |
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76
differentiation
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| n.区别，区分 | |
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77
beholder
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| n.观看者，旁观者 | |
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78
apparition
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| n.幽灵，神奇的现象 | |
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79
accurately
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| adv.准确地，精确地 | |
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80
apprehensive
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| adj.担心的，恐惧的，善于领会的 | |
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81
scrutiny
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| n.详细检查，仔细观察 | |
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82
pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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83
tranquillity
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| n. 平静, 安静 | |
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84
reassured
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| adj.使消除疑虑的；使放心的v.再保证，恢复信心( reassure的过去式和过去分词) | |
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85
perverse
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| adj.刚愎的；坚持错误的，行为反常的 | |
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86
wriggled
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| v.扭动，蠕动，蜿蜒行进( wriggle的过去式和过去分词 )；（使身体某一部位）扭动；耍滑不做，逃避（应做的事等） | |
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87
killing
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| n.巨额利润；突然赚大钱，发大财 | |
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88
desperately
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| adv.极度渴望地，绝望地，孤注一掷地 | |
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89
entreated
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| 恳求，乞求( entreat的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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90
steadily
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| adv.稳定地；不变地；持续地 | |
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91
heralds
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| n.使者( herald的名词复数 )；预报者；预兆；传令官v.预示( herald的第三人称单数 )；宣布（好或重要） | |
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92
entreating
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| 恳求，乞求( entreat的现在分词 ) | |
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93
cowardice
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| n.胆小，怯懦 | |
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94
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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95
fixedly
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| adv.固定地；不屈地，坚定不移地 | |
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96
dilate
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| vt.使膨胀，使扩大 | |
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97
atoning
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| v.补偿，赎（罪）( atone的现在分词 )；补偿，弥补，赎回 | |
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98
instinctively
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| adv.本能地 | |
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99
shuddered
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| v.战栗( shudder的过去式和过去分词 )；发抖；（机器、车辆等）突然震动；颤动 | |
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100
serene
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| adj. 安详的，宁静的，平静的 | |
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101
awakening
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| n.觉醒，醒悟 adj.觉醒中的；唤醒的 | |
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102
countless
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| adj.无数的，多得不计其数的 | |
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103
gulf
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| n.海湾；深渊，鸿沟；分歧，隔阂 | |
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104
unnatural
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| adj.不自然的；反常的 | |
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105
pacify
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| vt.使(某人)平静(或息怒)；抚慰 | |
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106
concealed
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| a.隐藏的，隐蔽的 | |
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107
haze
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| n.霾，烟雾；懵懂，迷糊；vi.(over)变模糊 | |
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108
tragic
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| adj.悲剧的，悲剧性的，悲惨的 | |
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109
woe
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| n.悲哀，苦痛，不幸，困难；int.用来表达悲伤或惊慌 | |
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110
ribs
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| n.肋骨( rib的名词复数 )；（船或屋顶等的）肋拱；肋骨状的东西；（织物的）凸条花纹 | |
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111
wrecked
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| adj.失事的，遇难的 | |
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112
protruded
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| v.（使某物）伸出，（使某物）突出( protrude的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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113
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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114
texture
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| n.(织物)质地；(材料)构造；结构；肌理 | |
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115
glistened
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| v.湿物闪耀，闪亮( glisten的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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116
contrite
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| adj.悔悟了的，后悔的，痛悔的 | |
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117
briskness
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| n.敏捷，活泼 | |
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