In which various sets of young people get together
I
McClintic Sphere, whose horn man was soloing, stood by the empty piano, looking off at nothing in particular. He was half listening to the music (touching1 the keys of his alto now and again, as if by sympathetic magic to make that natural horn develop the idea differently, some way Sphere thought could be better) and half watching the customers at the tables.
This was last set and it'd been a bad week for Sphere. Some of the colleges were let out and the place had been crowded with these types who liked to talk to each other a lot. Every now and again, they'd invite him over to a table between sets and ask him what he thought about other altos. Some of them would go through the old Northern liberal routine: look at me, I'll sit with anybody. Either that or they would say: "Hey fella, how about Night Train?" Yes, bwana. Yazzuh, boss. Dis darkey, ol' Uncle McClintic, he play you de finest Night Train you evah did hear. An' aftah de set he gwine take dis of alto an' shove it up yo' white Ivy2 League ass3.
The horn wanted to finish off: he'd been tired all week as Sphere. They took fours with the drummer, stated the main theme in unison4 and left the stand.
The bums5 stood outside like a receiving line. Spring had hit New York all warm and aphrodisiac. Sphere found his Triumph in the lot, got in and took off uptown. He needed to relax.
Half an hour later he was in Harlem, in a friendly rooming (and in a sense cat) house run by one Matilda Winthrop, who was little and wizened6 and looked like any elderly little lady you might see in the street going along with gentle steps in the waning7 afternoon to look for spleens and greens at the market.
"She's up there," Matilda said, with a smile for everybody, even musicians with a headful of righteous moss8 who were making money and drove sports cars. Sphere shadowboxed with her for a few minutes. She bad better reflexes than he did.
The girl was sitting on the bed, smoking and reading a western. Sphere tossed his coat on a chair. She moved over to make room for him, dogeared a page, put the book on the floor. Soon he was telling her about the week, about the kids with money who used him for background music and the musicians from other bigger groups, also with money, who were cautious and had mixed reactions and the few who couldn't really afford dollar beers at the V-Note but did or wanted to understand except that the space they might have occupied was already taken up by the rich kids and musicians. He told it all into the pillow and she rubbed his back with amazingly gentle hands. Her name, she said, was Ruby9 but he didn't believe that. Soon:
"Do you ever dig what I'm trying to say," he wondered.
"On the horn I don't," she answered, honest enough, "a girl doesn't understand. All she does is feel. I feel what you play, like I feel what you need when you're inside me. Maybe they're the same thing. McClintic, I don't know. You're kind to me, what is it you want?"
"Sorry," he said. After a while, "This is a good way to relax."
"Stay tonight?"
"Sure."
Slab10 and Esther, uncomfortable with each other, stood in front of an easel in his place, looking at Cheese Danish # 35. The cheese Danish was a recent obsession11 of Slab's. He had taken, some time ago, to painting in a frenzy these morning-pastries in every conceivable style, light and setting. The room was already littered with Cubist Fauve and Surrealist cheese Danishes. "Monet spent his declining years at his home in Giverny, painting the water lilies in the garden pool," reasoned Slab. "He painted all kinds of water lilies. He liked water lilies. These are my declining years. I like cheese banishes12, they have kept me alive now for longer than I can remember. Why Dot."
The subject of Cheese Danish # 35 occupied only a small area to the lower left of center, where it was pictured impaled13 on one of the metal steps of a telephone pole. The landscape was an empty street, drastically foreshortened, the only living things in it a tree in the middle distance, on which perched an ornate bird, busily textured15 with a great many swirls, flourishes and bright-colored patches.
"This," explained Slab in answer to her question, "is my revolt against Catatonic Expressionism: the universal symbol I have decided16 will replace the Cross in western civilization. It is the Partridge in the Pear Tree. You remember the old Christmas song, which is a linguistic17 joke. Perdrix, pear tree. The beauty is that it works like a machine yet is animate18. The partridge eats pears off the tree and his droppings in turn nourish the tree which groves19 higher and higher, every day lifting the partridge up and at the same time assuring him of a continuous supply of good. It is perpetual motion, except for one thing." He pointed20 out a gargoyle21 with sharp fangs near the top of the picture. The point of the largest fang22 lay on an imaginary line projected parallel to the axis23 of the tree and drawn24 through the head of the bird. "It could as well have been a low-flying airplane or high-tension wire," Slab said. "But someday that bird will be impaled on the gargoyle's teeth, just like the poor cheese Danish is already on the phone pole."
"Why can't he fly away?" Esther said.
"He is too stupid. He used to know how to fly once, but he's forgotten."
"I detect allegory in all this," she said.
"No," said Slab. "That is on the same intellectual level as doing the Times crossword25 puzzle on Sunday. Phony. Unworthy of you."
She'd wandered to the bed. "No," he almost yelled.
"Slab, it's so bad. It's a physical pain, here." She drew her fingers across her abdomen26.
"I'm not getting any either," said Slab. "I can't help it that Schoenmaker cut you off."
"Aren't I your friend?"
"No," said Slab.
"What can I do to show you -"
"Go," said Slab, "is what you can do. And let me sleep. In my chaste27 army cot. Alone." He crawled to the bed and lay face down. Soon Esther left, forgetting to close the door. Not being the type to slam doors on being rejected.
Roony and Rachel sat at the bar of a neighborhood tavern29 on Second Avenue. Over in the corner an Irishman and a Hungarian were yelling at each other over the bowling30 game.
"Where does she go at night," Roony wondered.
"Paola is a strange girl," said Rachel. "You learn after a while not to ask her questions she doesn't want to answer."
"Maybe seeing Pig."
"No. Pig Bodine lives at the V-Note and the Rusty31 Spoon. He has a letch for Paola a mile long but he reminds her too much, I think, of Pappy Hod. The Navy has a certain way of endearing itself. She stays away from him and it's killing32 him and I for one am glad to see it."
It's killing me, Winsome33 wanted to say. He didn't. Lately he'd been running for comfort to Rachel. He'd come in a way to depend on it. Her sanity34 and aloofness35 from the Crew, her own self-sufficiency drew him. But he was no nearer to arranging any assignation with Paola. Perhaps he was afraid of Rachel's reaction. He was beginning to suspect she was not the sort who approved of pimping for one's roommate. He ordered another boilermaker.
"Roony, you drink too much," she said. "I worry about you."
Next evening, Profane37 was sitting in the guardroom at Anthroresearch Associates, feet propped38 on a gas stove, reading an avant-garde western called Existentialist Sheriff, which Pig Bodine had recommended. Across one of the laboratory spaces, features lit Frankenstein's-monsterlike by a night light, facing Profane, sat SHROUD39: synthetic40 human, radiation output determined41.
Its skin was cellulose acetate butyrate, a plastic transparent42 not only to light but also to X-rays, gamma rays and neutrons43. Its skeleton had once been that of a living human; now the bones were decontaminated and the long ones and spinal44 column hollowed inside to receive radiation dosimeters. SHROUD was five feet nine inches tall - the fiftieth percentile of Air Force standards. The lungs, sex organs, kidneys, thyroid, liver, spleen and other internal organs were hollow and made of the same clear plastic as the body shell. These could be filled with aqueous solutions which absorbed the same amount of radiation as the tissue they represented.
Anthroresearch Associates was a subsidiary of Yoyodyne. It did research for the government on the effects of high-altitude and space flight; for the National Safety Council on automobile45 accidents; and for Civil Defense46 on radiation absorption, which was where SHROUD came in. In the eighteenth century it was often convenient to regard man as a clockwork automaton47. In the nineteenth century, with Newtonian physics pretty well assimilated and a lot of work in thermodynamics going on, man was looked on more as a heat-engine, about 40 per cent efficient. Now in the twentieth century, with nuclear and subatomic physics a going thing, man had become something which absorbs X-rays, gamma rays and neutrons. Such at least was Oley Bergomask's notion of progress. It was the subject of his welcome-aboard lecture on Profane's first day of employment, at five in the afternoon as Profane was going on and Bergomask off. There were two eight-hour night shifts, early and late (though Profane, whose time scale was skewed toward the past, preferred to call them late and early) and Profane to date had worked them both.
Three times a night he had to make the rounds of the lab areas, windows and heavy equipment. If an all-night routine experiment was in progress he'd have to take readings and if they were out of tolerance48 wake up the technician on duty, who'd usually be sleeping on a cot in one of the offices. At first there'd been a certain interest in visiting the accident research area, which was jokingly referred to as the chamber49 of horrors. Here weights were dropped on aged50 automobiles51, inside which would be sitting a manikin. The study now under way had to do with first-aid training, and various versions of SHOCK - synthetic human object, casualty kinematics - got to sit in the driver's, death, or back seat of the test cars. Profane still felt a certain kinship with SHOCK, which was the first inanimate schlemihl he'd ever encountered. But in there too was a certain wariness because the manikin was still only a "human object"; plus a feeling of disdain53 as if SHOCK had decided to sell out to humans; so that now what had been its inanimate own were taking revenge.
SHOCK was a marvelous manikin. It had the same build as SHROUD but its flesh was molded of foam54 vinyl, its skin vinyl plastisol, its hair a wig55, its eyes cosmetic-plastic, its teeth (for which, in fact, Eigenvalue had acted as subcontractor) the same kind of dentures worn today by 19 per cent of the American population, most of them respectable. Inside were a blood reservoir in the thorax, a blood pump in the midsection and a nickel-cadmium battery power supply in the abdomen. The control panel, at the side of the chest, had toggles and rheostat controls for venous and arterial bleeding, pulse rate, and even respiration56 rate, when a sucking chest wound was involved. In the latter case plastic lungs provided the necessary suction and bubbling. They were controlled by an air pump in the abdomen, with the motor's cooling vent57 located in the crotch. An injury of the sexual organs could still be simulated by an attachable moulage, but then this blocked the cooling vent. SHOCK could not therefore have a sucking chest wound and mutilated sexual organs simultaneously58. A new retrofit, however, eliminated this difficulty, which was felt to be a basic design deficiency.
SHOCK was thus entirely59 lifelike in every way. It scared the hell out of Profane the first time he saw it, lying half out the smashed windshield of an old Plymouth, fitted with moulages for depressed-skull60 and jaw61 injuries and compound arm and leg fractures. But now he'd got used to it. The only thing at Anthroresearch that still fazed him a little was SHROUD, whose face was a human skull that looked at you through a more-or-less abstracted butyrate head.
It was time to make another round. The building was empty except for Profane. No experiments tonight. On the way back to the guardroom he stopped in front of SHROUD.
"What's it like," he said.
Better than you have it.
"Wha."
Wha yourself. Me and SHOCK are what you and everybody will be someday. (The skull seemed to be grinning at Profane.)
"There are other ways besides fallout and road accidents."
But those are most likely. If somebody else doesn't do it to you, you'll do it to yourselves.
"You don't even have a soul. How can you talk."
Since when did you ever have one? What are you doing, getting religion? All I am is a dry run. They take readings off my dosimeters. Who is to say whether I'm here so the people can read the meters or whether the radiation in me is because they have to measure. Which way does it go?
"it's one way," said Profane. "All one way."
Mazel tov. (Maybe the hint of a smile?)
Somehow Profane had difficulty getting back in the plot of Existentialist Sheriff. After a while he got up and went over to SHROUD. "What do you mean, we'll be like you and SHOCK someday? You mean dead?"
Am I dead? If I am then that's what I mean.
"If you aren't then what are you?"
Nearly what you are. None of you have very far to go.
"I don't understand."
So I see. But you're not alone. That's a comfort, isn't it? To hell with it. Profane went back to the guardroom and busied himself making coffee.
III
The next weekend there was a party at Raoul, Slab and Melvin's. The Whole Sick Crew was there.
At one in the morning Roony and Pig started a fight.
"Son of a bitch," Roony yelled. "You keep your hands off her."
"His wife," Esther informed Slab. The Crew had withdrawn62 to the walls, leaving Pig and Roony most of the floor space. Both were drunk and sweating. They wrestled63 around, stumbling and inexpert, trying to fight like a western movie. It is incredible how many amateur brawlers believe the movie saloon fight is the only acceptable model to follow. At last Pig dropped Roony with a fist to the abdomen. Roony just lay there, eyes closed, trying to hold down his breathing because it hurt. Pig wandered out to the kitchen. The fight had been over a girl but both of them knew her name was Paola, not Mafia.
"I don't hate the Jewish people," Mafia was explaining, "only the things they do." She and Profane were alone in her apartment. Roony was out drinking. Perhaps seeing Eigenvalue. It was the day after the fight. She didn't seem to care where her husband was.
All at once Profane got a marvelous idea. She wanted to keep Jews out? Maybe half a Jew could get in.
She beat him to it: her hand reached for his belt buckle64 and started to unfasten it.
"No," he said, having changed his mind. Needing a zipper65 to undo66, her hands slid away, around her hips67 to the back of her skirt. "Now look."
"I need a man," already half out of the skirt, "fashioned for Heroic Love. I've wanted you ever since we met."
"Heroic Love's ass," said Profane. "You're married."
Charisma68 was having nightmares in the next room. He started thumping69 around under the green blanket, flailing70 out at the elusive71 shadow of his own Persecutor72.
"Here," she said, lower half denuded73, "here on the rug."
Profane got up and rooted around in the icebox for beer. Mafia lay on the floor, screaming at him.
"Here yourself." He set a can of beer on her soft abdomen. She yelped, knocking it over. The beer made a soggy spot on the rug between them, like a bundling board or Tristan's blade. "Drink your beer and tell me about Heroic Love." She was making no move to get dressed.
"A woman wants to feel like a woman," breathing hard, "is all. She wants to be taken, penetrated74, ravished. But more than that she wants to enclose the man."
With spiderwebs woven of yo-yo string: a net or trap. Profane could think of nothing but Rachel.
"Nothing heroic about a schlemihl," Profane told her. What was a hero? Randolph Scott, who could handle a six-gun, horse's reins75, lariat76. Master of the inanimate. But a schlemihl, that was hardly a man: somebody who lies back and takes it from objects, like any passive woman.
"Why," he wondered, "does something like sex have to be so confused. Mafia, why do you have to have names for it." Here he was arguing again. Like with Fina in the bathtub.
"What are you," she snarled77, "a latent homosexual? You afraid of women?"
"No, I'm not queer." How could you say: sometimes women remind me of inanimate objects. Young Rachel, even: half an MG.
Charisma came in, two beady eyes peering through burnholes in the blanket. He spotted78 Mafia, moved toward her. The green wool mound79 began to sing:
It is something less than heaven
To be quoted Thesis 1.7
Every time I make an advance;
If the world is all that the case is
That's a pretty discouraging basis
On which to pursue
Any sort of romance.
I've got a proposition for you;
Logical, positive and brief.
And at least it could serve as a kind of comic relief:
[Refrain]
Let P equal me,
With my heart in command;
Let Q equal you
With Tractatus in hand;
And R could stand for a lifetime of love,
Filled with music to fondle and purr to.
We'll define love as anything lovely you'd care to infer to.
On the right, put that bright,
Hypothetical case;
On the left, our uncleft,
Parenthetical chase.
And that horseshoe there in the middle
Could be lucky; we've nothing to lose,
If in these parentheses80
We just mind our little P's
And Q's.
If P [Mafia sang in reply] thinks of me
As a girl hard to make,
Then Q wishes you
Would go jump in the lake.
For R is a meaningless concept,
Having nothing to do with pleasure:
I prefer the hard and tangible81 things I can measure.
Man, you chase in the face
I'm a lass in the class
Of unbossable broads.
If you'll promise no more sticky phrases,
Half a mo while I kick off my shoes.
There are birds, there are bees,
And to hell with all your P's
And Q's.
By the time Profane finished his beer, the blanket covered them both.
Twenty days before the Dog Star moved into conjunction with the sun, the dog days began. The world started to run more and more afoul of the inanimate. Fifteen were killed in a train wreck84 near Oaxaca, Mexico, on 1 July. The next day fifteen people died when an apartment house collapsed85 in Madrid. July 4 a bus fell into a river near Karachi and thirty-one passengers drowned. Thirty-nine more were drowned two days later in a tropical storm in the central Philippines. 9 July the Aegean Islands were hit by an earthquake and tidal waves, which killed forty-three. 14 July a MATS plane crashed after takeoff from McGuire Air Force Base in New Jersey86, killing forty-five. An earthquake at Anjar, India, 21 July, killed 117. From 22 to 24 July floods rampaged in central and southern Iran, killing three hundred. 28 July a bus ran off a ferryboat at Kuopio, Finland, and fifteen were killed. Four petroleum87 tanks blew up near Dumas, Texas, 29 July, killing nineteen. 1 August, seventeen died in a train wreck near Rio de Janeiro. Fifteen more died the 4th and 5th, in floods in southwest Pennsylvania. 2161 people died the same week in a typhoon which hit Chekiang, Honan and Hopeh Provinces. 7 August six dynamite88 trucks blew up in Cali, Colombia, killing about 1100. The same day there was a train wreck at Prerov, Czechoslovakia, killing nine. The next day 262 miners, trapped by fire, died in a coal mine under Marcinelle, in Belgium. Ice avalanches89 on Mont Blanc swept fifteen mountain climbers into the kingdom of death in the week 12 to 18 August. The same week a gas explosion in Monticello, Utah, killed fifteen and a typhoon through Japan and Okinawa killed thirty. Twenty-nine more coal miners died of gas poisoning in a mine in Upper Silesia on 27 August. Also on the 27th a Navy bomber90 crashed among houses in Sanford, Florida, and killed four. Next day a gas explosion in Montreal killed seven and flash floods in Turkey killed 138.
These were the mass deaths. There were also the attendant maimed, malfunctioning91, homeless, lorn. It happens every month in a succession of encounters between groups of living and a congruent world - which simply doesn't care. Look in any yearly Almanac, under "Disasters" - which is where the figures above come from. The business is transacted92 month after month after month.
IV
McClintic Sphere had been reading fakebooks all afternoon. "If you ever want to get depressed," he told Ruby, "read through a fakebook. I don't mean the music, I mean the words."
The girl didn't answer. She'd been nervous the past couple of weeks. "What is wrong, baby," he'd say; but she'd shrug93 it off. One night she told him it was her father who was bugging94 her. She missed him. Maybe he was sick.
"You been seeing him? A little girl should do that. You don't know how lucky you are to have your father."
"He lives in another city," and she wouldn't say any more.
Tonight he said, "Look, you need the fare? You go see him. That's what you ought to do."
"McClintic," she said, "what business does a whore have going anywhere? A whore isn't human."
"You are. You are with me, Ruby. You know it; we aren't playing any games here," patting the bed.
"Whore lives in one place and stays there. Like some little virgin96 girl in a fairy tale. She doesn't do any traveling, unless she works the streets."
"You haven't been thinking about that."
"Maybe." She wouldn't look at him.
"Matilda likes you. You crazy?"
"What else is there? Either the street or all cooped up. If I do go see him I won't come back."
"Where does he live. South Africa?"
"Maybe."
"Oh Christ."
Now, McClintic Sphere told himself, nobody goes and falls in love with a prostitute. Not unless he's fourteen or so and she's the first piece of tail he's ever had. But this Ruby, whatever she might be in bed, was a good friend outside it too. He worried about her. It was (for a change) that good kind of worry; not, say, like Roony Winsome's, which seemed to bug95 the man worse every time McClintic saw him.
It had been going on now for at least a couple of weeks. McClintic, who'd never gone along all the way with the "cool" outlook that developed in the postwar years, didn't mind as much as some other musicians might have when Roony got juiced and started talking about his personal problems. A few times Rachel had been along with him, and McClintic knew Rachel was straight, and there wasn't any jazzing going on there, so Roony must have genuinely had problems with this Mafia woman.
It was moving into deep summer time in Nueva York, the worst time of the year. Time for rumbles97 in the park and a lot of kids getting killed; time for tempers to get frayed98, marriages to break up, all homicidal and chaotic impulses, frozen inside for the winter, to thaw99 now and come to the surface, and glitter out the pores of your face. McClintic was heading up for Lenox, Mass., for that jazz festival. He knew he couldn't stand it here. But what about Roony? What he was getting at home (most likely) was edging him toward something. McClintic noticed that last night, between sets at the V-Note. He'd seen the look before: a bass100 player he'd known in Fort Worth who never changed expression, who was always telling you "I have this problem with narcotics," who'd flipped101 one night and they took him away to the hospital at Lexington or someplace. McClintic would never know. But Roony had the same look: too cool. Too unemotional when he said "I have a problem with my woman." What was there inside for deep summer in Nueva York to melt? What would happen when it did?
This word flip102 was weird103. Every recording104 date of McClintic's he'd got into the habit of talking electricity with the audio men and technicians in the studio. McClintic once couldn't have cared less about electricity, but now it seemed if that was helping105 him reach a bigger audience, some digging, some who would never dig, but all paying and those royalties106 keeping the Triumph in gas and McClintic in J. Press suits, then McClintic ought to be grateful to electricity, ought maybe to learn a little more about it. So he'd picked up some here and there, and one day last summer he got around to talking stochastic music and digital computers with one technician. Out of the conversation had come Set/Reset, which was getting to be a signature for the group. He had found out from this sound man about a two-triode circuit called a flip-flop107, which when it was turned on could be one of two ways, depending on which tube was conducting and which was cut off: set or reset, flip or flop.
"And that," the man said, "can be yes or no, or one or zero. And that is what you might call one of the basic units, or specialized108 'cells' in a big 'electronic brain.'"
"Crazy," said McClintic, having lost him back there someplace. But one thing that did occur to him was 1f a computer's brain could go flip and flop, why so could a musician's. As long as you were flop, everything was cool. But where did the trigger-pulse come from to make you flip?
McClintic, no lyricist, had made up nonsense words to go along with Set/Reset. He sang them to himself sometimes on the stand, while the natural horn was soloing:
Gwine cross de Jordan
Ecclesiastically:
Flip, flop, now you're on top,
Set-REset, why are we Beset109
With crazy and cool in the same molecule110 . . ."
"What are you thinking about," said the girl Ruby.
"Flipping," said McClintic.
"You'll never flip."
"Not me," McClintic said, "whole lot of people."
After a while he said, not really to her, "Ruby, what happened after the war? That war, the world flipped. But come '45, and they flopped111. Here in Harlem they flopped. Everything got cool - no love, no hate, no worries, no excitement. Every once in a while, though, somebody flips112 back. Back to where he can love . . ."
"Maybe that's it," the girl said, after a while. "Maybe you have to be crazy to love somebody."
"But you take a whole bunch of people flip at the same time and you've got a war. Now war is not loving, is it?"
"Flip, flop," she said, "get the mop."
"You're just like a little kid."
"McClintic," she said. "I am. I worry about you. I worry about my father. Maybe he's flipped."
"Why don't you go see him." The same argument again. Tonight they were in for a long spell of arguing.
"You are beautiful," Schoenmaker was saying.
"Perhaps not as you are. But as I see you."
She sat up. "It can't keep going the way it's been."
"Come back."
"No, Shale, my nerves can't take this -"
"Come back."
"It's getting so I can't look at Rachel, or Slab -"
"Come back." At last she lay again beside him. "Pelvic bones," he said, touching there, "should protrude114 more. That would be very sexy. I could do that for you."
"Please."
"Esther, I want to give. I want to do things for you. If I can bring out the beautiful girl inside you, the idea of Esther, as I have done already with your face . . ."
She became aware of a clock ticking on the table next to them. She lay stiff, ready to run to the street, naked if need be.
"Come," he said, "half an hour in the next room. So simple I can do it alone. Nothing but a local anaesthetic."
She began to cry.
"What would it be next?" she said a few moments later. "Larger breasts, you'd want. Then my ears might be a shade too big for you: Shale, why can't it be just me?"
He rolled over, exasperated115. "How do you tell a woman," he asked the floor. "What is loving if not -"
"You don't love me." She was up, struggling clumsy into a brassiere. "You've never said it and if you did you wouldn't mean it."
"You'll be back," he said, still watching the floor.
"I won't," through the light wool of her sweater. But of course she would be.
After she left, there was only the ticking of the clock, until Schoenmaker yawned, sudden and explosive; rolled over to confront the ceiling and begin swearing at it softly.
While at Anthroresearch Profane listened with half an ear to the coffee percolating116; and carried on another imaginary conversation with SHROUD. By now that had become a tradition.
Remember, Profane, how it is on Route 14, south, outside Elmira, New York? You walk on an overpass117 and look west and see the sun setting on a junkpile. Acres of old cars, piled up ten high in rusting118 tiers. A graveyard119 for cars. If I could die, that's what my graveyard would look like.
"I wish you would. Look at you, masquerading like a human being. You ought to be junked. Not burned or cremated120."
Of course. Like a human being. Now remember, right after the war, the Nuremberg war trials? Remember the photographs of Auschwitz? Thousands of Jewish corpses121, stacked up like those poor car-bodies. Schlemihl: It's already started.
"Hitler did that. He was crazy."
Hitler, Eichmann, Mengele. Fifteen years ago. Has it occurred to you there may be no more standards for crazy or sane122, now that it's started?
"What, for Christ sake?"
While Slab lounged meticulous123 about his canvas, Cheese Danish # 41, making quick little stabs with a fine old kolinsky brush at the surface of the painting. Two brown slugs - snails124 without shells - lay crosswise and copulating on a polygonal125 slab of marble, a translucent126 white bubble rising between them. No impasto here: "long" paint, everything put there more than real could ever be. Weird illumination, shadows all wrong, surfaces of marble, slugs and a half-eaten cheese Danish in the upper right textured painstakingly127 fine. So that their slimy trails, converging128 straight and inevitable129 from bottom and side to the X of their union, did shine like moonlight.
And Charisma, Fu and Pig Bodine came rollicking out of a grocery store up on the West Side, yelling football signals and tossing a poor-looking eggplant about under the lights of Broadway.
And Rachel and Roony sat on a bench in Sheridan Square, talking about Mafia and Paola. It was one in the morning, a wind had risen and something curious too had happened; as if everyone in the city, simultaneously, had become sick of news of any kind; for thousands of newspaper pages blew through the small park on the way crosstown, blundered like pale bats against the trees, tangled130 themselves around the feet of Roony and Rachel, and of a bum sleeping across the way. Millions of unread and useless words had come to a kind of life in Sheridan Square; while the two on the bench wove cross-tally of their own, oblivious131, among them.
And Stencil132 sat dour133 and undrunk, in the Rusty Spoon, while Slab's friend, another Catatonic Expressionist, harangued134 him with the Great Betrayal, told of the Dance of Death. While around them something of the sort was in fact going on: for here was the Whole Sick Crew, was it not, linked maybe by a spectral135 chain and rollicking along over some moor136 or other. Stencil thought of Mondaugen's story, The Crew at Foppl's, saw here the same leprous pointillism of orris root, weak jaws137 and bloodshot eyes, tongues and backs of teeth stained purple by this morning's homemade wine, lipstick138 which it seemed could be peeled off intact, tossed to the earth to join a trail of similar jetsam - the disembodied smiles or pouts139 which might serve, perhaps, as spoor for next generation's Crew . . . God.
"Wha," said the Catatonic Expressionist.
"Melancholy," said Stencil.
And Mafia Winsome, mateless, stood undressed before the mirror, contemplating140 herself and little else. And the cat yowled in the courtyard.
And who knew where Paola was?
In the past few days Esther had become more and more impossible for Schoenmaker to get along with. He began to think about breaking it off again, only this time permanently141.
"It isn't me you love," she kept saying. "You want to change me into something I'm not."
In return he could only argue a kind of Platonism at her. Did she want him so shallow he should only love her body? It was her soul he loved. What was the matter with her, didn't every girl want a man to love the soul, the true them? Sure, they did. Well, what is the soul. It is the idea of the body, the abstraction behind the reality: what Esther really was, shown to the senses with certain imperfections there in the bone and tissue. Schoenmaker could bring out the true, perfect Esther which dwelled inside the imperfect one. Her soul would be there on the outside, radiant, unutterably beautiful.
"Who are you," she yelled back, "to say what my soul looks like. You know what you're in love with? Yourself. Your own skill in plastic surgery, is what."
In answer to which Schoenmaker rolled over and stared at the floor; and wondered aloud if be would ever understand women.
Eigenvalue the soul-dentist had even given Schoenmaker counsel. Schoenmaker was not a colleague, but as if Stencil's notion of an inner circle were correct after all, things got around. "Dudley, fella," he told himself, "you've got no business with any of these people."
But then, he did. He gave cut rates on cleaning, drilling and root-canal jobs for members of the Crew. Why? If they were all bums but still providing society with valuable art and thought, why that would be fine. If that were the case then someday, possibly in the next rising period of history, when this Decadence142 was past and the planets were being colonized143 and the world at peace, a dental historian would mention Eigenvalue in a footnote as Patron of the Arts, discreet144 physician to the neo-Jacobean school.
But they produced nothing but talk and at that not very good talk. A few like Slab actually did what they professed145; turned out a tangible product. But again, what? Cheese danishes. Or this technique for the sake of technique - Catatonic Expressionism. Or parodies146 on what someone else had already done.
So much for Art. What of Thought? The Crew had developed a kind of shorthand whereby they could set forth147 any visions that might come their way. Conversations at the Spoon had become little more than proper nouns, literary allusions148, critical or philosophical149 terms linked in certain ways. Depending on how you arranged the building blocks at your disposal, you were smart or stupid. Depending on how others reacted they were In or Out. The number of blocks, however, was finite.
"Mathematically, boy," he told himself, "if nobody else original comes along, they're bound to run out of arrangements someday. What then?" What indeed. This sort of arranging and rearranging was Decadence, but the exhaustion150 of all possible permutations and combinations was death.
It scared Eigenvalue, sometimes. He would go in back and look at the set of dentures. Teeth and metals endure.
V
McClintic, back for a weekend from Lenox, found August in Nueva York bad as he'd expected. Buzzing close to sundown through Central Park in the Triumph he saw all manner of symptoms: girls on the grass, sweating all over in thin (vulnerable) summer dresses; groups of boys prowling off on the horizon, twitchless, sure, waiting for night; cops and solid citizens, all nervous (maybe only in a business way; but the cops' business had to do with these boys and the coming of night).
He'd come back to see Ruby. Faithful, he'd sent her postcards showing different views of Tanglewood and the Berkshires once a week; cards she never answered. But he'd called long-distance once or twice and she was still there close to home.
For some reason one night he'd dashed lengthwise across the state (a tiny state considering the Triumph's speed), McClintic and the bass player; nearly missed Cape14 Cod151 and driven into the sea. But sheer momentum152 carried them up that croissant of land and out to a settlement called French Town, a resort.
Out in front of a seafood153 place on the main and only drag, they found two more musicians playing mumbledy-peg with clam154 knives. They were on route to a party. "O yes," they cried in unison. One climbed in the Triumph's trunk, the other, who had a bottle-rum, 150 proof-and a pineapple, sat on the hood28. At 80 mph over roads which are ill-lit and near-unusable by the end of the Season, this happy hood-ornament cut open the fruit with a clam knife and built rum-and-pineapple-juices in paper cups which McClintic's bass handed him over the windscreen.
At the party McClintic's eye was taken by a little girl in dungarees, who sat in the kitchen entertaining a progress of summer types.
"Give me back my eye," said McClintic.
"I haven't got your eye."
"Later." He was one of those who can be infected by the drunkenness of others. He was juiced five minutes after they climbed in the window to the party.
Bass was outside, in the tree, with a girl. "You got eyes for the kitchen," he called down, waggish155. McClintic went out and sat down under the tree. The two above him were singing:
Have you heard, baby did you know:
There ain't no dope in Lenox . . .
Fireflies surrounded McClintic, inquisitive156. Somewhere you could hear waves crashing. The party inside was quiet, though the house was crowded. The girl appeared at a kitchen window. McClintic closed his eyes, rolled over and pushed his face into the grass.
Along came Harvey Fazzo, a piano player. "Eunice wants to know," he told McClintic, "if possibly she could see you alone:" Eunice was the girl in the kitchen.
"No," McClintic said. There was movement in the tree over him.
"You got a wife in New York?" Harvey asked, sympathetic.
"Something like that."
Not long after along came Eunice. "I have a bottle of gin," she coaxed157 him.
"You will have to do better," said McClintic.
He hadn't brought any horn. He let them have their inevitable session inside. He couldn't ever see that kind of session: his own kind of session didn't belong here, wasn't so frantic158, was in fact one of the only good results of the cool scene after the war: this easy knowledge on both ends of the instrument of what exactly is there, this quiet feeling-together. Like kissing .a girl's ear: mouth is one person's, ear is another, but both of you know. He stayed out under the tree. When the bass and his girl descended McClintic got a soft stocking-foot in the small of the back, which woke him up. Leaving (nearly dawn) Eunice, entirely plastered, scowled159 at him horribly, mouthing curses.
Time was McClintic wouldn't have thought twice. Wife in New York? Ha, ho.
She was there when he reached Matilda's; but only just. Packing a good-size suitcase; quarter of an hour the wrong way and he'd have missed.
Ruby started bawling161 the minute he showed in the doorway162. She threw a slip at him which gave up halfway163 across the room and floated to the bare floor, peach-colored and sad. It passed through the slant-rays of the sun almost down. They both watched it settle.
"Don't worry," she finally said. "I made a bet with myself."
Started unpacking164 the suitcase then, tears still falling promiscuous165 on her silk, rayon, cotton; linen166 sheets.
"Stupid," McClintic yelled. "God, that's stupid:" He had to yell at something. It wasn't that he didn't believe in telepathic flashes.
"What is there to talk about," she said a little later, the suitcase like a ticking time-bomb shoved back, empty, under the bed.
When had it become a matter of having her or losing her?
Charisma and Fu crashed into the room, drunk and singing English vaudeville songs. With them was a Saint Bernard they had found in the street drooling and sick. Evenings were hot, this August.
"Oh God," Profane said into the phone: "the roaring boys are back."
Through an open door, on a bed there, an itinerant167 racedriver named Murray Sable83 sweated and snored. The girl with him rolled away. On her back began half a dream-dialogue. Down on the Drive sat somebody atop a '56 Lincoln's hood, singing to himself:
Oh man,
I want some young blood,
Drink it, gargle it, use it for a moufwash.
Hey, young blood, what's happening tonight . . .
Werewolf season: August.
Rachel kissed the mouthpiece on her end. How could you kiss an object?
The dog staggered away into the kitchen and fell with a crash among two hundred or so of Charisma's empty beer bottles. Charisma sang on.
"I find one," Fu screamed from the kitchen. "One bucket, hey."
"Fill it wiv beer," from Charisma, still a Cockney.
"He look pretty sick."
"Beer is the best thing for him. Hair of the dog." Charisma began to laugh. Fu after a moment joined in bubbling, hysterical168, a hundred geishas all set going at once.
"It's hot," Rachel said.
"It will be cool. Rachel -" But their timing169 was off: his "I want -" and her "Please -" collided somewhere underground in midcircuit, came out mostly noise. Neither spoke170. The room was dark: out the window across the Hudson, heat lightning walked sneaky-Pete over Jersey.
Soon Murray Sable stopped snoring, the girl fell quiet: everything a sudden hush171 for the moment except the dog's beer sloshing into its bucket and an almost inaudible hiss172. The air mattress173 Profane slept on had a slow leak. He reinflated it once a week with a bicycle pump Winsome kept in the closet.
"Have you been talking," he said.
"No . . ."
"All right. But what goes on underground. Do we I wonder come out the same people at the other end?"
"There are things under the city," she admitted.
Alligators174, daft priests, bums in subways. He thought of the night she'd called him at the Norfolk bus station. Who'd monitored then? Did she really want him back then or was it all maybe a troll's idea of fun?
"I have to sleep. I have the second shift. Call me at midnight?"
"Of course."
"I mean I broke the electric alarm clock here."
"Schlemihl. They hate you."
"They've declared war on me," said Profane.
Wars begin in August. In the temperate175 zone and twentieth century we have this tradition. Not only seasonal176 Augusts; nor only public wars.
Hung up the phone now looked evil, as if it schemed in secret. Profane flopped on the air mattress. In the kitchen the Saint Bernard began to lap beer.
"Hey, he going to puke?"
The dog puked, loud and horrible. Winsome came charging in from a remote room.
"I broke your alarm clock," Profane said into the mattress.
"What, what," Winsome was saying. Next to Murray Sable a girl-voice began talking drowsy177 in no language known to a waking world. "Where have you guys been. " Winsome ran straight at the espresso machine; broke stride at the last moment, jumped on top of it and sat manipulating the taps with his toes. He had a direct view into the kitchen. "Oh, ha, ho," he said, sounding as if he'd been stabbed. "Oh, mi casa, su casa, you guys. Where is it you've been. "
Charisma, head hanging, shuffled178 around in a greenish pool of vomit179. The Saint Bernard was sleeping among the beer bottles. "Where else," he said.
"Out rollicking," said Fu. The dog began to scream at humid nightmare-shapes.
Back in August 1956, rollicking was the Whole Sick Crew's favorite pastime, in- or outdoor. One of the frequent forms it took was yo-yoing. Though probably not inspired by Profane's peregrinations along the east coast, the Crew did undertake something similar on a city-scale. Rule: you had to be genuinely drunk. Certain of the theater crowd inhabiting the Spoon had had fantastic yo-yo records invalidated because it was discovered later they'd been sober all along: "Quarterdeck drunkards," Pig called them scornfully. Rule: you had to wake up at least once on each transit180. Otherwise there'd only be a time gap, and that you could have spent on a bench in the subway station. Rule: it had to be a subway line running up and downtown, because this is the way a yo-yo goes. In the early days of yo-yoing certain false "champions" had admitted shamefaced to racking up scores on the 42nd Street shuttle, which was looked now on as something of a scandal in yo-yo circles.
Slab was king; after a memorable181 party a year ago at Raoul, he and Melvin's, a night he and Esther broke up, he'd spent a weekend on the West Side express, making sixty-nine complete cycles. At the end of it, starved, he stumbled out near Fulton Street on the way uptown again and ate a dozen cheese Danishes; got sick and was taken in for vagrancy182 and puking in the street.
Stencil thought it all nonsense.
"Get in there at rush hour," said Slab. "There are nine million yo-yos in this town."
Stencil took this advice one evening after five, came out with one rib160 to his umbrella broken and a vow183 never to do it again. Vertical184 corpses, eyes with no life, crowded loins, buttocks and hip-points together. Little sound except for the racketing of the subway, echoes in the tunnels. Violence (seeking exit): some of them carried out two stops before their time and unable to go upstream, get back in. All wordless. Was it the Dance of Death brought up to date?
Trauma185: possibly only remembering his last shock under ground, he headed for Rachel's, found her out to dinner with Profane (Profane?) but Paola, whom he had been trying to avoid, pinned him between the black fireplace and a print of di Chirico's street.
"You ought to see this." Handing him a small packet of typewritten pages.
Confessions186, the title. Confessions of Fausto Maijstral.
"I ought to go back," she said.
"Stencil has stayed off Malta." As if she'd asked him to go.
"Read," she said, "and see."
"His father died in Valletta."
"Is that all?"
Was that all? Did she really intend to go? Oh, God. Did he?
Phone rang, mercifully. It was Slab, who was holding a party over the weekend. "Of course," she said, and Stencil echoed of course, silent.
收听单词发音 |
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touching
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| adj.动人的，使人感伤的 | |
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ivy
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| n.常青藤，常春藤 | |
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ass
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| n.驴；傻瓜，蠢笨的人 | |
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unison
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| n.步调一致，行动一致 | |
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bums
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| n. 游荡者，流浪汉，懒鬼，闹饮，屁股 adj. 没有价值的，不灵光的，不合理的 vt. 令人失望，乞讨 vi. 混日子，以乞讨为生 | |
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wizened
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| adj.凋谢的；枯槁的 | |
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waning
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| adj.（月亮）渐亏的，逐渐减弱或变小的n.月亏v.衰落( wane的现在分词 )；（月）亏；变小；变暗淡 | |
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moss
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| n.苔，藓，地衣 | |
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ruby
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| n.红宝石，红宝石色 | |
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slab
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| n.平板，厚的切片；v.切成厚板，以平板盖上 | |
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obsession
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| n.困扰，无法摆脱的思想(或情感) | |
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banishes
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| v.放逐，驱逐( banish的第三人称单数 ) | |
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impaled
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| 钉在尖桩上( impale的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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cape
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| n.海角，岬；披肩，短披风 | |
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textured
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| adj.手摸时有感觉的, 有织纹的 | |
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decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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linguistic
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| adj.语言的，语言学的 | |
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animate
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| v.赋于生命，鼓励；adj.有生命的，有生气的 | |
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groves
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| 树丛，小树林( grove的名词复数 ) | |
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pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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gargoyle
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| n.笕嘴 | |
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fang
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| n.尖牙，犬牙 | |
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axis
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| n.轴，轴线，中心线；坐标轴，基准线 | |
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drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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crossword
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| n.纵横字谜，纵横填字游戏 | |
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abdomen
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| n.腹，下腹(胸部到腿部的部分) | |
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chaste
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| adj.贞洁的；有道德的；善良的；简朴的 | |
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hood
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| n.头巾，兜帽，覆盖；v.罩上，以头巾覆盖 | |
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tavern
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| n.小旅馆，客栈；小酒店 | |
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bowling
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| n.保龄球运动 | |
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rusty
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| adj.生锈的；锈色的；荒废了的 | |
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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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winsome
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| n.迷人的，漂亮的 | |
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sanity
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| n.心智健全，神智正常，判断正确 | |
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aloofness
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| 超然态度 | |
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nag
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| v.(对…)不停地唠叨；n.爱唠叨的人 | |
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profane
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| adj.亵神的，亵渎的；vt.亵渎，玷污 | |
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propped
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| 支撑，支持，维持( prop的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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shroud
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| n.裹尸布，寿衣；罩，幕；vt.覆盖，隐藏 | |
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synthetic
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| adj.合成的，人工的；综合的；n.人工制品 | |
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determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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transparent
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| adj.明显的，无疑的；透明的 | |
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neutrons
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| n.中子( neutron的名词复数 ) | |
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spinal
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| adj.针的，尖刺的，尖刺状突起的；adj.脊骨的，脊髓的 | |
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automobile
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| n.汽车，机动车 | |
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defense
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| n.防御，保卫；[pl.]防务工事；辩护，答辩 | |
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automaton
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| n.自动机器，机器人 | |
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tolerance
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| n.宽容；容忍，忍受；耐药力；公差 | |
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chamber
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| n.房间，寝室；会议厅；议院；会所 | |
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aged
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| adj.年老的，陈年的 | |
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automobiles
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| n.汽车( automobile的名词复数 ) | |
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hip
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| n.臀部，髋；屋脊 | |
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disdain
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| n.鄙视，轻视；v.轻视，鄙视，不屑 | |
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foam
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| v./n.泡沫，起泡沫 | |
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wig
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| n.假发 | |
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respiration
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| n.呼吸作用；一次呼吸；植物光合作用 | |
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vent
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| n.通风口，排放口；开衩；vt.表达，发泄 | |
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simultaneously
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| adv.同时发生地，同时进行地 | |
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entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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skull
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| n.头骨；颅骨 | |
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jaw
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| n.颚，颌，说教，流言蜚语；v.喋喋不休，教训 | |
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withdrawn
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| vt.收回；使退出；vi.撤退，退出 | |
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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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buckle
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| n.扣子，带扣；v.把...扣住，由于压力而弯曲 | |
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zipper
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| n.拉链；v.拉上拉链 | |
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undo
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| vt.解开，松开；取消，撤销 | |
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hips
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| abbr.high impact polystyrene 高冲击强度聚苯乙烯，耐冲性聚苯乙烯n.臀部( hip的名词复数 )；[建筑学]屋脊；臀围（尺寸）；臀部…的 | |
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charisma
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| n.(大众爱戴的)领袖气质，魅力 | |
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thumping
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| adj.重大的，巨大的；重击的；尺码大的；极好的adv.极端地；非常地v.重击(thump的现在分词)；狠打；怦怦地跳；全力支持 | |
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70
flailing
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| v.鞭打( flail的现在分词 )；用连枷脱粒；（臂或腿）无法控制地乱动；扫雷坦克 | |
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elusive
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| adj.难以表达(捉摸)的；令人困惑的；逃避的 | |
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persecutor
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| n. 迫害者 | |
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73
denuded
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| adj.[医]变光的，裸露的v.使赤裸( denude的过去式和过去分词 )；剥光覆盖物 | |
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74
penetrated
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| adj. 击穿的，鞭辟入里的 动词penetrate的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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75
reins
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| 感情，激情； 缰( rein的名词复数 )； 控制手段； 掌管； （成人带着幼儿走路以防其走失时用的）保护带 | |
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76
lariat
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| n.系绳，套索；v.用套索套捕 | |
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77
snarled
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| v.（指狗）吠，嗥叫， （人）咆哮( snarl的过去式和过去分词 )；咆哮着说，厉声地说 | |
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78
spotted
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| adj.有斑点的，斑纹的，弄污了的 | |
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79
mound
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| n.土墩，堤，小山；v.筑堤，用土堆防卫 | |
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80
parentheses
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| n.圆括号，插入语，插曲（ parenthesis的名词复数 ） | |
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81
tangible
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| adj.有形的，可触摸的，确凿的，实际的 | |
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82
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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83
sable
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| n.黑貂；adj.黑色的 | |
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84
wreck
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| n.失事，遇难；沉船；vt.(船等)失事，遇难 | |
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85
collapsed
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| adj.倒塌的 | |
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86
jersey
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| n.运动衫 | |
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87
petroleum
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| n.原油，石油 | |
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88
dynamite
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| n./vt.(用)炸药(爆破) | |
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89
avalanches
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| n.雪崩( avalanche的名词复数 ) | |
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90
bomber
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| n.轰炸机，投弹手，投掷炸弹者 | |
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91
malfunctioning
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| 出故障 | |
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92
transacted
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| v.办理（业务等）( transact的过去式和过去分词 )；交易，谈判 | |
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93
shrug
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| v.耸肩(表示怀疑、冷漠、不知等) | |
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94
bugging
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| [法] 窃听 | |
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95
bug
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| n.虫子；故障；窃听器；vt.纠缠；装窃听器 | |
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96
virgin
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| n.处女，未婚女子；adj.未经使用的；未经开发的 | |
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97
rumbles
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| 隆隆声，辘辘声( rumble的名词复数 ) | |
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98
frayed
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| adj.磨损的v.（使布、绳等）磨损，磨破( fray的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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99
thaw
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| v.（使）融化，（使）变得友善；n.融化，缓和 | |
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100
bass
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| n.男低音(歌手)；低音乐器；低音大提琴 | |
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101
flipped
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| 轻弹( flip的过去式和过去分词 )； 按（开关）； 快速翻转； 急挥 | |
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102
flip
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| vt.快速翻动；轻抛；轻拍；n.轻抛；adj.轻浮的 | |
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103
weird
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| adj.古怪的，离奇的；怪诞的，神秘而可怕的 | |
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104
recording
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| n.录音，记录 | |
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105
helping
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| n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的 | |
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106
royalties
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| 特许权使用费 | |
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107
flop
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| n.失败(者)，扑通一声；vi.笨重地行动，沉重地落下 | |
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108
specialized
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| adj.专门的，专业化的 | |
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109
beset
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| v.镶嵌；困扰，包围 | |
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110
molecule
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| n.分子，克分子 | |
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111
flopped
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| v.（指书、戏剧等）彻底失败( flop的过去式和过去分词 )；（因疲惫而）猛然坐下；（笨拙地、不由自主地或松弛地）移动或落下；砸锅 | |
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112
flips
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| 轻弹( flip的第三人称单数 )； 按（开关）； 快速翻转； 急挥 | |
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113
shale
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| n.页岩，泥板岩 | |
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114
protrude
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| v.使突出，伸出，突出 | |
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115
exasperated
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| adj.恼怒的 | |
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116
percolating
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| n.渗透v.滤( percolate的现在分词 )；渗透；（思想等）渗透；渗入 | |
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117
overpass
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| n.天桥，立交桥 | |
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118
rusting
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| n.生锈v.（使）生锈( rust的现在分词 ) | |
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119
graveyard
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| n.坟场 | |
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120
cremated
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| v.火葬，火化（尸体）( cremate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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121
corpses
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| n.死尸，尸体( corpse的名词复数 ) | |
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122
sane
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| adj.心智健全的，神志清醒的，明智的，稳健的 | |
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123
meticulous
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| adj.极其仔细的，一丝不苟的 | |
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124
snails
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| n.蜗牛；迟钝的人；蜗牛( snail的名词复数 ) | |
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125
polygonal
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| adj.多角形的，多边形的 | |
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126
translucent
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| adj.半透明的；透明的 | |
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127
painstakingly
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| adv. 费力地 苦心地 | |
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128
converging
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| adj.收敛[缩]的，会聚的，趋同的v.（线条、运动的物体等）会于一点( converge的现在分词 )；（趋于）相似或相同；人或车辆汇集；聚集 | |
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129
inevitable
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| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
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130
tangled
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| adj. 纠缠的，紊乱的 动词tangle的过去式和过去分词 | |
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131
oblivious
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| adj.易忘的，遗忘的，忘却的，健忘的 | |
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132
stencil
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| v.用模版印刷；n.模版；复写纸，蜡纸 | |
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133
dour
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| adj.冷酷的，严厉的；（岩石）嶙峋的；顽强不屈 | |
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134
harangued
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| v.高谈阔论( harangue的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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135
spectral
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| adj.幽灵的，鬼魂的 | |
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136
moor
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| n.荒野，沼泽；vt.(使)停泊；vi.停泊 | |
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137
jaws
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| n.口部；嘴 | |
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138
lipstick
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| n.口红，唇膏 | |
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139
pouts
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| n.撅嘴，生气( pout的名词复数 )v.撅（嘴）( pout的第三人称单数 ) | |
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140
contemplating
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| 深思，细想，仔细考虑( contemplate的现在分词 )； 注视，凝视； 考虑接受（发生某事的可能性）； 深思熟虑，沉思，苦思冥想 | |
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141
permanently
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| adv.永恒地，永久地，固定不变地 | |
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142
decadence
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| n.衰落，颓废 | |
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143
colonized
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| 开拓殖民地，移民于殖民地( colonize的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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144
discreet
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| adj.(言行)谨慎的；慎重的；有判断力的 | |
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145
professed
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| 公开声称的，伪称的，已立誓信教的 | |
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146
parodies
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| n.拙劣的模仿( parody的名词复数 )；恶搞；滑稽的模仿诗文；表面上模仿得笨拙但充满了机智用来嘲弄别人作品的作品v.滑稽地模仿，拙劣地模仿( parody的第三人称单数 ) | |
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147
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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148
allusions
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| 暗指，间接提到( allusion的名词复数 ) | |
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149
philosophical
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| adj.哲学家的，哲学上的，达观的 | |
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150
exhaustion
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| n.耗尽枯竭，疲惫，筋疲力尽，竭尽，详尽无遗的论述 | |
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151
cod
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| n.鳕鱼；v.愚弄；哄骗 | |
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152
momentum
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| n.动力，冲力，势头；动量 | |
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153
seafood
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| n.海产食品，海味，海鲜 | |
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154
clam
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| n.蛤，蛤肉 | |
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155
waggish
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| adj.诙谐的，滑稽的 | |
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156
inquisitive
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| adj.求知欲强的，好奇的，好寻根究底的 | |
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157
coaxed
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| v.哄，用好话劝说( coax的过去式和过去分词 )；巧言骗取；哄劝，劝诱 | |
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158
frantic
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| adj.狂乱的，错乱的，激昂的 | |
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159
scowled
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| 怒视，生气地皱眉( scowl的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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160
rib
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| n.肋骨，肋状物 | |
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161
bawling
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| v.大叫，大喊( bawl的现在分词 )；放声大哭；大声叫出；叫卖（货物） | |
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162
doorway
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| n.门口，(喻)入门；门路，途径 | |
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163
halfway
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| adj.中途的，不彻底的，部分的；adv.半路地，在中途，在半途 | |
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164
unpacking
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| n.取出货物，拆包[箱]v.从（包裹等）中取出（所装的东西），打开行李取出( unpack的现在分词 )；拆包；解除…的负担；吐露（心事等） | |
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165
promiscuous
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| adj.杂乱的，随便的 | |
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166
linen
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| n.亚麻布，亚麻线，亚麻制品；adj.亚麻布制的，亚麻的 | |
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167
itinerant
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| adj.巡回的；流动的 | |
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168
hysterical
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| adj.情绪异常激动的，歇斯底里般的 | |
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169
timing
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| n.时间安排，时间选择 | |
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170
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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171
hush
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| int.嘘，别出声；n.沉默，静寂；v.使安静 | |
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172
hiss
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| v.发出嘶嘶声；发嘘声表示不满 | |
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173
mattress
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| n.床垫，床褥 | |
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174
alligators
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| n.短吻鳄( alligator的名词复数 ) | |
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175
temperate
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| adj.温和的，温带的，自我克制的，不过分的 | |
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176
seasonal
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| adj.季节的，季节性的 | |
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177
drowsy
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| adj.昏昏欲睡的，令人发困的 | |
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178
shuffled
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| v.洗（纸牌）( shuffle的过去式和过去分词 )；拖着脚步走；粗心地做；摆脱尘世的烦恼 | |
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179
vomit
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| v.呕吐，作呕；n.呕吐物，吐出物 | |
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180
transit
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| n.经过，运输；vt.穿越，旋转；vi.越过 | |
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181
memorable
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| adj.值得回忆的，难忘的，特别的，显著的 | |
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182
vagrancy
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| （说话的，思想的）游移不定； 漂泊； 流浪； 离题 | |
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183
vow
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| n.誓(言)，誓约；v.起誓，立誓 | |
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184
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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185
trauma
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| n.外伤，精神创伤 | |
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186
confessions
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| n.承认( confession的名词复数 )；自首；声明；（向神父的）忏悔 | |
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