Only gradually did he learn what had befallen him; that he had laid for weeks unconscious; that he had a broken thigh7 and crushed ribs8; that most of the time he had hovered9 between life and death; that even now he was a very sick man who must lie quiet and do exactly what nurses and doctors told him. This sufficed for a time, while his brain still worked dully. But soon there came a morning when all the memories surged back. He questioned the nurse:
“When do you think I can start for Poland?”
“Perhaps in six months,” she replied soothingly10.
“What for?”
“To join the Polish Army.”
She had nursed through the war, and knew that men in his plight12 were of no further use in armies. Gently she told him so. He stared uncomprehensively on an empty world.
“What can I do when I leave here?”
“You must have a long, long rest, and do nothing at all and think of nothing at all.”
He tried to smile at the nurse’s pleasant face. “You’ve done me a bad turn in bringing me back to life,” said he.
When they thought him capable of grappling with his personal affairs, they brought him his bulging13 pocket-book, and bade him count his money. He laughed. It was quite safe. He handed back the roll of notes into the nurse’s keeping. But the other contents of the case he looked at dismally14: the passport, with the foreign visas; the railway tickets; the letters to Prague and Warsaw. What were the good of them now? He would never go to Poland. When he got strong, all the fighting would be over. And when he did get strong, in a few months or a year, he would probably be lame15, with odds16 and ends of organs gone wrong inside him. He tried to read the letters; but they were written in Polish—unintelligible now in spite of his strenuous17 short study of the language. They bore a signature which he could not decipher. But it was certainly not Boronowski. His mind soon tired of the puzzle. What was the good of keeping the letters? Drearily18 he tore them in pieces and gave them to the nurse to dispose of, when she brought him a meal.
Tired with the effort he slept. He awoke to a sense of something final done, or something important left undone19. As his brain cleared, he realized that subconsciously20 he had been thinking of his duty to Boronowski. Of course, he must be informed at once of the reason for his defection.
And then dismay overwhelmed him. He had no address to Boronowski. The only channels of communication with him, the Prague and Warsaw letters, he had destroyed. A happy idea struck him. He toyed with it for what seemed interminable hours until the nurse came to his bedside. He called for writing materials, which were smilingly denied him. He was too weak. But the nurse would write a short letter from dictation. He dictated21 two identical letters, one to the Polish Legation, one to the Polish Consulate22, asking for the address of Mr. Paul Boronowski, late of 21 Hillditch Street, St. Pancras. By return of post came polite replies from Legation and Consulate. Both disclaimed23 any knowledge of the identity of Mr. Paul Boronowski. Legation and Consulate were blandly24 ignorant of the existence of their confidential25 agents. Then he remembered the baffling signature to the two letters. He laughed somewhat bitterly. His life seemed to be involved in a tangle26 of false names.
After all, what did it matter? But it did matter, vitally. If ever he had set his soul on a true thing, he had set it on keeping faith with Boronowski. And Boronowski like the rest of the world would set him down as an impostor. In his desperate physical weakness the tears rolled down his cheeks; and so the nurse found him, with one of the letters clutched in his thin hand.
“My only friend in the world,” said he.
“Dead?” asked the nurse.
“No. Lost.”
He gave her the letter.
“Surely you have at least one more,” she said. “In fact I have written to her to tell her of your recovery.”
“Her?” He looked at the nurse out of ghastly eyes.
“Miss Myra Stebbings.”
“Oh, my God!” said he, and fainted.
Whereat the nurse, anxious to bring him comforting tidings was exceedingly troubled. The shock put him back for two or three days. He grew light-headed, and raved27 about a woman called Olivia, and about all sorts of strange and incomprehensible things. When he regained28 his senses it was an awakening29 to a life of even more terrifying consternation30 than before. Myra, he learned, had called daily at the hospital—to be denied access to him till he should be in a fit state to receive her. The nurse told him of her first visit the morning after the accident and of the newspaper paragraph which she had chanced to read. But if Myra knew, surely Olivia knew. And Olivia, knowing him to have been for weeks at death’s door, had treated him, as though he had already passed through that door to the other side. Horror gripped him. He questioned the nurse. This Miss Stebbings, had she left no message? No, she was a woman of few words. She had said, in an unemotional way: “I’ll come in again to-morrow.”
“For God’s sake don’t let her see me,” he cried.
But after a while he countermanded31 the request. He would learn the worst, and meet steadily32 the supreme33 punishment, the tale of Olivia’s implacable hatred34. There were degrees in a woman’s scorn. Much he knew he had justly incurred35; but his sick frame shuddered36 at this maximum of contempt and loathing37. Ill-conditioned dog he avowed38 himself; yet to let him die, for aught she knew, like a dog, without sign or word of interest . . . it transcended39 thought.
“Are you sure there has been no other lady? Not a letter of enquiry? Nothing?”
“You’ll make yourself bad again, if you worry like that,” said the nurse.
“I wish to God I could,” said he; “and that would be the end of it all.”
In a large ward3 of a London hospital, nurses have not much time to devote to the sick fancies of patients. More than enough for them were their physical needs. The crumb40 of kindly41 commonplace was all that the nurse could give to the man’s hungering soul. He passed the day, staring up at the mile-high ceiling, incurious as to what vista42 of misery43 lay beyond the still remaining American-cloth covered screen.
From the shaft44 of fierce sunshine on the wall to his right, he gathered that spring had passed into early summer. The outside world was a-riot in the new life of wild flowers and trees and birds and human hopes and loves. Outside that prison of his—a whitewashed45 wall, a screen, a window behind his head reaching sky-high—spread this world with whose pulsations his heart had ever throbbed46 in unison47. God! How he had loved it! Every leaf, every crested48 wave, every patch of sand, every stretch of heat, every rusty49 horse grazing on a common, every child before a cottage door, every vibrating sound or sight of great cities, every waste in regions of grand desolation, every man with sinews or with purpose in his eyes, every woman parading the mystery of her sex, from the tow-haired, dirt-encrusted goose-girl of a Russian village to the wonder of ever inscrutable wonders that was Olivia.
In all his dreams he inevitably50 came back to Olivia. Indeed she was the centripetal51 force of his longings52. All that earth held of the rustle53 of leaves and the murmur54 of waters, the magic of dawn and the roar of town multitudes and the laughter of green forests and the silence of frozen steppes, were incorporated in the woman of his adoration55. Through her spoke56 the voices of the infinite universe. And all that was visible of it, the patch of sunlight on the whitewashed wall, said:
“She lives and I, a reflected glory of her, live too; but even if you go hence I shall only appear mockingly before you, on prison walls, until you are dead. And you will never find me on the blue seas or the joyous57 roads or the stone-bounded, clattering58 haunts of mankind, other than a meaningless mirage59, because the inspired meaning of it all which is Olivia, has passed from you for evermore.”
“Damn you,” said he, and turned away his head, for he could not turn his plaster of Paris encased body, and shut out the white line from his burning eyes.
The next morning Myra came. He had been prepared for her visit. She sat on the cane-bottomed chair by his bedside. As soon as the nurse left them together:
“I’m glad you are better, Sir,” she said.
“Have you brought me any message from Mrs. Triona?” he asked.
She looked at him steadily. “You don’t suppose Mrs. Triona knows you are here?”
It was some time before he could appreciate the meaning of her words.
“She thinks I’m in Poland?”
“She doesn’t know you are here,” said Myra truthfully. “She doesn’t know where you are.”
“Or care?”
“Or care,” said Myra, and her tone was flat like that of a Fate.
For a while he was silent, accepting the finality of Myra’s words.
“You’ve left her in ignorance of my accident?”
“Yes,” said Myra. “Haven’t you done the same since you’ve recovered your wits?”
Her dry logic60 was unanswerable. Yet a man does not expect logic from an elderly waiting-woman. He passed a hand over his eyes and held it there for a long time, while Myra sat patient and unemotional. He understood nothing of her motives61. For the moment he did not seek to understand them. One fact alone mattered. Olivia did not know. She had not, with horrible contempt, left him to die like a dog. By the thought of such a possibility he had wronged her. She might, with every reason, desire never to set eyes on him again—but of active cruelty he should have known her incapable62.
Presently he withdrew his hand and turned to Myra. “My head’s not altogether right yet,” he said half-apologetically.
“I can quite believe it,” said Myra.
“Why you should bother with me, I don’t understand,” he said.
“Neither do I,” she replied in her disconcerting way. “If you had died I shouldn’t have been sorry. For her sake. Now you’re not going to die, I’m glad. For yours.”
“How is your mistress?”
“She is quite well, sir.”
“And happy?”
“Begging your pardon, sir,” said Myra stiffly, “but I’ve not come here to be asked questions. I’ve no intention of your using me as a go-between.”
“It never entered my head,” he declared.
“It might,” said Myra. “So I give you warning. Whatever go-between-ing I do will be to keep you apart from Mrs. Triona.”
“Then why are you worrying about me?” he asked.
Neither of them understood the other. He said suddenly with a flash of the old fire:
“Will you swear you’ll never tell your mistress where I am?”
A faint light flickered65 in her pale eyes. “I’ll swear if you like. But haven’t you taken in what I’ve been telling you all the time?”
“So long as we can trust each other—that is all that matters.”
“You can trust me all right,” said Myra.
They talked the ground over again for a while longer. Then he grew tired with the strain, and the nurse put an end to the interview. But Myra came the next day and the day after that, and Triona grew to long for her visit. He became aware of a crabbed66 kindness in her attitude towards him side by side with her jealous love for Olivia. She was anxious for his welfare within grimly prescribed limitations. His immediate67 future concerned her. What did he purpose to do with his invalid-dom after his discharge from the hospital? He himself, at this stage, had no notion. He confided68 to her the despair of his active life. The motor-lorry had wrecked69 his hopes of salvation71. He told her the whole Boronowski story. Myra nodded; but faithful to the part she had chosen, she said nothing of Boronowski’s letter to Major Olifant. Only by keeping the lives of the ill-fated pair in tightly sealed and non-communicable compartments72, could she be true to an ethical73 code formulated74 by many definite sorrows and many vague, but none the less poignant75, spiritual conflicts.
“It’s funny,” said he, “that you’re the only human being I should know in the world.”
Her intuition skipped the gap of demonstration76 of so extraordinary a pronouncement, and followed his flight into the Unknown.
“It might be luck for you,” she said.
He smiled wistfully on her.
“Why?”
He hung on her answer which she took some time to give. In the lines on the pallid77 face, in the dull blue eyes of this sphinx-like woman so correct in her negative attire78 of black coat and skirt and black hat with just a redeeming79 touch of white, and on the thin, compressed lips, his sick man’s brain seemed to read his destiny. She hovered over him, impressive, baffling, ever about-to-be oracular. Combined with her mystery existed the strange fact that she was his sole link with the world, not only the great humming universe of thought and action, but the inner spiritual world in which Olivia reigned80. He regarded her with superstitious81 dread82 and reverence83; conscious all the time of the comedy of so regarding the woman whose duty had been to fold up his trousers and set out his underclothes on the hot rail of the bathroom.
“What are you going to do when you leave?” she asked, and he guessed a purpose behind her question.
“I must hide until I am strong enough to take up active life again.”
“Where will you hide?”
He didn’t know. He had not thought—so remote did the date of his discharge appear. It must be some secluded84, man-forgotten spot.
“If the worst comes to the worst and you need a place where you’ll be looked after, I’ll give you an address of friends of mine,” said Myra. “You’ll, maybe, spend the rest of your life on crutches85, and have all sorts of things wrong inside you. I shouldn’t like you to feel I was abandoning you. If you were broken down and needed help, I suppose you wouldn’t write to me, would you?”
“I most certainly shouldn’t,” said Triona.
“I thought so,” said Myra. “In that case I’d better give you the address.” She scribbled87 it on the writing pad by his bedside. “There. Take it or leave it. It’s the best I can do.”
“You haven’t had a long holiday, Myra,” Olivia remarked when she arrived.
“I didn’t say I was going on a holiday.”
“I hope things were all right.”
“As right as they ever can be,” replied Myra.
The weary weeks of convalescence89 dragged themselves out. Myra did not come again; and of course he had no other visitor. He made casual acquaintances in the ward; here and there an ex-soldier with whom he could exchange reminiscences of warfare90.
Once a discharged sailor in the next bed—the screen had long since been removed—recovering from an operation, spoke to him of mine-sweeping91 days, and perils92 of storm and submarine and he grew to regard him as a brother. Both regretted the deluging93 waters of the North Sea. The sailor in these times of peace drove a dust cart for the St. Pancras Borough94 Council. The wages were good—but what a life for a sea-faring man! He would have stuck to his old job were it not that a wave had washed him down on the slithery deck and had brought his knee-cap up against a stanchion and had stiffened95 it out so that his career on board-ship was over. But those were good times, weren’t they? Oh yes. Of course they groused96. But they only groused when they had time. Mostly they hadn’t. Dust-collecting was an open-air life, true enough; but there was a difference between the smell of brine and the stench of house refuse. It was in summer that it made him sick. The odours of the fo’c’sle were not those of a hairdresser’s shop—nothing smelt97 so fine, he declared, as a hairdresser’s shop—they were a bit thick, but a man could go on deck and fill his lungs with good salt air. And the grub! What an appetite! He conjured98 up gargantuan99 meals in perilous100 tempests. Nothing of the sort now. Everything he ate tasted of sour potato peelings.
“That’s the taste of everything in these post-war days,” said Triona, “everything in life—sour potato peelings.”
The dustman reckoned he was right. In those old days of mine-sweeping, a man had no anxieties. He had no responsibilities. He was happy as the day was long. Now he was married and already had a couple of kids. Life was just one wearisome worry, a continuous accumulation on the debit101 side of the slate102, with few advantages on the credit side to balance. If it wasn’t the wife it was the boy; if it wasn’t the boy, it was the baby; and if it wasn’t them, it was his appendix which had just been removed. Whoever heard of a sailor-man aboard ship getting appendicitis103? No, all them things, said he, were blessings104 of peace. Besides, how was he going to feed his family when they grew older? And clothes, boots, schooling105? And he himself—limited to beer—and such beer! He hadn’t tasted a drop of rum——. Was there anything like it? Sometimes he saw it and smelt it in his dreams, but he always woke up before he could put his lips to the pannikin. If only one could get something to hold on to in dreams. He never had need to dream of rum in the navy. So much for peace. Give him the good old war again.
And when his wife, a thin lipped, scraggy blonde, with a moth-eaten fur stole round her neck (although it was sweltering summer), and a pallid baby in her arms came to visit him, and spoke querulously of domestic affairs, Triona gave him his unreserved sympathy.
“And it ain’t,” said the ex-mariner, “as if I couldn’t carry on straight and proper in civil life. I wonder how many of my mates are getting what I’m getting. She ought to be proud of me, she ought. Instead of that—you heard what she said?”
Triona had heard. She had upbraided106 him for his ungenteel occupation, considering herself, the daughter (so Triona learned) of a small sweet-stuff monger in Dover, where they had met during his sea-going days, socially degraded by her marriage with a municipal collector of dust. She had married him, by the by, before his present appointment, while he was drawing out-of-work pay. Apparently107 he was possessed108 of some low-comedy histrionic talent, and she was convinced that he could make his fortune as a cinema star.
“You married?” he asked.
“Not now,” said Triona.
“You’ve been through it,” said the misogynist109. “Women! There never was a woman who knew when she was well off! Oh, Gawd! Give me the old days on the Barracouta, where there wasn’t any thought of women. That was my last ship. I had nine months in her. There was Barracouta, Annie Sandys, Seahorse. . . .”
He ran through the names of his squadron, forgetful, in the sudden flush of reminiscence, of domestic cares.
“And what did you say you were in?”
“Vestris.”
Triona agreed, and the eternal talk of the sea went on, until the nostalgia111 for the wide, free spaces of the world gripped his vitals with the pains of hunger.
“What are you going to do when you come out?” asked the dustman.
“About the same as you,” replied Triona. “What’s the good of a man with a game leg?”
The dustman sighed. “You’ve got education,” said he.
At first, aware of accent and manner of expression, the dustman had taken him for an ex-officer. Only the discharge-papers of John Briggs, able-seaman, convinced him of John Briggs lowly estate. Still, in the Barracouta they had an elderly stoker who had been at Cambridge College. Such a man might be his neighbour.
“I ran away to sea when I was a boy,” said Triona.
So had the dustman. He waxed more confidential. His name was Josh Bunnings, and he had sailed in every conceivable kind of craft from Alaska to Singapore. But he had found no time for education. How did his neighbour acquire it? Books? He shook his head. He had been cured of books on his first voyage, when the second mate catching112 him reading a tattered113 manual on gardening, when he ought to have been washing up in the galley114, had kicked and cuffed115 him round the deck. Triona’s mind went back to his boyhood—to an almost identical incident. There was much in common between himself and Josh Bunnings. They had started on even terms. They had met on even terms in the foul116 fo’c’sles on the North Sea. They were on even terms, now, lying side by side, lamed117, their life of free adventure a thing of the past. Each dreaded118 the future; Josh Bunnings condemned119 to cart refuse beneath the affected120 nose of a shrew of a wife for the remainder of his days; he, Triona, to deal with such refuse as the world would leave him, but away from the wife who abhorred121 him and all his works. On the other hand, between him and Josh Bunnings lay a great gulf122. He had made himself a man of wide culture. Josh Bunnings had remained abysmally123 ignorant. But Josh Bunnings had lived his life an honourable124 man. If he told his story to Josh Bunnings he would be condemned by him, even as he had been condemned by his sister on the morning of his mother’s funeral. So, when the dustman, with another sigh, harked back to his former idea and said:
“If only I had education.”
“You’re a damned sight better man than I am, without it,” Triona replied bitterly.
When the three weeks’ comradeship came to an end, on the discharge of Josh Bunnings, he found himself lost again in a friendless world. The neighbouring familiar bed was occupied by an ancient man in the throes of some ghastly malady125, and around him was stretched the horrible, death-suggesting screen. And behind the screen, a week later, the old man died. It was to relieve the nervous tension of this week that he began a correspondence with Josh Bunnings. The writing man’s instinct awoke—the mania126 of self-expression. His letters to the dustman, full of the atmosphere of the ward, vivid with lightning sketches127 of house-surgeons, sisters, nurses and patients, with here and there excursions into contrasting tempests, storms of battle, and everywhere touched with the magic of his queer genius, would, if sent to his literary agents, have gained him a year’s subsistence.
Josh Bunnings visited him occasionally, when freed from municipal, and escaped from domestic, obligations. The visits, he explained, were in return for the letters; for being no scholar, he could not reply. Then one day he appeared and sat on the chair by Triona’s bed, with the air of a man about to bring glad tidings. He was rather a heavy, pallid, clean-shaven man, with a curl of black hair sweeping down to his eyebrows128. His small dark eyes gleamed. At once he disemburdened his honest soul. He was a Church of England man; always held with church-going—so did his wife; it was the great bond of union between them. So he was on friendly terms with the curate of St. Simon’s. And being on friendly terms with the curate, he had shewn him the letters.
“And, would you believe it, mate?” said he. “Would you believe it? He wants to put them in print in the Parish Magazine. In print! Fancy!”
He slapped his thigh. Triona stared at him for a moment and then laughed out loud for the first time for many weeks.
“What are you laughing at?” asked the astonished Bunnings.
“It seems so funny,” said Triona.
“That’s what I thought.”
“And a great honour,” said Triona recovering.
“Of course. Only he said he couldn’t print ’em without your permission.”
Triona gave permission, stipulating129, however, that his name should not be used. His modesty130 forbade it he explained. Josh Bunnings went away delighted. In the course of a few posts came a grateful letter from the curate. In Mr. Briggs’s writing he saw signs of considerable literary talent which he hoped Mr. Briggs would cultivate. If he could be of help in this way, he put his services at Mr. Briggs’s disposal. Triona again laughed, with grim amusement, at a funny, ironical131 world.
Then, suddenly, the underlying132 tragedy of this comic interlude smote133 him breathless. Alexis Triona was dead and so were his writings, for evermore. But the impulse to write stirred within him so vehemently134 that even in these idle letters to Josh Bunnings he had put all his vividness of literary expression. The curate’s dim recognition of the unusual was a sign and a token. Whatever he wrote would be stamped with his individuality and if published, even anonymously135, would lead to his identification. The arresting quality of his style had been a main factor in his success. This flashing pictorial136 way of his he could not change. If he strove self-consciously to write sober prose, he would produce dull, uninspired stuff that no man could read; if he lost self-consciousness, automatically he would betray himself. He would re-appear in the Olivia-dominated world. Every book or article would dance before her eyes like an ignis fatuus, reminding her maddeningly of his existence in her propinquity.
An ignis fatuus. At this point of his reflection he remembered his first talk with her, wherein he had counselled her never to lose faith in her Will-o’-the-Wisp, but to compel it to be her guiding star. More ironical laughter from the high gods! And yet, why not? He wrestled137 with the temptation. As he lay, convalescent on his back, his brain clear, the sap of youth working in his veins138, the uncontrolled fancies of the imaginative writer wove themselves into shreds139 of fine romance and tapestries140 of exquisite141 scenes. Just a little concentration, impossible in the open hospital ward, and all these would blend together into a thing of immortal142 beauty. He would find a publisher. Nothing easier. No name would appear. Or else, perhaps, as a handle for convenience sake, he would sign the book “Incognito.” It would stir the hearts of men, and they would say: “There is but one man living who could do this and that is Alexis Triona.” And Olivia, reading it, and beholding143 him in it, would find her heart stirred with the rest, yet far far more deeply than the rest, and would seek him out, obeying his far-off counsel, and believe that, in his essential self and in his infinite love, he was verily her guiding-star.
But when the hour of exaltation had passed and given way to the dreary144 commonplace, when the nurse came to wash him like a child, or to chatter145 pleasantly of the outside world, the revue which she had seen on her free afternoon, or the sentimental146 novel which had beguiled147 her scanty148 leisure, he knew that he had been living in a land of dreams. His real achievement Olivia knew, and by it she was unmoved. Myra had held out to him no chance of hope; only certainty of despair. By no further achievement could Olivia be persuaded. She realized her Will-o’-the-Wisp as what it really was, a miasmatic149 gas leading her into quagmires150. She would bitterly resent his reappearance. It would be another trick, another way of flaunting151 before her under false pretences152. As well write to her now that he was a mangled153 wreck70 in University College Hospital.
In the course of time he was able to leave his bed and be wheeled about the ward and afterwards to hobble about on a crutch86. But the injured leg was just a bit shorter than the other, so that he was condemned to a perpetual limp; and though the ribs were mended, yet their breakage had occasioned internal lesions which would have to be watched for the rest of his life. No more adventures in wide spaces. No more tramps to John o’ Groats.
“But I’m a born wanderer,” he cried to the surgeon who made the final pronouncement. “What shall I do when the wander fever is on me?”
He laughed into the smiling kindly face, and was silent for a moment.
“I can drive a car, I suppose?” he said after a while.
“Safer to drive a horse. You haven’t to crank it up.”
“So I’m going out, a hopeless crock.”
“Oh no. There’s no reason why you shouldn’t live, with reasonable care, to ninety. You’re fit for light work. Why not office work? An educated chap like you——By the way, you were off to Poland, if I remember rightly, when you met with your accident. What’s your trade or profession?”
“Before the war, I was a cosmopolitan155 chauffeur,” said Triona.
“And since?”
“The damnedest fool God ever made.”
The surgeon asked him no more questions.
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cubicle
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| n.大房间中隔出的小室 | |
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upwards
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| adv.向上，在更高处...以上 | |
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ward
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| n.守卫，监护，病房，行政区，由监护人或法院保护的人（尤指儿童）；vt.守护，躲开 | |
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killing
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| n.巨额利润；突然赚大钱，发大财 | |
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sagely
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| adv. 贤能地，贤明地 | |
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devoid
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| adj.全无的，缺乏的 | |
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thigh
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| n.大腿；股骨 | |
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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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hovered
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| 鸟( hover的过去式和过去分词 )； 靠近（某事物）； （人）徘徊； 犹豫 | |
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soothingly
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| adv.抚慰地，安慰地；镇痛地 | |
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groaned
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| v.呻吟( groan的过去式和过去分词 )；发牢骚；抱怨；受苦 | |
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plight
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| n.困境，境况，誓约，艰难；vt.宣誓，保证，约定 | |
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bulging
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| 膨胀； 凸出（部）； 打气； 折皱 | |
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dismally
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| adv.阴暗地，沉闷地 | |
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lame
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| adj.跛的，(辩解、论据等)无说服力的 | |
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odds
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| n.让步，机率，可能性，比率；胜败优劣之别 | |
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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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drearily
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| 沉寂地，厌倦地，可怕地 | |
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19
undone
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| a.未做完的，未完成的 | |
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20
subconsciously
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| ad.下意识地，潜意识地 | |
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21
dictated
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| v.大声讲或读( dictate的过去式和过去分词 )；口授；支配；摆布 | |
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22
consulate
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| n.领事馆 | |
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23
disclaimed
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| v.否认( disclaim的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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24
blandly
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| adv.温和地，殷勤地 | |
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25
confidential
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| adj.秘（机）密的，表示信任的，担任机密工作的 | |
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26
tangle
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| n.纠缠；缠结；混乱；v.(使)缠绕；变乱 | |
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raved
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| v.胡言乱语( rave的过去式和过去分词 )；愤怒地说；咆哮；痴心地说 | |
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28
regained
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| 复得( regain的过去式和过去分词 )； 赢回； 重回； 复至某地 | |
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29
awakening
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| n.觉醒，醒悟 adj.觉醒中的；唤醒的 | |
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30
consternation
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| n.大为吃惊，惊骇 | |
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31
countermanded
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| v.取消（命令），撤回( countermand的过去分词 ) | |
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32
steadily
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| adv.稳定地；不变地；持续地 | |
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33
supreme
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| adj.极度的，最重要的；至高的，最高的 | |
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34
hatred
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| n.憎恶，憎恨，仇恨 | |
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35
incurred
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| [医]招致的，遭受的； incur的过去式 | |
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36
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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37
loathing
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| n.厌恶，憎恨v.憎恨，厌恶( loathe的现在分词)；极不喜欢 | |
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38
avowed
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| adj.公开声明的，承认的v.公开声明，承认( avow的过去式和过去分词) | |
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39
transcended
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| 超出或超越（经验、信念、描写能力等）的范围( transcend的过去式和过去分词 )； 优于或胜过… | |
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40
crumb
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| n.饼屑，面包屑，小量 | |
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41
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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42
vista
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| n.远景，深景，展望，回想 | |
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43
misery
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| n.痛苦，苦恼，苦难；悲惨的境遇，贫苦 | |
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44
shaft
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| n.(工具的)柄，杆状物 | |
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45
whitewashed
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| 粉饰，美化，掩饰( whitewash的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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46
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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47
unison
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| n.步调一致，行动一致 | |
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48
crested
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| adj.有顶饰的，有纹章的，有冠毛的v.到达山顶（或浪峰）( crest的过去式和过去分词 )；到达洪峰，达到顶点 | |
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49
rusty
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| adj.生锈的；锈色的；荒废了的 | |
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50
inevitably
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| adv.不可避免地；必然发生地 | |
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51
centripetal
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| adj.向心的 | |
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52
longings
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| 渴望，盼望( longing的名词复数 ) | |
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53
rustle
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| v.沙沙作响；偷盗(牛、马等)；n.沙沙声声 | |
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54
murmur
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| n.低语，低声的怨言；v.低语，低声而言 | |
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55
adoration
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| n.爱慕，崇拜 | |
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56
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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57
joyous
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| adj.充满快乐的；令人高兴的 | |
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58
clattering
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| 发出咔哒声（clatter的现在分词形式） | |
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59
mirage
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| n.海市蜃楼，幻景 | |
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60
logic
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| n.逻辑(学)；逻辑性 | |
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61
motives
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| n.动机，目的( motive的名词复数 ) | |
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62
incapable
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| adj.无能力的，不能做某事的 | |
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63
irony
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| n.反语，冷嘲；具有讽刺意味的事，嘲弄 | |
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64
Christian
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| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
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65
flickered
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| （通常指灯光）闪烁，摇曳( flicker的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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66
crabbed
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| adj.脾气坏的；易怒的；（指字迹）难辨认的；（字迹等）难辨认的v.捕蟹( crab的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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67
immediate
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| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
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68
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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69
wrecked
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| adj.失事的，遇难的 | |
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70
wreck
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| n.失事，遇难；沉船；vt.(船等)失事，遇难 | |
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71
salvation
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| n.（尤指基督）救世，超度，拯救，解困 | |
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72
compartments
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| n.间隔( compartment的名词复数 )；（列车车厢的）隔间；（家具或设备等的）分隔间；隔层 | |
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73
ethical
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| adj.伦理的，道德的，合乎道德的 | |
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74
formulated
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| v.构想出( formulate的过去式和过去分词 )；规划；确切地阐述；用公式表示 | |
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75
poignant
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| adj.令人痛苦的，辛酸的，惨痛的 | |
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76
demonstration
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| n.表明，示范，论证，示威 | |
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77
pallid
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| adj.苍白的，呆板的 | |
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78
attire
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| v.穿衣，装扮[同]array；n.衣着；盛装 | |
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79
redeeming
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| 补偿的，弥补的 | |
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80
reigned
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| vi.当政，统治（reign的过去式形式） | |
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81
superstitious
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| adj.迷信的 | |
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82
dread
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| vt.担忧，忧虑；惧怕，不敢；n.担忧，畏惧 | |
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83
reverence
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| n.敬畏，尊敬，尊严；Reverence:对某些基督教神职人员的尊称；v.尊敬，敬畏，崇敬 | |
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84
secluded
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|
| adj.与世隔绝的；隐退的；偏僻的v.使隔开，使隐退( seclude的过去式和过去分词) | |
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85
crutches
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| n.拐杖, 支柱 v.支撑 | |
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86
crutch
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| n.T字形拐杖；支持，依靠，精神支柱 | |
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87
scribbled
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| v.潦草的书写( scribble的过去式和过去分词 )；乱画；草草地写；匆匆记下 | |
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88
abrupt
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| adj.突然的，意外的；唐突的，鲁莽的 | |
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89
convalescence
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| n.病后康复期 | |
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90
warfare
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| n.战争(状态)；斗争；冲突 | |
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91
sweeping
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| adj.范围广大的，一扫无遗的 | |
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92
perils
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| 极大危险( peril的名词复数 )； 危险的事（或环境） | |
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93
deluging
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| v.使淹没( deluge的现在分词 )；淹没；被洪水般涌来的事物所淹没；穷于应付 | |
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94
borough
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| n.享有自治权的市镇；(英)自治市镇 | |
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95
stiffened
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| 加强的 | |
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96
groused
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| v.抱怨，发牢骚( grouse的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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97
smelt
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| v.熔解，熔炼；n.银白鱼，胡瓜鱼 | |
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98
conjured
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| 用魔术变出( conjure的过去式和过去分词 )； 祈求，恳求； 变戏法； （变魔术般地） 使…出现 | |
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99
gargantuan
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| adj.巨大的，庞大的 | |
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100
perilous
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| adj.危险的，冒险的 | |
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101
debit
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| n.借方，借项，记人借方的款项 | |
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102
slate
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| n.板岩，石板，石片，石板色，候选人名单；adj.暗蓝灰色的，含板岩的；vt.用石板覆盖，痛打，提名，预订 | |
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103
appendicitis
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| n.阑尾炎，盲肠炎 | |
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104
blessings
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| n.（上帝的）祝福( blessing的名词复数 )；好事；福分；因祸得福 | |
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105
schooling
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| n.教育；正规学校教育 | |
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106
upbraided
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| v.责备，申斥，谴责( upbraid的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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107
apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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108
possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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109
misogynist
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| n.厌恶女人的人 | |
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110
torpedoed
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| 用鱼雷袭击（torpedo的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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111
nostalgia
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| n.怀乡病，留恋过去，怀旧 | |
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112
catching
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| adj.易传染的，有魅力的，迷人的，接住 | |
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113
tattered
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| adj.破旧的，衣衫破的 | |
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114
galley
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| n.（飞机或船上的）厨房单层甲板大帆船；军舰舰长用的大划艇； | |
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115
cuffed
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| v.掌打，拳打( cuff的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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116
foul
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| adj.污秽的；邪恶的；v.弄脏；妨害；犯规；n.犯规 | |
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117
lamed
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| 希伯莱语第十二个字母 | |
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118
dreaded
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| adj.令人畏惧的；害怕的v.害怕，恐惧，担心( dread的过去式和过去分词) | |
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119
condemned
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| adj. 被责难的, 被宣告有罪的 动词condemn的过去式和过去分词 | |
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120
affected
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| adj.不自然的，假装的 | |
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121
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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122
gulf
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| n.海湾；深渊，鸿沟；分歧，隔阂 | |
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123
abysmally
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| adv.极糟地；可怕地；完全地；极端地 | |
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124
honourable
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| adj.可敬的；荣誉的，光荣的 | |
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125
malady
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| n.病，疾病(通常做比喻) | |
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126
mania
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| n.疯狂；躁狂症，狂热，癖好 | |
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127
sketches
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| n.草图( sketch的名词复数 )；素描；速写；梗概 | |
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128
eyebrows
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| 眉毛( eyebrow的名词复数 ) | |
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129
stipulating
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| v.（尤指在协议或建议中）规定，约定，讲明（条件等）( stipulate的现在分词 )；规定，明确要求 | |
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130
modesty
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| n.谦逊，虚心，端庄，稳重，羞怯，朴素 | |
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131
ironical
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| adj.讽刺的，冷嘲的 | |
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132
underlying
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| adj.在下面的，含蓄的，潜在的 | |
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133
smote
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| v.猛打，重击，打击( smite的过去式 ) | |
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134
vehemently
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| adv. 热烈地 | |
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135
anonymously
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| ad.用匿名的方式 | |
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136
pictorial
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| adj.绘画的；图片的；n．画报 | |
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137
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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138
veins
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| n.纹理；矿脉( vein的名词复数 )；静脉；叶脉；纹理 | |
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139
shreds
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| v.撕碎，切碎( shred的第三人称单数 )；用撕毁机撕毁（文件） | |
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140
tapestries
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| n.挂毯( tapestry的名词复数 )；绣帷，织锦v.用挂毯（或绣帷）装饰( tapestry的第三人称单数 ) | |
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141
exquisite
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| adj.精美的；敏锐的；剧烈的，感觉强烈的 | |
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142
immortal
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| adj.不朽的；永生的，不死的；神的 | |
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143
beholding
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| v.看，注视( behold的现在分词 )；瞧；看呀；（叙述中用于引出某人意外的出现）哎哟 | |
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144
dreary
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| adj.令人沮丧的，沉闷的，单调乏味的 | |
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145
chatter
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| vi.／n.喋喋不休；短促尖叫；(牙齿)打战 | |
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146
sentimental
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| adj.多愁善感的，感伤的 | |
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147
beguiled
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| v.欺骗( beguile的过去式和过去分词 )；使陶醉；使高兴；消磨（时间等） | |
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148
scanty
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| adj.缺乏的，仅有的，节省的，狭小的，不够的 | |
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149
miasmatic
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| adj.毒气的，沼气的 | |
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150
quagmires
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| n.沼泽地，泥潭( quagmire的名词复数 ) | |
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151
flaunting
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| adj.招摇的，扬扬得意的，夸耀的v.炫耀，夸耀( flaunt的现在分词 )；有什么能耐就施展出来 | |
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152
pretences
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| n.假装( pretence的名词复数 )；作假；自命；自称 | |
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153
mangled
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| vt.乱砍（mangle的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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154
leeches
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| n.水蛭( leech的名词复数 )；蚂蟥；榨取他人脂膏者；医生 | |
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155
cosmopolitan
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| adj.世界性的，全世界的，四海为家的，全球的 | |
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