Mr. Gumbril was almost the last survivor5 of the old inhabitants. He liked his house, and he liked his square. Social decadence6 had not affected7 the fourteen plane trees which adorned8 its little garden, and the gambols9 of the dirty children did not disturb the starlings who came, evening by evening in summer-time, to roost in their branches.
On fine evenings he used to sit out on his balcony waiting for the coming of the birds. And just at sunset, when the sky was most golden, there would be a twittering overhead, and the black, innumerable flocks of starlings would come sweeping10 across on the way from their daily haunts to their roosting-places, chosen so capriciously among the tree-planted 18squares and gardens of the city and so tenaciously11 retained, year after year, to the exclusion12 of every other place. Why his fourteen plane trees should have been chosen, Mr. Gumbril could never imagine. There were plenty of larger and more umbrageous13 gardens all round; but they remained birdless, while every evening, from the larger flocks, a faithful legion detached itself to settle clamorously among his trees. They sat and chattered14 till the sun went down and twilight15 was past, with intervals16 every now and then of silence that fell suddenly and inexplicably17 on all the birds at once, lasted through a few seconds of thrilling suspense18, to end as suddenly and senselessly in an outburst of the same loud and simultaneous conversation.
The starlings were Mr. Gumbril’s most affectionately cherished friends; sitting out on his balcony to watch and listen to them, he had caught at the shut of treacherous19 evenings many colds and chills on the liver, he had laid up for himself many painful hours of rheumatism20. These little accidents did nothing, however, to damp his affection for the birds; and still on every evening that could possibly be called fine, he was always to be seen in the twilight, sitting on the balcony, gazing up, round-spectacled and rapt, at the fourteen plane trees. The breezes stirred in his grey hair, tossing it up in long, light wisps that fell across his forehead and over his spectacles; and then he would shake his head impatiently, and the bony hand would be freed for a moment from its unceasing combing and clutching of the sparse21 grey beard to push back the strayed tendrils, to smooth and reduce to order the whole ruffled22 head. The birds chattered on, the hand went back to its clutching and combing; once more the wind blew; 19darkness came down, and the gas lamps round the square lit up the outer leaves of the plane trees, touched the privet bushes inside the railings with an emerald light; behind them was impenetrable night; instead of shorn grass and bedded geraniums there was mystery, there were endless depths. And the birds at last were silent.
Mr. Gumbril would get up from his iron chair, stretch his arms and his stiff cold legs and go in through the French window to work. The birds were his diversion; when they were silent, it was time to think of serious matters.
To-night, however, he was not working; for always on Sunday evenings his old friend Porteous came to dine and talk. Breaking in unexpectedly at midnight, Gumbril Junior found them sitting in front of the gas fire in his father’s study.
“My dear fellow, what on earth are you doing here?” Gumbril Senior jumped up excitedly at his son’s entrance. The light silky hair floated up with the movement, turned for a moment into a silver aureole, then subsided23 again. Mr. Porteous stayed where he was, calm, solid and undishevelled as a seated pillar-box. He wore a monocle on a black ribbon, a black stock tie that revealed above its double folds a quarter of an inch of stiff white collar, a double-breasted black coat, a pair of pale checked trousers and patent leather boots with cloth tops. Mr. Porteous was very particular about his appearance. Meeting him casually24 for the first time, one would not have guessed that Mr. Porteous was an expert on Late Latin poetry; and he did not mean that you should guess. Thin-limbed, bent25 and agile26 in his loose, crumpled27 clothes, Gumbril Senior had the air, beside Mr. Porteous, of a strangely animated28 scarecrow.
20“What on earth?” the old gentleman repeated his question.
Gumbril Junior shrugged29 his shoulders. “I was bored, I decided30 to cease being a schoolmaster.” He spoke31 with a fine airy assumption of carelessness. “How are you, Mr. Porteous?”
“Thank you, invariably well.”
“Well, well,” said Gumbril Senior, sitting down again, “I must say I’m not surprised. I’m only surprised that you stood it, not being a born pedagogue32, for as long as you did. What ever induced you to think of turning usher33, I can’t imagine.” He looked at his son first through his spectacles, then over the top of them; the motives34 of the boy’s conduct revealed themselves to neither vision.
“What else was there for me to do?” asked Gumbril Junior, pulling up a chair towards the fire. “You gave me a pedagogue’s education and washed your hands of me. No opportunities, no openings. I had no alternative. And now you reproach me.”
Mr. Gumbril made an impatient gesture. “You’re talking nonsense,” he said. “The only point of the kind of education you had is this, it gives a young man leisure to find out what he’s interested in. You apparently36 weren’t sufficiently37 interested in anything——”
“I am interested in everything,” interrupted Gumbril Junior.
“Which comes to the same thing,” said his father parenthetically, “as being interested in nothing.” And he went on from the point at which he had been interrupted. “You weren’t sufficiently interested in anything to want to devote yourself to it. That was why you sought the last refuge of feeble minds with classical educations, you became a schoolmaster.”
21“Come, come,” said Mr. Porteous. “I do a little teaching myself; I must stand up for the profession.”
Gumbril Senior let go his beard and brushed back the hair that the wind of his own vehemence38 had brought tumbling into his eyes. “I don’t denigrate39 the profession,” he said. “Not at all. It would be an excellent profession if every one who went into it were as much interested in teaching as you are in your job, Porteous, or I in mine. It’s these undecided creatures like Theodore, who ruin it by drifting in. Until all teachers are geniuses and enthusiasts40, nobody will learn anything, except what they teach themselves.”
“Still,” said Mr. Porteous, “I wish I hadn’t had to learn so much by myself. I wasted a lot of time finding out how to set to work and where to discover what I wanted.”
Gumbril Junior was lighting41 his pipe. “I have come to the conclusion,” he said, speaking in little jerks between each suck of the flame into the bowl, “that most people ... ought never ... to be taught anything at all.” He threw away the match. “Lord have mercy upon us, they’re dogs. What’s the use of teaching them anything except to behave well, to work and obey. Facts, theories, the truth about the universe—what good are those to them? Teach them to understand—why, it only confuses them; makes them lose hold of the simple real appearance. Not more than one in a hundred can get any good out of a scientific or literary education.”
“And you’re one of the ones?” asked his father.
“That goes without saying,” Gumbril Junior replied.
“I think you mayn’t be so far wrong,” said Mr. Porteous. “When I think of my own children, for example....” 22he sighed, “I thought they’d be interested in the things that interested me; they don’t seem to be interested in anything but behaving like little apes—not very anthropoid42 ones either, for that matter. At my eldest43 boy’s age I used to sit up most of the night reading Latin texts. He sits up—or rather stands, reels, trots44 up—dancing and drinking. Do you remember St. Bernard? ‘Vigilet tota nocte luxuriosus non solum patienter’ (the ascetic45 and the scholar only watch patiently); ‘sed et libenter, ut suam expleat voluptatem.’ What the wise man does out of a sense of duty, the fool does for fun. And I’ve tried very hard to make him like Latin.”
“Well in any case,” said Gumbril Junior, “you didn’t try to feed him on history. That’s the real unforgivable sin. And that’s what I’ve been doing, up till this evening—encouraging boys of fifteen and sixteen to specialize in history, hours and hours a week, making them read bad writers’ generalizations46 about subjects on which only our ignorance allows us to generalize; teaching them to reproduce these generalizations in horrid47 little ‘Essays’ of their own; rotting their minds, in fact, with a diet of soft vagueness; scandalous it was. If these creatures are to be taught anything, it should be something hard and definite. Latin—that’s excellent. Mathematics, physical science. Let them read history for amusement, certainly. But for Heaven’s sake don’t make it the staple48 of education!” Gumbril Junior spoke with the greatest earnestness, as though he were an inspector49 of schools, making a report. It was a subject on which, at the moment, he felt very profoundly; he felt profoundly on all subjects while he was talking about them. “I wrote a long letter to the Headmaster about the teaching of history this evening,” 23he added. “It’s most important.” He shook his head thoughtfully, “Most important.”
“Hora novissima, tempora pessimma sunt, vigilemus,” said Mr. Porteous, in the words of St. Peter Damianus.
“Very true,” Gumbril Senior applauded. “And talking about bad times, Theodore, what do you propose to do now, may I ask?”
“I mean to begin by making some money.”
Gumbril Senior put his hands on his knees, bent forward and laughed, “Ha, ha, ha!” He had a profound bell-like laugh that was like the croaking50 of a very large and melodious51 frog. “You won’t,” he said, and shook his head till the hair fell into his eyes. “You won’t,” and he laughed again.
“To make money,” said Mr. Porteous, “one must be really interested in money.”
“And he’s not,” said Gumbril Senior. “None of us are.”
“When I was still uncommonly52 hard up,” Mr. Porteous continued, “we used to lodge53 in the same house with a Russian Jew, who was a furrier. That man was interested in money, if you like. It was a passion, an enthusiasm, an ideal. He could have led a comfortable, easy life, and still have made enough to put by something for his old age. But for his high abstract ideal of money he suffered more than Michelangelo ever suffered for his art. He used to work nineteen hours a day, and the other five he slept, lying under his bench, in the dirt, breathing into his lungs the stink54 and the broken hairs. He is now very rich indeed and does nothing with his money, doesn’t want to do anything, doesn’t know what one does do with it. He desires neither power nor pleasure. His desire for lucre55 is purely56 disinterested57. He reminds me of Browning’s ‘Grammarian.’ I have a great admiration58 for him.”
24Mr. Porteous’s own passion had been for the poems of Notker Balbulus and St. Bernard. It had taken him nearly twenty years to get himself and his family out of the house where the Russian furrier used to lodge. But Notker was worth it, he used to say; Notker was worth even the weariness and the pallor of a wife who worked beyond her strength, even the shabbiness of ill-dressed and none too well-fed children. He had readjusted his monocle and gone on. But there had been occasions when it needed more than the monocle and the careful, distinguished59 clothes to keep up his morale60. Still, those times were over now; Notker had brought him at last a kind of fame—even, indirectly61, a certain small prosperity.
Gumbril Senior turned once more towards his son. “And how do you propose,” he asked, “to make this money?”
Gumbril Junior explained. He had thought it all out in the cab on the way from the station. “It came to me this morning,” he said, “in chapel62, during service.”
“Monstrous,” put in Gumbril Senior, with a genuine indignation, “monstrous these medi?val survivals in schools! Chapel, indeed!”
“It came,” Gumbril Junior went on, “like an apocalypse, suddenly, like a divine inspiration. A grand and luminous64 idea came to me—the idea of Gumbril’s Patent Small-Clothes.”
“And what are Gumbril’s Patent Small-Clothes?”
“A boon65 to those whose occupation is sedentary”; Gumbril Junior had already composed his prospectus67 and his first advertisements: “a comfort to all travellers, civilization’s substitute for steatopygism, indispensable to first-nighters, the concert-goers’ friend, the....”
25“Lectulus Dei floridus,” intoned Mr. Porteous.
“Gazophylacium Ecclesi?,
Cithara benesonans Dei,
Cymbalum jubilationis Christi,
Your small-clothes sound to me very like one of my old litanies, Theodore.”
“We want scientific descriptions, not litanies,” said Gumbril Senior. “What are Gumbril’s Patent Small-Clothes?”
“Scientifically, then,” said Gumbril Junior, “my Patent Small-Clothes may be described as trousers with a pneumatic seat, inflateable by means of a tube fitted with a valve; the whole constructed of stout68 seamless red rubber, enclosed between two layers of cloth.”
“I must say,” said Gumbril Senior on a tone of somewhat grudging69 approbation70, “I have heard of worse inventions. You are too stout, Porteous, to be able to appreciate the idea. We Gumbrils are all a bony lot.”
“When I have taken out a patent for my invention,” his son went on, very business-like and cool, “I shall either sell it to some capitalist, or I shall exploit it commercially myself. In either case, I shall make money, which is more, I may say, than you or any other Gumbril have ever done.”
“Quite right,” said Gumbril Senior, “quite right”; and he laughed very cheerfully. “And nor will you. You can be grateful to your intolerable Aunt Flo for having left you that three hundred a year. You’ll need it. But if you really want a capitalist,” he went on, “I have exactly the man for you. He’s a man who has a mania71 for buying Tudor houses and making them more Tudor than they are. 26I’ve pulled half a dozen of the wretched things to pieces and put them together again differently for him.”
“He doesn’t sound much good to me,” said his son.
“Well, what is his business?”
“Well, it seems to be everything. Patent medicine, trade newspapers, bankrupt tobacconist’s stock—he’s talked to me about those and heaps more. He seems to flit like a butterfly in search of honey, or rather money.”
“And he makes it?”
“Well, he pays my fees and he buys more Tudor houses, and he gives me luncheons72 at the Ritz. That’s all I know.”
“Well, there’s no harm in trying.”
“I’ll write to him,” said Gumbril Senior. “His name is Boldero. He’ll either laugh at your idea or take it and give you nothing for it. Still,” he looked at his son over the top of his spectacles, “if by any conceivable chance you ever should become rich; if, if, if....” And he emphasized the remoteness of the conditional73 by raising his eyebrows74 a little higher, by throwing out his hands in a dubious75 gesture a little farther at every repetition of the word, “if—why, then I’ve got exactly the thing for you. Look at this really delightful76 little idea I had this afternoon.” He put his hand in his coat pocket and after some sorting and sifting77 produced a sheet of squared paper on which was roughly drawn78 the elevation79 of a house. “For any one with eight or ten thousand to spend, this would be—this would be....” Gumbril Senior smoothed his hair and hesitated, searching for something strong enough to say of his little idea. “Well, this would be much too good for 27most of the greasy80 devils who do have eight or ten thousand to spend.”
He passed the sheet to Gumbril Junior, who held it out so that both Mr. Porteous and himself could look at it. Gumbril Senior got up from his chair and, standing81 behind them, leant over to elucidate82 and explain.
“You see the idea,” he said, anxious lest they should fail to understand. “A central block of three stories, with low wings of only one, ending in pavilions with a second floor. And the flat roofs of the wings are used as gardens—you see?—protected from the north by a wall. In the east wing there is the kitchen and the garage, with the maids’ rooms in the pavilion at the end. The west is a library, and it has an arcaded83 loggia along the front. And instead of a solid superstructure corresponding to the maids’ rooms, there’s a pergola with brick piers84. You see? And in the main block there’s a Spanish sort of balcony along the whole length at first-floor level; that gives a good horizontal line. And you get the perpendiculars85 with coigns and raised panels. And the roof’s hidden by a balustrade, and there are balustrades along the open sides of the roof gardens on the wings. All in brick it is. This is the garden front; the entrance front will be admirable too. Do you like it?”
Gumbril Junior nodded. “Very much,” he said.
His father sighed and taking the sketch86 put it back in his pocket. “You must hurry up with your ten thousand,” he said. “And you Porteous, and you. I’ve been waiting so long to build your splendid house.”
Laughing, Mr. Porteous got up from his chair. “And long, dear Gumbril,” he said, “may you continue to wait. For my splendid house won’t be built this side of New 28Jerusalem, and you must go on living a long time yet. A long, long time,” Mr. Porteous repeated; and carefully he buttoned up his double-breasted coat, carefully, as though he were adjusting an instrument of precision, he took out and replaced his monocle. Then, very erect87 and neat, very soldierly and pillar-boxical, he marched towards the door. “You’ve kept me very late to-night,” he said. “Unconscionably late.”
The front door closed heavily behind Mr. Porteous’s departure. Gumbril Senior came upstairs again into the big room on the first floor smoothing down his hair, which the impetuosity of his ascent88 had once more disarranged.
“That’s a good fellow,” he said of his departed guest, “a splendid fellow.”
“I always admire the monocle,” said Gumbril Junior irrelevantly89. But his father turned the irrelevance90 into relevance91.
“He couldn’t have come through without it, I believe. It was a symbol, a proud flag. Poverty’s squalid, not fine at all. The monocle made a kind of difference, you understand. I’m always so enormously thankful I had a little money. I couldn’t have stuck it without. It needs strength, more strength than I’ve got.” He clutched his beard close under the chin and remained for a moment pensively92 silent. “The advantage of Porteous’s line of business,” he went on at last, reflectively, “is that it can be carried on by oneself, without collaboration93. There’s no need to appeal to any one outside oneself, or to have any dealings with other people at all, if one doesn’t want to. That’s so deplorable about architecture. There’s no privacy, so to speak; always this horrible jostling with clients and builders and contractors94 and people, before one 29can get anything done. It’s really revolting. I’m not good at people. Most of them I don’t like at all, not at all,” Mr. Gumbril repeated with vehemence. “I don’t deal with them very well; it isn’t my business. My business is architecture. But I don’t often get a chance of practising it. Not properly.”
Gumbril Senior smiled rather sadly. “Still,” he said, “I can do something. I have my talent, I have my imagination. They can’t take those from me. Come and see what I’ve been doing lately.”
He led the way out of the room and mounted, two steps at a time, towards a higher floor. He opened the door of what should have been, in a well-ordered house, the Best Bedroom, and slipped into the darkness.
“Don’t rush in,” he called back to his son, “for God’s sake don’t rush in. You’ll smash something. Wait till I’ve turned on the light. It’s so like these asinine95 electricians to have hidden the switch behind the door like this.” Gumbril Junior heard him fumbling96 in the darkness; there was suddenly light. He stepped in.
The only furniture in the room consisted of a couple of long trestle tables. On these, on the mantelpiece and all over the floor, were scattered97 confusedly, like the elements of a jumbled98 city, a vast collection of architectural models. There were cathedrals, there were town halls, universities, public libraries, there were three or four elegant little sky-scrapers, there were blocks of offices, huge warehouses99, factories, and finally dozens of magnificent country mansions100, complete with their terraced gardens, their noble flights of steps, their fountains and ornamental101 waters and grandly bridged canals, their little rococo102 pavilions and garden houses.
30“Aren’t they beautiful?” Gumbril Senior turned enthusiastically towards his son. His long grey hair floated wispily about his head, his spectacles flashed, and behind them his eyes shone with emotion.
“Beautiful,” Gumbril Junior agreed.
“When you’re really rich,” said his father, “I’ll build you one of these.” And he pointed103 to a little village of Chatsworths clustering, at one end of a long table, round the dome104 of a vaster and austerer St. Peter’s. “Look at this one, for example.” He picked his way nimbly across the room, seized the little electric reading-lamp that stood between a railway station and a baptistery on the mantelpiece, and was back again in an instant, trailing behind him a long flex105 that, as it tautened out, twitched106 one of the crowning pinnacles107 off the top of a sky-scraper near the fireplace. “Look,” he repeated, “look.” He switched on the current, and moving the lamp back and forth108, up and down in front of the miniature palace. “See the beauty of the light and shade,” he said. “There, underneath109 the great, ponderous110 cornice, isn’t that fine? And look how splendidly the pilasters carry up the vertical111 lines. And then the solidity of it, the size, the immense, impending112 bleakness113 of it!” He threw up his arms, he turned his eyes upwards114 as though standing overwhelmed at the foot of some huge precipitous fa?ade. The lights and shadows vacillated wildly through all the city of palaces and domes115 as he brandished116 the lamp in ecstasy117 above his head.
“And then,” he had suddenly stooped down, he was peering and pointing once more into the details of his palace, “then there’s the doorway118—all florid and rich with carving119. How magnificently and surprisingly it flowers out of the bare walls! Like the colossal120 writing of 31Darius, like the figures graven in the bald face of the precipice121 over Behistun—unexpected and beautiful and human, human in the surrounding emptiness.”
Gumbril Senior brushed back his hair and turned, smiling, to look at his son over the top of his spectacles.
“Very fine,” Gumbril Junior nodded to him. “But isn’t the wall a little too blank? You seem to allow very few windows in this vast palazzo.”
“True,” his father replied, “very true.” He sighed. “I’m afraid this design would hardly do for England. It’s meant for a place where there’s some sun—where you do your best to keep the light out, instead of letting it in, as you have to do here. Windows are the curse of architecture in this country. Your walls have to be like sieves122, all holes, it’s heart-breaking. If you wanted me to build you this house, you’d have to live in Barbados or somewhere like that.”
“There’s nothing I should like better,” said Gumbril Junior.
“Another great advantage of sunny countries,” Gumbril Senior pursued, “is that one can really live like an aristocrat123, in privacy, by oneself. No need to look out on the dirty world or to let the dirty world look in on you. Here’s this great house, for example, looking out on the world through a few dark portholes and a single cavernous doorway. But look inside.” He held his lamp above the courtyard that was at the heart of the palace. Gumbril Junior leaned and looked, like his father. “All the life looks inwards—into a lovely courtyard, a more than Spanish patio66. Look there at the treble tiers of arcades124, the vaulted125 cloisters126 for your cool peripatetic127 meditations128, the central Triton spouting129 white water into a marble pool, the 32mosaic work on the floor and flowering up the walls, brilliant against the white stucco. And there’s the archway that leads out into the gardens. And now you must come and have a look at the garden front.”
He walked round with his lamp to the other side of the table. There was suddenly a crash; the wire had twitched a cathedral from off the table. It lay on the floor in disastrous130 ruin as though shattered by some appalling131 cataclysm132.
“Hell and death!” said Gumbril Senior in an outburst of Elizabethan fury. He put down the lamp and ran to see how irreparable the disaster had been. “They’re so horribly expensive, these models,” he explained, as he bent over the ruins. Tenderly he picked up the pieces and replaced them on the table. “It might have been worse,” he said at last, brushing the dust off his hands. “Though I’m afraid that dome will never be quite the same again.” Picking up the lamp once more, he held it high above his head and stood looking out, with a melancholy133 satisfaction, over his creations. “And to think,” he said after a pause, “that I’ve been spending these last days designing model cottages for workmen at Bletchley! I’m in luck to have got the job, of course, but really, that a civilized134 man should have to do jobs like that! It’s too much. In the old days these creatures built their own hovels, and very nice and suitable they were too. The architects busied themselves with architecture—which is the expression of human dignity and greatness, which is man’s protest, not his miserable135 acquiescence136. You can’t do much protesting in a model cottage at seven hundred pounds a time. A little, no doubt, you can protest a little; you can give your cottage decent proportions and avoid sordidness137 and vulgarity. But that’s all; it’s really a negative process. 33You can only begin to protest positively138 and actively139 when you abandon the petty human scale and build for giants—when you build for the spirit and the imagination of man, not for his little body. Model cottages, indeed!”
Mr. Gumbril snorted with indignation. “When I think of Alberti!” And he thought of Alberti—Alberti, the noblest Roman of them all, the true and only Roman. For the Romans themselves had lived their own actual lives, sordidly140 and extravagantly141 in the middle of a vulgar empire. Alberti and his followers142 in the Renaissance143 lived the ideal Roman life. They put Plutarch into their architecture. They took the detestable real Cato, the Brutus of history, and made of them Roman heroes to walk as guides and models before them. Before Alberti there were no true Romans, and with Piranesi’s death the race began to wither144 towards extinction145.
“And when I think of Brunelleschi!” Gumbril Senior went on to remember with passion the architect who had suspended on eight thin flying ribs146 of marble the lightest of all domes and the loveliest.
“And when of Michelangelo! The grim, enormous apse.... And of Wren147 and of Palladio, when I think of all these——” Gumbril Senior waved his arms and was silent. He could not put into words what he felt when he thought of them.
Gumbril Junior looked at his watch. “Half-past two,” he said. “Time to go to bed.”
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beetles
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| n.甲虫( beetle的名词复数 ) | |
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prematurely
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| adv.过早地，贸然地 | |
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steadily
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| adv.稳定地；不变地；持续地 | |
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bourgeois
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| adj./n.追求物质享受的(人)；中产阶级分子 | |
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survivor
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decadence
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affected
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adorned
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| [计]被修饰的 | |
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gambols
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| v.蹦跳，跳跃，嬉戏( gambol的第三人称单数 ) | |
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sweeping
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tenaciously
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exclusion
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umbrageous
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chattered
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| （人）喋喋不休( chatter的过去式 )； 唠叨； （牙齿）打战； （机器）震颤 | |
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twilight
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intervals
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| n.[军事]间隔( interval的名词复数 )；间隔时间；[数学]区间；（戏剧、电影或音乐会的）幕间休息 | |
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inexplicably
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suspense
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treacherous
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rheumatism
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sparse
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| adj.稀疏的，稀稀落落的，薄的 | |
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ruffled
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| adj. 有褶饰边的, 起皱的 动词ruffle的过去式和过去分词 | |
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subsided
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| v.（土地）下陷（因在地下采矿）( subside的过去式和过去分词 )；减弱；下降至较低或正常水平；一下子坐在椅子等上 | |
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casually
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| adv.漠不关心地，无动于衷地，不负责任地 | |
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bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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agile
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| adj.敏捷的，灵活的 | |
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crumpled
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| adj. 弯扭的, 变皱的 动词crumple的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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animated
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| adj.生气勃勃的，活跃的，愉快的 | |
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29
shrugged
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| vt.耸肩（shrug的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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30
decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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31
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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32
pedagogue
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| n.教师 | |
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33
usher
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| n.带位员，招待员；vt.引导，护送；vi.做招待，担任引座员 | |
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34
motives
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| n.动机，目的( motive的名词复数 ) | |
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35
pro
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| n.赞成，赞成的意见，赞成者 | |
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36
apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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37
sufficiently
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| adv.足够地，充分地 | |
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38
vehemence
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| n.热切；激烈；愤怒 | |
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39
denigrate
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| v.诬蔑，诽谤 | |
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40
enthusiasts
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| n.热心人，热衷者( enthusiast的名词复数 ) | |
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41
lighting
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| n.照明，光线的明暗，舞台灯光 | |
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42
anthropoid
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| adj.像人类的，类人猿的；n.类人猿；像猿的人 | |
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43
eldest
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| adj.最年长的，最年老的 | |
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44
trots
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| 小跑，急走( trot的名词复数 )； 匆匆忙忙地走 | |
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45
ascetic
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| adj.禁欲的；严肃的 | |
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46
generalizations
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| 一般化( generalization的名词复数 )； 普通化； 归纳； 概论 | |
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47
horrid
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| adj.可怕的；令人惊恐的；恐怖的；极讨厌的 | |
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48
staple
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| n.主要产物，常用品，主要要素，原料，订书钉，钩环；adj.主要的，重要的；vt.分类 | |
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49
inspector
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| n.检查员，监察员，视察员 | |
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50
croaking
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| v.呱呱地叫( croak的现在分词 )；用粗的声音说 | |
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51
melodious
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| adj.旋律美妙的，调子优美的，音乐性的 | |
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52
uncommonly
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| adv. 稀罕(极，非常) | |
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53
lodge
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| v.临时住宿，寄宿，寄存，容纳；n.传达室，小旅馆 | |
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54
stink
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| vi.发出恶臭；糟透，招人厌恶；n.恶臭 | |
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55
lucre
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| n.金钱，财富 | |
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56
purely
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| adv.纯粹地，完全地 | |
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57
disinterested
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| adj.不关心的，不感兴趣的 | |
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58
admiration
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| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
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59
distinguished
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| adj.卓越的，杰出的，著名的 | |
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60
morale
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| n.道德准则，士气，斗志 | |
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61
indirectly
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| adv.间接地，不直接了当地 | |
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62
chapel
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| n.小教堂，殡仪馆 | |
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63
vice
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| n.坏事；恶习；[pl.]台钳，老虎钳；adj.副的 | |
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64
luminous
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| adj.发光的，发亮的；光明的；明白易懂的；有启发的 | |
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65
boon
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| n.恩赐，恩物，恩惠 | |
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66
patio
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| n.庭院，平台 | |
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67
prospectus
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| n.计划书；说明书；慕股书 | |
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69
grudging
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| adj.勉强的，吝啬的 | |
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70
approbation
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| n.称赞；认可 | |
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71
mania
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| n.疯狂；躁狂症，狂热，癖好 | |
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72
luncheons
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| n.午餐，午宴( luncheon的名词复数 ) | |
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73
conditional
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| adj.条件的，带有条件的 | |
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74
eyebrows
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| 眉毛( eyebrow的名词复数 ) | |
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75
dubious
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| adj.怀疑的，无把握的；有问题的，靠不住的 | |
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76
delightful
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| adj.令人高兴的，使人快乐的 | |
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77
sifting
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| n.筛，过滤v.筛( sift的现在分词 )；筛滤；细查；详审 | |
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78
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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79
elevation
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| n.高度；海拔；高地；上升；提高 | |
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80
greasy
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| adj. 多脂的，油脂的 | |
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81
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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82
elucidate
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| v.阐明，说明 | |
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83
arcaded
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| adj.成为拱廊街道的，有列拱的 | |
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84
piers
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| n.水上平台( pier的名词复数 )；（常设有娱乐场所的）突堤；柱子；墙墩 | |
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85
perpendiculars
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| n.垂直的，成直角的( perpendicular的名词复数 )；直立的 | |
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86
sketch
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| n.草图；梗概；素描；v.素描；概述 | |
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87
erect
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| n./v.树立，建立，使竖立；adj.直立的，垂直的 | |
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88
ascent
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| n.(声望或地位)提高；上升，升高；登高 | |
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89
irrelevantly
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| adv.不恰当地，不合适地；不相关地 | |
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90
irrelevance
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| n.无关紧要；不相关；不相关的事物 | |
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91
relevance
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| n.中肯，适当，关联，相关性 | |
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92
pensively
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| adv.沉思地，焦虑地 | |
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93
collaboration
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| n.合作，协作；勾结 | |
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94
contractors
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| n.（建筑、监造中的）承包人( contractor的名词复数 ) | |
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95
asinine
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| adj.愚蠢的 | |
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96
fumbling
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| n. 摸索,漏接 v. 摸索,摸弄,笨拙的处理 | |
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97
scattered
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| adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的 | |
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98
jumbled
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| adj.混乱的；杂乱的 | |
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99
warehouses
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| 仓库，货栈( warehouse的名词复数 ) | |
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100
mansions
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| n.宅第，公馆，大厦( mansion的名词复数 ) | |
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101
ornamental
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| adj.装饰的；作装饰用的；n.装饰品；观赏植物 | |
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102
rococo
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| n.洛可可；adj.过分修饰的 | |
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103
pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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104
dome
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| n.圆屋顶，拱顶 | |
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105
flex
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| n.皮线，花线；vt.弯曲或伸展 | |
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106
twitched
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| vt.& vi.（使）抽动，（使）颤动（twitch的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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107
pinnacles
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| 顶峰( pinnacle的名词复数 )； 顶点； 尖顶； 小尖塔 | |
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108
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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109
underneath
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| adj.在...下面，在...底下；adv.在下面 | |
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110
ponderous
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| adj.沉重的，笨重的，(文章)冗长的 | |
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111
vertical
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| adj.垂直的，顶点的，纵向的；n.垂直物，垂直的位置 | |
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112
impending
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| a.imminent, about to come or happen | |
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113
bleakness
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| adj. 萧瑟的, 严寒的, 阴郁的 | |
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114
upwards
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| adv.向上，在更高处...以上 | |
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115
domes
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| n.圆屋顶( dome的名词复数 )；像圆屋顶一样的东西；圆顶体育场 | |
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116
brandished
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| v.挥舞( brandish的过去式和过去分词 )；炫耀 | |
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117
ecstasy
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| n.狂喜，心醉神怡，入迷 | |
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118
doorway
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| n.门口，(喻)入门；门路，途径 | |
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119
carving
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| n.雕刻品，雕花 | |
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120
colossal
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| adj.异常的，庞大的 | |
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121
precipice
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| n.悬崖，危急的处境 | |
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122
sieves
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| 筛，漏勺( sieve的名词复数 ) | |
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123
aristocrat
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| n.贵族，有贵族气派的人，上层人物 | |
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124
arcades
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| n.商场( arcade的名词复数 )；拱形走道（两旁有商店或娱乐设施）；连拱廊；拱形建筑物 | |
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125
vaulted
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| adj.拱状的 | |
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126
cloisters
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| n.（学院、修道院、教堂等建筑的）走廊( cloister的名词复数 )；回廊；修道院的生活；隐居v.隐退，使与世隔绝( cloister的第三人称单数 ) | |
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127
peripatetic
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| adj.漫游的，逍遥派的，巡回的 | |
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128
meditations
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| 默想( meditation的名词复数 )； 默念； 沉思； 冥想 | |
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129
spouting
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| n.水落管系统v.（指液体）喷出( spout的现在分词 )；滔滔不绝地讲；喋喋不休地说；喷水 | |
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130
disastrous
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| adj.灾难性的，造成灾害的；极坏的，很糟的 | |
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131
appalling
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| adj.骇人听闻的，令人震惊的，可怕的 | |
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132
cataclysm
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| n.洪水，剧变，大灾难 | |
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133
melancholy
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| n.忧郁，愁思；adj.令人感伤（沮丧）的，忧郁的 | |
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134
civilized
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| a.有教养的，文雅的 | |
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135
miserable
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| adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的 | |
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136
acquiescence
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| n.默许；顺从 | |
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137
sordidness
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| n.肮脏；污秽；卑鄙；可耻 | |
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138
positively
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| adv.明确地，断然，坚决地；实在，确实 | |
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139
actively
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| adv.积极地，勤奋地 | |
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140
sordidly
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| adv.肮脏地；污秽地；不洁地 | |
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141
extravagantly
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| adv.挥霍无度地 | |
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142
followers
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| 追随者( follower的名词复数 )； 用户； 契据的附面； 从动件 | |
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143
renaissance
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| n.复活，复兴，文艺复兴 | |
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144
wither
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| vt.使凋谢，使衰退，(用眼神气势等)使畏缩；vi.枯萎，衰退，消亡 | |
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145
extinction
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| n.熄灭，消亡，消灭，灭绝，绝种 | |
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146
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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147
wren
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| n.鹪鹩；英国皇家海军女子服务队成员 | |
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