Chapter 7

Olive Parrott, the night nurse, was a large black woman whose carriage and bearing and size reminded him of Eleanor Roosevelt. Her father owned an avocado farm in Jamaica, and her mother kept a dream book in whose pages, each morning, she recorded her children's dreams. On the nights when he was too uncomfortable to sleep, Olive sat in a chair at the foot of the bed and told him innocent tales about her life as a child on the avocado farm. She had a West Indian accent and a lovely voice, and her words soothed¹ him as no woman's had since his mother sat and talked to him in the hospital after the hernia operation. Except for the questions that he asked Olive, he remained silent, deliriously² contented³ to be alive. It turned out that they'd caught him just in time: when he was admitted to the hospital, his coronary arteries⁴ were anywhere from ninety to ninety-five percent occluded⁵ and he'd been on the verge⁶ of a massive and probably fatal heart attack.

Maureen was a buxom⁷, smiling redhead who had grown up something of a roughneck in an Irish-Slavic family in the Bronx and had a blunt way of talking that was fueled by the self-possession of a working-class toughie. The mere⁸ sight of her raised his spirits when she arrived in the morning, even though the postsurgical exhaustion⁹ was so severe that merely shaving — and not even shaving standing¹⁰ up but while sitting in a chair — tired him out, and he had to return to bed for a long nap after taking his first walk down the hospital corridor with her at his side. Maureen was the one who called his father's doctor for him and kept him informed of the dying man's condition until he had the strength to talk to the doctor himself.

It had been decided¹¹ peremptorily¹² by Howie that when he left the hospital Maureen and Olive would look after him (again at Howie's expense) for at least his first two weeks at home. His wife was not consulted, and she resented the arrangement and the implication that she was unable to care for him on her own. She particularly resented Maureen, who herself did little to hide her contempt for the patient's wife.

At home it was more than three weeks before the exhaustion began to diminish and he felt ready even to consider returning to work. After dinner he had to go back to bed for the evening simply from the effort of eating sitting up in a chair, and in the morning he had to remain seated on a plastic stool to wash himself in the shower. He began to do mild calisthenics with Maureen and tried each day to add another ten yards to the afternoon walk he took with her. Maureen had a boyfriend whom she talked about — a TV cameraman whom she expected to marry once he found a permanent job — and when she got off work at the end of the day, she liked to have a couple of drinks with the neighborhood regulars in a bar around the corner from where she lived in Yorkville. The weather was beautiful, and so when they walked outdoors he got a good look at how she carried herself in her close-fitting polo shirts and short skirts and summer sandals. Men looked her over all the time, and she was not averse¹³ to staring someone down with mock belligerence¹⁴ if she was being ostentatiously ogled¹⁵. Her presence at his side made him feel stronger by the day, and he would come home from the walks delighted with everything, except, of course, with the jealous wife, who would slam doors and sometimes barge¹⁶ out of the apartment only moments after he and Maureen had swept in.

He was not the first patient to fall in love with his nurse. He was not even the first patient to fall in love with Maureen. She'd had several affairs over the years, a few of them with men rather worse off than he was, who, like him, made a full recovery with the help of Maureen's vitality¹⁷. Her gift was to make the ill hopeful, so hopeful that instead of closing their eyes to blot¹⁸ out the world, they opened them wide to behold¹⁹ her vibrant²⁰ presence, and were rejuvenated²¹.

Maureen came along to New Jersey²² when his father died. He was still not allowed to drive, so she volunteered and helped Howie make the arrangements with Kreitzer's Memorial Home in Union. His father had become religious in the last ten years of his life and, after having retired²³ and having lost his wife, had taken to going to the synagogue at least once a day. Long before his final illness, he'd asked his rabbi to conduct his burial service entirely²⁴ in Hebrew, as though Hebrew were the strongest answer that could be accorded death. To his father's younger son the language meant nothing. Along with Howie, he'd stopped taking Judaism seriously at thirteen — the Sunday after the Saturday of his bar mitzvah — and had not set foot since then in a synagogue. He'd even left the space for religion blank on his hospital admission form, lest the word "Jewish" prompt a visit to his room by a rabbi, come to talk in the way rabbis talk. Religion was a lie that he had recognized early in life, and he found all religions offensive, considered their superstitious²⁵ folderol meaningless, childish, couldn't stand the complete unadultness — the baby talk and the righteousness and the sheep, the avid²⁶ believers. No hocus-pocus about death and God or obsolete²⁷ fantasies of heaven for him. There was only our bodies, born to live and die on terms decided by the bodies that had lived and died before us. If he could be said to have located a philosophical²⁸ niche²⁹ for himself, that was it — he'd come upon it early and intuitively, and however elemental, that was the whole of it. Should he ever write an autobiography³⁰, he'd call it The Life and Death of a Male Body. But after retiring he tried becoming a painter, not a writer, and so he gave that title to a series of his abstractions.

But none of what he did or didn't believe mattered on the day that his father was buried beside his mother in the rundown cemetery³¹ just off the Jersey Turnpike.

1 soothed   

v.安慰( soothe的过去式和过去分词 )；抚慰；使舒服；减轻痛苦

参考例句：

• The music soothed her for a while. 音乐让她稍微安静了一会儿。
• The soft modulation of her voice soothed the infant. 她柔和的声调使婴儿安静了。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》

2 deliriously   

adv.谵妄（性）；发狂；极度兴奋/亢奋；说胡话

参考例句：

• He was talking deliriously. 他胡说一通。 来自互联网
• Her answer made him deliriously happy. 她的回答令他高兴得神魂颠倒。 来自互联网

3 contented   

adj.满意的，安心的，知足的

参考例句：

• He won't be contented until he's upset everyone in the office.不把办公室里的每个人弄得心烦意乱他就不会满足。
• The people are making a good living and are contented,each in his station.人民安居乐业。

4 arteries   

n.动脉( artery的名词复数 )；干线，要道

参考例句：

• Even grafting new blood vessels in place of the diseased coronary arteries has been tried. 甚至移植新血管代替不健康的冠状动脉的方法都已经试过。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• This is the place where the three main arteries of West London traffic met. 这就是伦敦西部三条主要交通干线的交汇处。 来自《简明英汉词典》

5 occluded   

v.堵塞( occlude的过去式和过去分词 )；阻隔；吸收（气体）

参考例句：

• Lymphatics are occluded with fibrin. 淋巴管受纤维蛋白阻塞。 来自辞典例句
• A blood clot occluded an artery to the heart. 血块阻塞动脉的核心。 来自互联网

6 verge   

n.边，边缘；v.接近，濒临

参考例句：

• The country's economy is on the verge of collapse.国家的经济已到了崩溃的边缘。
• She was on the verge of bursting into tears.她快要哭出来了。

7 buxom   

adj.（妇女）丰满的，有健康美的

参考例句：

• Jane is a buxom blond.简是一个丰满的金发女郎.
• He still pictured her as buxom,high-colored,lively and a little blowsy.他心中仍旧认为她身材丰满、面色红润、生气勃勃、还有点邋遢。

8 mere   

adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过

参考例句：

• That is a mere repetition of what you said before.那不过是重复了你以前讲的话。
• It's a mere waste of time waiting any longer.再等下去纯粹是浪费时间。

9 exhaustion   

n.耗尽枯竭，疲惫，筋疲力尽，竭尽，详尽无遗的论述

参考例句：

• She slept the sleep of exhaustion.她因疲劳而酣睡。
• His exhaustion was obvious when he fell asleep standing.他站着睡着了，显然是太累了。

10 standing   

n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的

参考例句：

• After the earthquake only a few houses were left standing.地震过后只有几幢房屋还立着。
• They're standing out against any change in the law.他们坚决反对对法律做任何修改。

11 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

12 peremptorily   

adv.紧急地，不容分说地，专横地

参考例句：

• She peremptorily rejected the request. 她断然拒绝了请求。
• Their propaganda was peremptorily switched to an anti-Western line. 他们的宣传断然地转而持反对西方的路线。 来自辞典例句

13 averse   

adj.厌恶的；反对的，不乐意的

参考例句：

• I don't smoke cigarettes,but I'm not averse to the occasional cigar.我不吸烟，但我不反对偶尔抽一支雪茄。
• We are averse to such noisy surroundings.我们不喜欢这么吵闹的环境。

14 belligerence   

n.交战，好战性，斗争性

参考例句：

• He could be accused of passion,but never belligerence.可以说他很冲动，但不能说他爱挑事。
• He was almost back to his belligerent mood of twelve months ago.他故态复萌，几乎又像一年前那样咄咄逼人了。

15 ogled   

v.（向…）抛媚眼，送秋波( ogle的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• He ogled at all the attractive girls in the office. 他向办公室里所有有魅力的女孩暗送秋波。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Carrie found herself stared at and ogled. 嘉莉发现也有人在盯着她看，向她送秋波。 来自英汉文学 - 嘉莉妹妹

16 barge   

n.平底载货船，驳船

参考例句：

• The barge was loaded up with coal.那艘驳船装上了煤。
• Carrying goods by train costs nearly three times more than carrying them by barge.通过铁路运货的成本比驳船运货成本高出近3倍。

17 vitality   

n.活力，生命力，效力

参考例句：

• He came back from his holiday bursting with vitality and good health.他度假归来之后，身强体壮，充满活力。
• He is an ambitious young man full of enthusiasm and vitality.他是个充满热情与活力的有远大抱负的青年。

18 blot   

vt.弄脏（用吸墨纸）吸干；n.污点，污渍

参考例句：

• That new factory is a blot on the landscape.那新建的工厂破坏了此地的景色。
• The crime he committed is a blot on his record.他犯的罪是他的履历中的一个污点。

19 behold   

v.看，注视，看到

参考例句：

• The industry of these little ants is wonderful to behold.这些小蚂蚁辛勤劳动的样子看上去真令人惊叹。
• The sunrise at the seaside was quite a sight to behold.海滨日出真是个奇景。

20 vibrant   

adj.震颤的，响亮的，充满活力的，精力充沛的，(色彩)鲜明的

参考例句：

• He always uses vibrant colours in his paintings. 他在画中总是使用鲜明的色彩。
• She gave a vibrant performance in the leading role in the school play.她在学校表演中生气盎然地扮演了主角。

21 rejuvenated   

更生的

参考例句：

• He was rejuvenated by new hope. 新的希望又使他充满了活力。
• She looked rejuvenated after plastic surgery. 她做完整形手术后显得年轻了。

22 jersey   

n.运动衫

参考例句：

• He wears a cotton jersey when he plays football.他穿运动衫踢足球。
• They were dressed alike in blue jersey and knickers.他们穿着一致，都是蓝色的运动衫和灯笼短裤。

23 retired   

adj.隐退的，退休的，退役的

参考例句：

• The old man retired to the country for rest.这位老人下乡休息去了。
• Many retired people take up gardening as a hobby.许多退休的人都以从事园艺为嗜好。

24 entirely   

ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地

参考例句：

• The fire was entirely caused by their neglect of duty. 那场火灾完全是由于他们失职而引起的。
• His life was entirely given up to the educational work. 他的一生统统献给了教育工作。

25 superstitious   

adj.迷信的

参考例句：

• They aim to deliver the people who are in bondage to superstitious belief.他们的目的在于解脱那些受迷信束缚的人。
• These superstitious practices should be abolished as soon as possible.这些迷信做法应尽早取消。

26 avid   

adj.热心的；贪婪的；渴望的；劲头十足的

参考例句：

• He is rich,but he is still avid of more money.他很富有,但他还想贪图更多的钱。
• She was avid for praise from her coach.那女孩渴望得到教练的称赞。

27 obsolete   

adj.已废弃的，过时的

参考例句：

• These goods are obsolete and will not fetch much on the market.这些货品过时了，在市场上卖不了高价。
• They tried to hammer obsolete ideas into the young people's heads.他们竭力把陈旧思想灌输给青年。

28 philosophical   

adj.哲学家的，哲学上的，达观的

参考例句：

• The teacher couldn't answer the philosophical problem.老师不能解答这个哲学问题。
• She is very philosophical about her bad luck.她对自己的不幸看得很开。

29 niche   

n.壁龛；合适的职务(环境、位置等)

参考例句：

• Madeleine placed it carefully in the rocky niche. 玛德琳小心翼翼地把它放在岩石壁龛里。
• The really talented among women would always make their own niche.妇女中真正有才能的人总是各得其所。

30 autobiography   

n.自传

参考例句：

• He published his autobiography last autumn.他去年秋天出版了自己的自传。
• His life story is recounted in two fascinating volumes of autobiography.这两卷引人入胜的自传小说详述了他的生平。

31 cemetery   

n.坟墓，墓地，坟场

参考例句：

• He was buried in the cemetery.他被葬在公墓。
• His remains were interred in the cemetery.他的遗体葬在墓地。