Chapter 11

 Confessions¹ of Fausto Maijstral

 

 It takes, unhappily, no more than a desk and writing supplies to turn any  room into a confessional. This may have nothing to do with the acts we have  committed, or the humours we do go in and out of. It may be only the rooms  cube-having no persuasive³ powers of its own. The room simply is. To occupy  it, and find a metaphor⁴ there for memory, is our own fault.

Let me describe the room. The room measures 17 by 11 by 7 feet. The walls  are lath and plaster, and painted the same shade of grey as were the decks  of His Majesty's corvettes during the war. The room is oriented so that its  diagonals fall NNE/SSW, and NW/SE. Thus any observer may see, from the  window and balcony on the NNW side (a short side), the city Valletta.

One enters from the WSW, by a door midway in a long wall of the room.  Standing⁵ just inside the door and turning clockwise one sees a portable wood  stove in the NNE corner, surrounded by boxes, bowls, sacks containing food;  the mattress⁶, located halfway⁷ along the long ENE wall; a slop bucket in the  SE corner; a washbasin in the SSW corner; a window facing the Dockyard; the  door one has just entered; and finally in the NW corner, a small writing  table and chair. The chair faces the WSW wall; so that the head must be  turned 135 degrees to the rear in order to have a line-of-sight with the  city. The walls are unadorned, the floor is carpetless. A dark grey stain is  located on the ceiling directly over the stove.

That is the room. To say the mattress was begged from the Navy B.O.Q. here  in Valletta shortly after the war, the stove and food supplied by CARE, or  the table from a house now rubble⁸ and covered by earth; what have these to  do with the room? The facts are history, and only men have histories. The  facts call up emotional responses, which no inert⁹ room has ever showed us.

The room is in a building which had nine such rooms before the war. Now  there are three. The building is on an escarpment above the Dockyard. The  room is stacked atop two others - the other two-thirds of the building were  removed by the bombing, sometime during the winter of 1942-43.

Fausto himself may be defined in only three ways. As a relationship: your  father. As a given name. Most important, as an occupant. Since shortly after  you left, an occupant of the room.

Why? Why use the room as introduction to an apologia? Because the room,  though windowless and cold at night, is a hothouse. Because the room is the  past, though it has no history of its own. Because, as the physical  being-there of a bed or horizontal plane determines what we call love; as a  high place must exist before God's word can come to a flock and any sort of  religion begin; so must there be a room, sealed against the present, before  we can make any attempt to deal with the past.

In the University, before the war, before I had married your poor mother, I  felt as do many young men a sure wind of Greatness flowing over my shoulders  like an invisible cape¹⁰. Maratt, Dnubietna and I were to be the cadre for a  grand School of Anglo-Maltese Poetry-the Generation of '37. This  undergraduate certainty of success gives rise to anxieties, foremost being  the autobiography¹¹ or apologia pro¹² vita sua the poet someday has to write.  How, the reasoning goes: how can a man write his life unless he is virtually  certain of the hour of his death? A harrowing question. Who knows what  Herculean poetic¹³ feats¹⁴ might be left to him in perhaps the score of years  between a premature¹⁵ apologia and death? Achievements so great as to cancel  out the effect of the apologia itself. And if on the other hand nothing at  all is accomplished¹⁶ in twenty or thirty stagnant¹⁷ years - how distasteful is  anticlimax¹⁸ to the young!

Time of course has showed the question up in all its young illogic. We can  justify²⁰ any apologia simply by calling life a successive rejection²¹ of  personalities²². No apologia is any more than a romance - half a fiction - in  which all the successive identities taken on and rejected by the writer as a  function of linear time are treated as separate characters. The writing  itself even constitutes another rejection, another "character" added to the  past. So we do sell our souls: paying them away to history in little  installments²³. It isn't so much to pay for eyes clear enough to see past the  fiction of continuity, the fiction of cause and effect, the fiction of a  humanized history endowed with "reason."

Before 1938, then, came Fausto Maijstral the First. A young sovereign,  dithering between Caesar and God. Maratt was going into politics; Dnubietna  would be an engineer; I was slated²⁵ to be the priest. Thus among us all major  areas of human struggle would come under the scrutiny²⁶ of the Generation of  '37.

Maijstral the Second arrived with you, child, and with the war. You were  unplanned for and in a way resented. Though if Fausto I had ever had a  serious vocation²⁷, Elena Xemxi your mother - and you - would never have come  into his life at all. The plans of our Movement were disturbed. We still  wrote - but there was other work to do. Our poetic "destiny" was replaced by  the discovery of an aristocracy deeper and older. We were builders.

Fausto Maijstral III was born on the Day of the 13 Raids. Generated: out of  Elena's death, out of a horrible encounter with one we only knew as the Bad  Priest. An encounter I am only now attempting to put in English. The journal  for weeks after has nothing but gibberish to describe that "birth trauma²⁸."  Fausto III is the closest any of the characters comes to non-humanity. Not  "inhumanity," which means bestiality; beasts are still animate²⁹. Fausto III  had taken on much of the non-humanity of the debris³⁰, crushed stone, broken  masonry³¹, destroyed churches and auberges of his city.

His successor, Fausto IV, inherited a physically³² and spiritually broken  world. No single event produced him. Fausto III had merely passed a certain  level in his slow return to consciousness or humanity. That curve is still  rising. Somehow there had accumulated a number of poems (at least one  sonnet³⁵-cycle the present Fausto is still happy with); monographs³⁶ on  religion, language, history; critical essays (Hopkins, T. S. Eliot, di  Chirico's novel Hebdomeros). Fausto IV was the "man of letters" and only  survivor³⁷ of the Generation of '37, for Dnubietna is building roads in  America, and Maratt is somewhere south of Mount Ruwenzori, organizing riots  among our linguistic³⁸ brothers the Bantu.

We have now reached an interregnum. Stagnant; the only throne a wooden chair  in the NW corner of this room. Hermetic: for who can hear the Dockyard  whistle, rivet³⁹ guns, vehicles in the street when one is occupied with the  past?

Now memory is a traitor⁴⁰: gilding⁴¹, altering. The word is, in sad fact,  meaningless, based as it is on the false assumption that identity is single,  soul continuous. A man has no more right to set forth⁴² any self-memory as  truth than to say "Maratt is a sour-mouthed University cynic" or "Dnubietna  is a liberal and madman."

Already you see: the "is" - unconsciously we've drifted into the past. You  must now be subjected, dear Paola, to a barrage⁴³ of undergraduate sentiment.  The journals, I mean, of Fausto I and II. What other way can there be to  regain⁴⁴ him, as we must? Here, for example:

   How wondrous⁴⁵ is this St. Giles Fair called history! Her rhythms pulse

   regular and sinusoidal - a freak show in caravan⁴⁶, travelling over thousands

   of little hills. A serpent hypnotic and undulant, bearing on her back like

   infinitesimal fleas⁴⁷ such hunchbacks, dwarves⁴⁸, prodigies⁴⁹, centaurs⁵⁰,

   poltergeists! Two-headed, three-eyed, hopelessly in love; satyrs with the

   skin of werewolves, werewolves with the eyes of young girls and perhaps

   even an old man with a navel of glass, through which can be seen goldfish

   nuzzling the coral country of his guts⁵¹.

The date is of course 3 September 1939: the mixing of metaphors⁵², crowding of  detail, rhetoric-for-its-own-sake only a way of saying the balloon had gone  up, illustrating⁵³ again and certainly not for the last time the colorful  whimsy⁵⁴ of history.

Could we have been so much in the midst of life? With such a sense of grand  adventure about it all? "Oh, God is here, you know, in the crimson⁵⁵ carpets  of sulla each spring, in the blood-orange groves⁵⁷, in the sweet pods of my  carob tree, the St.-John's-bread of this dear island. His fingers raked the  ravines; His breath keeps the rain clouds from over us, His voice once  guided the shipwrecked St. Paul to bless our Malta." And Maratt wrote:

   Britain and Crown, we join thy swelling⁵⁹ guard

   To drive the brute⁶¹ invader⁶² from our strand⁶³.

   For God His own shall rout⁶⁴ the evil-starred

   And God light peace's lamps with His dear hand . . .

"God His own"; that brings a smile. Shakespeare. Shakespeare and T. S. Eliot  ruined us all. On Ash Wednesday of '42, for example, Dnubietna wrote a  "satire⁶⁵" on Eliot's poem:

   Because I do

   Because I do not hope

   Because I do not hope to survive

   Injustice⁶⁶ from the Palace, death from the air.

   Because I do,

   Only do,

   I continue . . .

We were most fond, I believe, of "The Hollow Men." And we did like to use  Elizabethan phrases even in our speech. There is a description, sometime in  1937, of a farewell celebration for Maratt on the eve of his marriage. All  of us drunk, arguing politics: it was in a cafe in Kingsway - scusi, Strada  Reale then. Before the Italians starting bombing us. Dnubietna had called  our Constitution "hypocritical camouflage⁶⁷ for a slave state." Maratt  objected. Dnubietna leapt up on the table, upsetting glasses, knocking the  bottle to the floor, screaming "Go to, caitiff!" It became the cant⁶⁸ phrase  for our "set": go to. The entry was written, I suppose, next morning: but  even in the misery⁶⁹ of a Headache the dehydrated Fausto I was still able to  talk of the pretty girls, the hot-jazz band, the gallant⁷⁰ conversation. The  prewar University years were probably as happy as he described, and the  conversation as "good." They must have argued everything under the sun, and  in Malta then was a good deal of sun.

But Fausto I was as bastardised as the others. In the midst of the bombing  in '42, his successor commented:

 Our poets write of nothing now but the rain of bombs from what was once Heaven. We builders practice, as we must, patience and strength but - the curse of knowing English and its emotional nuances! - with it a desperate-nervous hatred⁷¹ of this war, an impatience⁷² for it to be over.

 I think our education in the English school and University alloyed what was pure in us. Younger, we talked of love, fear, motherhood; speaking in Maltese as Elena and I do now. But what a language! Have it, or today's Builders, advanced at all since the half-men who built the sanctuaries⁷³ of Hagiar Kim? We talk as animals might.

 Can I explain "love"? Tell her my love for her is the same and part of my love for the Bofors crews, the Spitfire pilots, our Governor? That it is love which embraces this island, love for everything on it that moves! There are no words in Maltese for this. Nor finer shades; nor words for intellectual states of mind. She cannot read my poetry, I cannot translate it for her.

 Are we only animals then. Still one with the troglodytes⁷⁴ who lived here 400 centuries before dear Christ's birth. We do live as they did in the bowels⁷⁵ of the earth. Copulate, spawn⁷⁶, die without uttering any but the grossest words. Do any of us even understand the words of God, teachings of His Church? Perhaps Maijstral, Maltese, one with his people, was meant only to live at the threshold of consciousness, only exist as a hardly animate lump of flesh, an automaton⁷⁷.

 But we are torn, our grand "Generation of '37." To be merely Maltese: endure almost mindless, without sense of time? Or to think - continuously - in English, to be too aware of war, of time, of all the greys and shadows of love?

 Perhaps British colonialism has produced a new sort of being, a dual⁷⁸ man, aimed two ways at once: towards peace and simplicity⁸⁰ on the one hand, towards an exhausted⁸¹ intellectual searching on the other. Perhaps Maratt, Dnubietna and Maijstral are the first of a new race. What monsters shall rise in our wake . . .

 These thoughts are from the darker side of my mind - mohh, brain. Not even a word for mind. We must use the hateful Italian, menti.

What monsters. You, child, what sort of monster are you? Perhaps not at all  of course what Fausto meant: he may have been talking of a spiritual  heritage. Perhaps of Fausto III and IV, et seq. But the excerpt⁸² shows  clearly a charming quality of youth: to begin with optimism; and once the  inadequacy⁸³ of optimism is borne in on him by an inevitably⁸⁴ hostile world, to  retreat into abstractions. Abstractions even in the midst of the bombing.  For a year and a half Malta averaged ten raids per day. How he sustained  that hermetic retreat, God alone knows. There's no indication in the  journals. Perhaps it too sprang from the Anglicized half of Fausto II: for  he wrote poetry. Even in the journals we get sudden shifts from reality to  something less:

 I write this during a night raid, down in the abandoned sewer⁸⁷. It is raining outside. The only light is from phosphorous flares⁸⁸ above the city, a few candles in here, bombs. Elena is beside me, holding the child who sleeps drooling against her shoulder. Packed close round us are other Maltese, English civil servants, a few Indian tradesmen. There's little talk. Children listen, all wide eyes, to bombs above in the streets. For them it is only an amusement. At first they cried on being wakened in the middle of the night. But they've grown used to it. Some even stand now near the entrance to our shelter, watching the flares and bombs, chattering⁸⁹, nudging, pointing. It will be a strange generation. What of our own? She sleeps.

And then, for no apparent reason, this:

 O Malta of the Knights⁹⁰ of St. John! History's serpent is one; what matter where on her body we lie. Here in this wretched tunnel we are the Knights and the Giaours; we are L'Isle-Adam and his ermine arm, and his maniple on a field of blue sea and gold sun, we are M. Parisot, lonely in his wind-haunted grave high above the Harbour; battling on the ramparts during the Great Siege - both! My Grandmaster, both: death and life, ermine and old cloth, noble and common, in feast and combat and mourning we are Malta, one, pure and a motley of races at once; no time has passed since, we lived in caves, grappled with fish at the reedy shore, buried our dead with a song, with red-ochre and pulled up our dolmens, temples and menhirs and standing stones to the glory of some indeterminate god or gods, rose toward the light in andanti of singing, lived our lives through circling centuries of rape⁹¹, looting, invasion, still one; one in the dark ravines, one in this God-favoured plot of sweet Mediterranean⁹² earth, one in whatever temple or sewer or catacomb's darkness is ours, by fate or historical writhings or still by the will of God.

He must have written the latter part at home, after the raid; but the  "shift" is still there. Fausto II was a young man in retreat. It's seen not  only in his fascination⁹³ for the conceptual - even in the midst of that  ongoing⁹⁴, vast - but somehow boring - destruction of an island; but also in  his relationship with your mother.

First mention of Elena Xemxi comes from Fausto I, shortly after Maratt's  marriage. Perhaps, a breach⁹⁵ having been made in the bachelorhood of the  Generation of '37 - though from all indications the movement was anything  but celibate⁹⁶ - Fausto now felt safe enough to follow suit. And of course at  the same time taking these fidgeting and inconclusive steps towards Church  celibacy⁹⁷.

Oh, he was "in love": no doubt. But his own ideas on the matter always in a  state of flux⁹⁸, never I think getting quite in line with the Maltese version:  Church-approved copulation for the purpose, and glorification⁹⁹, of  motherhood. We already know for example how Fausto in the worst part of the  Siege of '40-'43 had arrived at a nation and practice of love wide, high and deep as Malta itself.

 

 The dog days have ended, the maijstral has ceased to blow. Soon the other wind called gregale will bring the gentle rains to solemnize the sowing of our red wheat.

 Myself: what am I if not a wind, my very name a hissing¹⁰⁰ of queer zephyrs¹⁰¹ though the carob trees? I stand in time between the two winds, my will no more than a puff¹⁰² of air. But air too are the clever, cynical¹⁰³ arguments of Dnubietna. His views on marriage - even Maratt's marriage - blow by my poor  flapping ears unnoticed.

 

 For Elena - tonight! O Elena Xemxi: small as the she-goat, sweet your milk and your love-cry. Dark-eyed as the space between stars over Ghaudex where we have gazed so often in our childish summers. Tonight will I go to your little house in Vittoriosa, and before your black eyes break open this small pod of a heart and offer in communion the St.-John's-bread I have cherished like a Eucharist these nineteen years.

He did not propose marriage; but confessed his love. There was still, you  see, the vague "program" - the vocation to priesthood he was never quite  sure of. Elena hesitated. When young Fausto questioned, she became evasive.  He promptly¹⁰⁴ began to display symptoms of intense jealousy¹⁰⁵:

 Has she lost her faith? I've heard she has been out with Dnubietna - Dnubietna! Under his hands. Our Lord, is there no recourse? Must I go out and find them together: follow through the old farce¹⁰⁶ of challenge, combat, murder . . . How he must be gloating: It was all planned. Must have been. Our discussions of marriage. He even told me one evening - hypothetically, of course, oh yes! - precisely¹⁰⁷ how he would find a virgin¹⁰⁸ someday and "educate" her to sin. Told me knowing all the time that someday it would be Elena Xemxi. My friend. Comrade-in-arms. One third of our Generation. I could never take her back. One touch from him and eighteen years of purity - gone!

Etc., etc. Dnubietna, as Fausto must have known even in the worst depths of  suspicion, had nothing at all to do with her reluctance¹⁰⁹. Suspicion softened  to a nostalgic brooding:

 Sunday there was rain, leaving me with memories. Rain seems to make them swell⁶⁰ like bothersome flowers whose perfume is bittersweet. A night I remember: we were children, embracing in a garden above the Harbour. The rustling¹¹⁰ of azaleas, smell of oranges, a black frock she wore that absorbed all the stars and moon; reflecting nothing back. As she had taken from me, all my light. She has the carob-softness of my heart.

Ultimately their quarrel took in a third party. In typically Maltese  fashion, a priest, one Father Avalanche¹¹¹, came in as the intermediary. He  appears infrequently in these journals, always faceless, serving more as  foil to his opposite number the Bad Priest. But he did finally persuade  Elena to return to Fausto.

 She came to me today, out of smoke, rain, silence. Wearing black, nearly invisible. Sobbing¹¹² plausibly¹¹³ enough in my too-welcoming arms.

 She's to have a child. Dnubietna's, came my first thought (of course it did - for all of half a second - fool). The Father said mine. She had been to A. for confession². God knows what passed there. This good priest cannot break the secrecy¹¹⁴ of the confessional. Only let slip what the three of us know - that it is my child - so that we should be two souls united before God.

 So much for our plan. Maratt and Dnubietna will be disappointed.

So much for their plan. We will return to this matter of vocation.

From a distraught Elena then, Fausto learned of his "rival": the Bad Priest.

 No one knows his name or his parish. There is only superstitious¹¹⁵ rumour¹¹⁶; excommunicated, confederates with the Dark One. He lives in an old villa¹¹⁷ past Sliema, near the sea. Found E. one night alone in the street. Perhaps he'd been out prowling for souls. A sinister¹¹⁸ figure, she said, but with the mouth of a Christ. The eyes were shadowed by a wide-brimmed hat; all she could see were soft cheeks, even teeth.

Now it was none of your mysterious "corruption¹¹⁹." Priests here are second  only to mothers in order of prestige. A young girl is naturally enough  deferent to and awed¹²⁰ by the mere³³ glimpse of any fluttering soutane in the  street. Under subsequent questioning, it came out:

 "It was near the church - our church. By a long low wall in the street, after sunset, but still light. He asked if I was going to the church. I hadn't thought to go. Confessions were over. I don't know why I agreed to walk there with him. It was not a command - though I would have obeyed if it had been - but we went up the hill, and into the church, up the side aisle¹²¹ to the confessional.

 "'Have you confessed?' he asked.

 "I looked at his eyes. I thought at first he was drunk, or marid b'mohhu. I was afraid.

 "'Come then.' We entered the confessional. At the time I thought: don't priests have the right? But I did tell him things I have never told Father Avalanche. I didn't know then who this priest was, you see."

Now sin for Elena Xemxi had been heretofore as natural a function as  breathing, eating, or gossiping. Under the agile¹²² instruction of the Bad  Priest, however, it began to take on the shape of an evil spirit: alien,  parasitic¹²³, attached like a black slug to her soul.

 How could she marry anyone? She was fit, said the Bad Priest, not for the world but for the convent. Christ was her proper husband. No human male could coexist with the sin which fed on her girl-soul. Only Christ was mighty¹²⁴ enough, loving enough, forgiving enough. Had He not cured the lepers and exorcised malignant¹²⁵ fevers? Only He could welcome disease, clasp it to His bosom¹²⁶, rub against it, kiss it. It had been His mission on earth as now, a spiritual husband in heaven, to know sickness intimately, love it, cure it. This was parable¹²⁷, the Bad Priest told her, metaphor for spirit's cancer. But the Maltese mind, conditioned by its language, is unreceptive to such talk. All my Elena saw was the disease, the literal sickness.   Afraid I, or our children, would reap its ravages¹²⁸.

 She stayed away from me and from Father A.'s confessional. Stayed in her own house, searched her body each morning and examined her conscience each night for progressive symptoms of the metastasis she feared was in her. Another vocation: whose words were garbled¹²⁹ and somehow sinister, as Fausto's own had been.

These, poor child, are the sad events surrounding your given name. It is a  different name now that you've been carried off by the U. S. Navy. But  beneath that accident you are still Maijstral-Xemxi - a terrible  misalliance. May you survive it. I fear not so much a reappearance in you of  Elena's mythical¹³⁰ "disease" as a fracturing of personality such as your  father has undergone. May you be only Paola, one girl: a single given heart,  a whole mind at peace. That is a prayer, if you wish.

Later, after the marriage, after your birth, well into the reign²⁴ of Fausto  II when the bombs were falling, the relationship with Elena must have come  under some kind of moratorium¹³¹. There being, perhaps, enough else to do.  Fausto enlisted¹³² in the home defence; Elena had taken to nursing: feeding and  keeping sheltered the bombed-out, comforting the wounded, bandaging,  burying. At this time - assuming his theory of the "dual man" to be so -  Fausto II was becoming more Maltese and less British.

 German bombers¹³³ over today: ME-109's. No more need to look. We have grown used to the sound. Five times. Concentrated, as luck would have it, on Ta Kali. These grand chaps in the "Hurries" and Spitfires! What would we not do for them!

Moving towards that island-wide sense of communion. And at the same time  towards the lowest form of consciousness. His work at the Ta Kali airfield¹³⁴  was a sapper's drudgery¹³⁵; keeping the runways in condition for the British  fighter planes; repairing the barracks, mess hall and hangars. At first he  was able to look on it all over his shoulder, as it were: in retreat.

 Not a night since Italy declared war have we known raidless. How was it in the years of peace? Somewhere - what centuries ago? - one could sleep a night through. That's all gone. Routed out by sirens at three in the morning - at 3:30 out to the airfield past the Bofors emplacements, the wardens¹³⁶, the fire-fighting crews. With death - its smell, slow after-trickling of powdered plaster, stubborn smoke and name, still fresh in the air. The R.A.F. are magnificent, all magnificent: ground artillery¹³⁷, the few merchant seamen¹³⁸ who do get through, my own comrades-in-arms. I speak of them that way: our home defence though little more than common labourers are military in the highest sense. Surely if war has any nobility it is in the rebuilding not the destruction. A few portable searchlights (they are at a premium) for us to see by. So with pick, shovel¹³⁹ and rake we reshape our Maltese earth for those game little Spitfires.

 But isn't it a way of glorifying¹⁴⁰ God? Hard-labour surely. But as if somewhere once without our knowledge we'd been condemned¹⁴¹ for a term to prison. With the next raid all our filling and levelling is blasted away into pits and rubble piles which must then be refilled and relevelled only to be destroyed again. Day and night it never eases off. I have let pass my nightly prayers on more than one occasion. I say them now on my feet, on the job, often in rhythm to the shovelling¹⁴². To kneel is a luxury these days.

 No sleep, little food; but no complaints. Are we not, Maltese, English and the few Americans, one? There is, we are taught, a communion of saints in heaven. So perhaps on earth, also in this Purgatory¹⁴³, a communion: not of gods or heroes, merely men expiating¹⁴⁴ sins they are unaware¹⁴⁵ of, caught somehow all at once within the reaches of a sea un crossable and guarded by instruments of death. Here on our dear tiny prison plot, our Malta.

Retreat, then, into religious abstraction. Retreat also into poetry, which  somehow he found time to write down. Fausto IV has commented elsewhere on  the poetry which came out of Malta's second Great Siege. Fausto II's had  fallen into the same patterns. Certain images recurred¹⁴⁶, major among them  Valletta of the Knights. Fausto IV was tempted¹⁴⁷ to put this down to simple  "escape" and leave it there. It was certainly wish-fulfillment. Maratt had a  vision of La Vallette patrolling the streets during blackout; Dnubietna  wrote a sonnet about a dogfight (Spitfire v. ME-109) taking a knights' duel  for the sustained image. Retreat into a time when personal combat was more  equal, when warfare¹⁴⁸ could at least be gilded¹⁴⁹ with an illusion of honour. But  beyond this; could it not be a true absence of time? Fausto II even noticed  this:

 Here towards midnight in a lull¹⁵⁰ between raids, watching Elena and Paola sleep, I seem to have come inside time again. Midnight does mark the hairline between days, as was our Lord's design. But when the bombs fall, or at work, then it's as if time were suspended. As if we all laboured and sheltered in timeless Purgatory. Perhaps it comes only from living on an island. With another kind of nerves possibly one has a dimension, a vector pointing sternly to some land's-end or other, the tip of a peninsula. But here with nowhere to go in space but into the sea it can be only the barb-and-shaft of one's own arrogance¹⁵¹ that insists there is somewhere to go in time as well.

Or in a more poignant¹⁵² vein¹⁵³:

 Spring has come. Perhaps there are sulla blossoms in the country. Here in the city is sun, and more rain than is really necessary. It cannot matter, can it? Even I suspect the growth of our child has nothing to do with time. Her name-wind will be here again; to soothe¹⁵⁴ her face which is always dirty. Is it a world anyone could have brought a child into?

None of us has the right to ask that any more, Paola. Only you.

The other great image is of something I can only call slow apocalypse. Even  the radical¹⁵⁵ Dnubietna, whose tastes assuredly ran to apocalypse at full  gallop¹⁵⁶, eventually created a world in which the truth had precedence over  his engineer's politics. He was probably the best of our poets. First, at  least, to come to a halt, about-face and toil¹⁵⁷ back along his own retreat's  path; back towards the real world the bombs were leaving us. The Ash  Wednesday poem marked his lowest point: after that he gave up abstraction  and a political rage which he later admitted was "all posturing¹⁵⁸" to be  concerned increasingly with what was, not what ought to have been or what  could be under the right form of government.

We all came back eventually. Maratt in a way which in any other context  would be labelled absurdly theatrical¹⁵⁹. He was working as mechanic out at Ta  Kali and had grown fond of several pilots. One by one they were shot from  the sky. On the night the last one died he went calmly into the officers'  club, stole a bottle of wine - scarce then like everything else because no  convoys¹⁶⁰ were getting through - and got belligerently¹⁶² drunk. The next anyone  knew he was on the edge of town at one of the Bofors emplacements, being  shown how to operate the guns. They taught him in time for the next raid. He  divided his time after that between airfield and artillery, getting, I  believe, two to three hours' sleep out of every twenty-four: He had an  excellent record of kills. And his poetry began to show the same "retreat  from retreat."

Fausto II's return was most violent of all. He dropped away from abstraction  and into Fausto III: a non-humanity which was the most real state of  affairs. Probably. One would rather not think so.

But all shared this sensitivity to decadence¹⁶⁴, of a slow falling, as if the  island were being hammered inch by inch into the sea. "I remember," that  other Fausto wrote,

   I remember

   A sad tango on the last night of the old world

   A girl who peeped from between the palms

   At the Phoenicia Hotel

   Maria, alma de mi corazon,

   Before the crucible¹⁶⁵

   And the slag¹⁶⁶ heap,

   Before the sudden craters¹⁶⁷

   And the cancerous blooming of displaced earth.

   Before the carrion¹⁶⁸ birds came sweeping¹⁶⁹ from the sky;

   Before that cicada,

   These locusts¹⁷¹,

   This empty street.

Oh we were full of lyrical lines like "At the Phoenicia Hotel." Free verse:  why not? There was simply not the time to cast it into rhyme or metre, to  take care with assonance and ambiguity¹⁷². Poetry had to be as hasty and rough  as eating, sleep or sex. Jury-rigged and not as graceful¹⁷³ as it might have  been. But it did the job; put the truth on record.

"Truth" I mean, in the sense of attainable¹⁷⁴ accuracy. No metaphysics. Poetry  is not communication with angels or with the "subconscious¹⁷⁵." It is  communication with the guts, genitals and five portals of sense. Nothing  more.

Now there is your grandmother, child, who also comes into this briefly¹⁷⁶.  Carla Maijstral: she died as you know last March, outliving my father by  three years. An event which might have been enough to produce a new Fausto,  had it been in an earlier "reign." Fausto II, for instance, was that sort of  confused Maltese youth who finds island-love and mother-love impossible to  separate. Had Fausto IV been more of a nationalist when Carla died, we might  now have a Fausto V.

Early in the war we get passages like this:

 Malta is a noun feminine and proper. Italians have indeed been attempting her defloration since the 8th of June. She lies on her back in the sea, sullen¹⁷⁷; an immemorial woman. Spread to the explosive orgasms of Mussolini bombs. But her soul hasn't been touched; cannot be. Her soul is the Maltese people, who wait - only wait - down in her clefts¹⁷⁸ and catacombs alive and with a numb³⁴ strength, filled with faith in God His Church. How can her flesh matter? It is vulnerable, a victim. But as the Ark was to Noah so is the inviolable womb of our Maltese rock to her children. Something given us in return for being filial and constant, children also of God.

Womb of rock. What subterranean¹⁷⁹ confessions we wandered into! Carla must  have told him at some point of the circumstances surrounding his birth. It  had been near the time of the June Disturbances¹⁸⁰, in which old Maijstral was  involved. Precisely how never came clear. But deeply enough to alienate  Carla both from him and from herself. Enough so that one night we both  nearly took a doomed¹⁸¹ acrobat's way down the steps at the Harbour end of Str.  San Giovanni; I to limbo¹⁸², she to a suicide's hell. What had kept her? The  boy Fausto could only gather from listening in to her evening prayers that  it was an Englishman; a mysterious being named Stencil¹⁸³.

Did he feel trapped? Having escaped lucky from one womb, now forced into the  oubliette of another not so happily starred?

Again the classic response: retreat. Again into his damnable "communion."  When Elena's mother died from a stray bomb dropped on Vittoriosa:

 Oh, we've become accustomed to these things. My own mother is alive and well. God willing will continue so. But if she is to be taken from me (or me from her) ikun li trid Int: Thy will be done. I refuse to dwell on death because I know well enough that a young man, even here, dotes along in an illusion of immortality¹⁸⁴.

 But perhaps more on this island because we've become, after all, one another. Parts of a unity¹⁸⁵. Some die, others continue. If a hair falls or a fingernail is torn away, am I any less alive and determined¹⁸⁶?

 Seven raids today; so far. One "plot" of nearly a hundred Messerschmitts. They have levelled the churches, the Knights' auberges, the old monuments. They have left us a Sodom. Nine raids yesterday. Work harder than I've known it. My body would grow but there's little enough food. Few ships get through; convoys are sunk. Some of my comrades have dropped out. Weak from hunger. A miracle I was not the first to fall. Imagine. Maijstral, the frail¹⁸⁷ University-poet, a labourer, a builder! And one who will survive. I must.

It's the rock they come back to. Fausto II managed to work himself into  superstition¹⁸⁸:

 Don't touch them, these walls. They carry the explosions for miles. The rock hears everything, and brings it to bone, up the fingers and arm, down through the bone-cage and bone-sticks and out again through the bone-webs. Its little passage through you is accident, merely in the nature of rock and bone: but it's as if you were given a reminder¹⁸⁹.

 The vibration¹⁹⁰ is impossible to talk about. Felt sound. Buzzing. The teeth buzz: Pain, a numb prickling along the jawbone, stifling¹⁹¹ concussion¹⁹² at the eardrums. Over and over. Mallet-blows as long as the raid, raids as long as the day. You never get used to it. You'd think we'd all have gone mad by now. What keeps me standing erect¹⁹³ and away from the walls? And silent. A   brute clinging to awareness¹⁹⁴, nothing else. Pure Maltese. Perhaps it is meant to go on forever. If "forever" still has any meaning.

 Stand free, Maijstral . . .

The passage above comes towards the Siege's end. The phrase "womb of rock"  now had emphasis for Dnubietna, Maratt and Fausto at the end not the  beginning. It is part of time's chiromancy¹⁹⁵ to reduce those days to simple  passage through a grammatical sequence. Dnubietna wrote:

   Motes¹⁹⁶ of rock's dust

   Caught among corpses¹⁹⁷ of carob trees;

   Atoms of iron

   Swirl¹⁹⁸ above the dead forge

   On that cormorant¹⁹⁹ side of the moon.

Maratt wrote:

   We knew they were only puppets

   And the music from a gramophone:

   Knew the gathered silk would fade,

   Ball-fringe fray²⁰⁰,

   Plush contract the mange;

   Knew, or suspected, that children do grow up;

   Would begin to shuffle²⁰¹ after the first hundred years

   Of the performance; yawn toward afternoon,

   Begin to see the peeling paint on Judy's cheek,

   Detect implausibility in the palsied stick

   And self-deception in the villain's laugh.

   But dear Christ, whose slim jewelled hand was it

   Flicked²⁰² from the wings so unexpected,

   Holding the lighted wax taper²⁰³

   To send up all our poor but precious tinder

   In flame of terrible colours?

   Who was she who gently laughed, "Good night,"

   Among the hoarse²⁰⁴ screaming of aged⁸⁵ children?

From the quick to the inanimate. The great "movement" of the Siege poetry.  As went Fausto II's already dual soul. All the while only in the process of  learning life's single lesson: that there is more accident to it than a man  can ever admit to in a lifetime and stay sane²⁰⁵.

Seeing his mother after a period of months away:

 Time has touched her. I found myself wondering: did she know that in this infant she brought forth, to whom she gave the name for happy (ironic?) was a soul which would become torn and unhappy? Does any mother anticipate the future; acknowledge when the time comes that a son is now a man and must leave her to make whatever peace he can alone on a treacherous²⁰⁶ earth. No, it's the same Maltese timelessness. They don't feel the fingers of years jittering²⁰⁷ age, fallibility, blindness into face, heart and eyes. A son is a son, fixed²⁰⁸ always in the red and wrinkled image as they first see it. There are always elephants to be made drunk.

This last from an old folk tale. The king wants a palace made of elephant  tusks²⁰⁹. The boy had inherited physical strength from his father, a military  hero. But it was for the mother to teach the son cunning. Make friends with  them, feed them wine, kill them, steal their ivory. The boy is successful of  course. But no mention of a sea voyage.

"There must have been," Fausto explains, "millennia²¹⁰ ago, a land-bridge. They  called Africa the Land of the Axe²¹¹. There were elephants south of Mount  Ruwenzori. Since then the sea has steadily²¹² crept in. German bombs may finish  it."

Decadence, decadence. What is it? Only a clear movement toward death or,  preferably, non-humanity. As Fausto II and III, like their island, became  more inanimate, they moved closer to the time when like any dead leaf or  fragment of metal they'd be finally subject to the laws of physics. All the  time pretending it was a great struggle between the laws of man and the laws  of God.

Is it only because Malta is a matriarchal island that Fausto felt so  strongly that connection between mother-rule and decadence?

"Mothers are closer than anyone to accident. They are most painfully  conscious of the fertilized²¹³ egg; as Mary knew the moment of conception. But  the zygote has no soul. Is matter." Further along these lines he would not  go. But;

 Their babies always seem to come by happenstance; a random²¹⁴ conjunction of events. Mothers close ranks, and perpetrate a fictional²¹⁵ mystery about motherhood. It's only a way of compensating²¹⁶ for an inability to live with the truth. Truth being that they do not understand what is going on inside them; that it is a mechanical and alien growth which at some point acquires a soul. They are possessed²¹⁷. Or: the same forces which dictate²¹⁸ the bomb's trajectory²¹⁹, the deaths of stars, the wind and the waterspout have focussed somewhere inside the pelvic frontiers without their consent, to generate one more mighty accident. It frightens them to death. It would frighten anyone.

So it moves us on toward the question of Fausto's "understanding" with God.  Apparently²²⁰ his problem was never as simple as God v. Caesar, especially  Caesar inanimate - the one we see in old medals and statues, the "force" we  read of in history texts. Caesar for one thing was animate once, and had his  own difficulties with a world of things as well as a degenerate²²¹ crew of  gods. It would be easier, since drama arises out of conflict, to call it  simply human law v. divine, all within the arena²²² in quarantine that had been  Fausto's home. I mean his soul and I also mean the island. But this isn't  drama. Only an apologia for the Day of the 13 Raids. Even what happened then  had no clear lines drawn²²³.

I know of machines that are more complex than people. If this is apostasy²²⁴,  hekk ikun. To have humanism we must first be convinced of our humanity. As  we move further into decadence this becomes more difficult.

More and more alien from himself, Fausto II began to detect signs of lovely  inanimateness in the world around him.

 Now the winter's gregale brings in bombers from the north; as Euroclydon it brought in St. Paul. Blessings²²⁵, curses. But is the wind any part of us? Has it anything at all to do with us?

 Somewhere perhaps behind a hill - some shelter - farmers are sowing wheat for a June harvest. Bombing is concentrated around Valletta, the Three Cities, the Harbour. Pastoral life has become enormously attractive. But there are strays: one killed Elena's mother. We cannot expect more of the bombs than of the wind. We should not expect. If I am not to become marid b'mohhu, I can only go on as sapper, as gravedigger, I must refuse to think of any other condition, past or future. Better to say: "This has always been. We've always lived in Purgatory and our term here is at best indefinite."

Apparently he took at this time to shambling about in the streets, during  raids. Hours away from Ta Kali, when he should have been sleeping. Not out  of any bravery, or for any reason connected with his job. Nor, at first, for  very long.

 Pile of brick, grave-shaped. Green beret lying nearby. Royal Commandoes? Star-shells from the Bofors over Marsamuscetto. Red light, long shadows from behind the shop at the corner which move in the unsteady light about a hidden pivot-point. Impossible to tell shadows of what.

 

 Early sun still low on the sea. Blinding. Long blinding track, white road in from the sun to point of view. Sound of Messerschmitts. Invisible. Sound which grows louder. Spitfires scramble²²⁷ aloft, high angle of climb. Small, black in such bright sun. Course toward sun. Dirty marks appear on the sky. Orange-brown-yellow. Colour of excrement²²⁸. Black. Sun turns the edges gold. And the edges trail like jellyfish toward the horizon. Marks spread, new ones bloom in the centres of old. Air up there is often so still. Other times a wind, up high, must streak²²⁹ them into nothing in seconds. Wind, machines, dirty smoke. Sometimes the sun. When there's rain nothing can be seen. But the wind sweeps in and down and everything can be heard.

For a matter of months, little more than "impressions." And was it not  Valletta? During the raids everything civilian²³⁰ and with a soul was  underground. Others were too busy to "observe." The city was left to itself;  except for stragglers like Fausto, who felt nothing more than an unvoiced  affinity²³¹ and were enough like the city not to change the truth of the  "impressions" by the act of receiving them. A city uninhabited is different.  Different from what a "normal" observer, straggling in the dark - the  occasional dark - would see. It is a universal sin among the false-animate  or unimaginative to refuse to let well enough alone. Their compulsion to  gather together, their pathological fear of loneliness extends on past the  threshold of sleep; so that when they turn the corner, as we all must, as we  all have done and do - some more often than others - to find ourselves on  the street . . . You know the street I mean, child. The street of the 20th  Century, at whose far end or turning - we hope - is some sense of home or  safety. But no guarantees. A street we are put at the wrong end of, far  reasons best known to the agents who put us there. If there are agents. But  a street we must walk.

It is the acid test. To populate, or not to populate. Ghosts, monsters,  criminals, deviates²³² represent melodrama²³³ and weakness. The only horror about  them is the dreamer's own horror of isolation²³⁴. But the desert, or a row of  false shop fronts; a slag pile, a forge where the fires are banked, these  and the street and the dreamer, only an inconsequential shadow himself in  the landscape, partaking of the soullessness of these other masses and  shadows; this is 20th Century nightmare.

It was not hostility²³⁵, Paola, this leaving you and Elena alone during the  raids. Nor was it the usual selfish irresponsibility of youth. His youth,  Maratt's, Dnubietna's, the youth of a "generation" (both in a literary and  in a literal sense) had vanished abruptly²³⁶ with the first bomb of 8 June  1940. The old Chinese artificers and their successors Schultze and Nobel had  devised a philtre far more potent²³⁸ than they knew. One does and the  "Generation" were immune for life; immune to the fear of death, hunger, hard  labour, immune to the trivial seductions which pull a man away from a wife  and child and the need to care. Immune to everything but what happened to  Fausto one afternoon during the seventh of thirteen raids. In a lucid²³⁹ moment  during his fugue, Fausto wrote:

 How beautiful is blackout in Valletta. Before tonight's "plot" comes in from the north. Night fills the street like a black fluid; flows along the gutters²⁴⁰, its current tugging²⁴² at your ankles. As if the city were underwater; an Atlantis, under the night sea.

 Is it night only that wraps Valletta? Or is it a human emotion; "an air of expectancy²⁴³"? Not the expectancy of dreams, where our awaited is unclear and unnameable. Valletta knows well enough what she waits for. There is no tension or malaise to this silence; it's cool, secure; the silence of boredom²⁴⁴ or well-accustomed ritual. A gang of artillerymen in the next street make hastily for their emplacement. But their vulgar song fades away, leaving one embarrassed voice which finally runs out in mid-word.

 Thank God you're safe, Elena, in our other, subterranean home. You and the child. If old Saturno Aghtina and his wife have now moved permanently²⁴⁵ to the old sewer, then there is care for Paola when you must go out to do your work. How many other families have cared for her? All our babies have had only one father, the war; one mother, Malta her women. Bad lookout²⁴⁶ for the Family, and for mother-rule. Clans²⁴⁷ and matriarchy are incompatible²⁴⁸ with this Communion war has brought to Malta.

 I go from you love not because I must. We men are not a race of freebooters or giaours; not when our argosies are prey²⁴⁹ and food to the evil fish-of-metal whose lair²⁵⁰ is a German U-boat. There is no more world but the island; and it's only a day to any sea's verge²⁵¹. There is no leaving you, Elena; not in truth.

 But in dream there are two worlds: the street and under the street. One is the kingdom of death and one of life. And how can a poet live without exploring the other kingdom, even if only as a kind of tourist? A poet feeds on dream. If no convoys come what else is there to feed on?

Poor Fausto. The "vulgar song" was sung to a march called Colonel Bogie:

   Hitler

   Has only one left ball,

   Goering

   Has two but they are small;

   Himmler

   Has something similar,

   But Goebbels

   Has no balls

   At all . . .

Proving perhaps that virility²⁵² on Malta did not depend on mobility²⁵³. They were  all, as Fausto was first to admit, labourers not adventurers. Malta, and her  inhabitants, stood like an immovable rock in the river Fortune, now at war's  flood. The same motives²⁵⁴ which cause us to populate a dream-street also cause  us to apply to a rock human qualities like "invincibility," "tenacity,"  "perseverance," etc. More than metaphor, it is delusion²⁵⁵. But on the strength  of this delusion Malta survived.

Manhood on Malta thus became increasingly defined in terms of rockhood. This  had its dangers for Fausto. Living as be does much of the time in a world of  metaphor, the poet is always acutely conscious that metaphor has no value  apart from its function; that it is a device, an artifice²³⁷. So that while  others may look on the laws of physics as legislation and Gad²⁵⁶ as a human  form with beard measured in light-years and nebulae for sandals, Fausto's  kind are alone with the task of living in a universe of things which simply  are, and cloaking that innate²⁵⁷ mindlessness with comfortable and pious  metaphor so that the "practical" half of humanity may continue in the Great  Lie, confident that their machines, dwellings²⁵⁸, streets and weather share the  same human motives, personal traits and fits of contrariness as they.

Poets have been at this for centuries. It is the only useful purpose they do  serve in society: and if every poet were to vanish tomorrow, society would  live no longer than the quick memories and dead books of their poetry.

It is the "role" of the poet, this 20th Century. To lie. Dnubietna wrote:

   If I told the truth

   You would not believe me.

   If I said: no fellow soul

   Drops death from the air, no conscious plot

   Drove us underground you would laugh

   As if I had twitched²⁵⁹ the wax mouth

   Of my tragic²⁶⁰ mask into a smile -

 A smile to you; to me the truth behind

   The catenary: locus¹⁷⁰ of the transcendental:

   y = a/2 (e^(x/a) + e^(-x/a)).

Fausto ran across the engineer-poet one afternoon in the street. Dnubietna  had been drunk, and now that it was wearing off was returning to the scene  of his bat. An unscrupulous merchant named Tifkira had a hoard²⁶¹ of wine. It  was Sunday and raining. Weather had been foul²⁶², raids fewer. The two young  men met next to the ruin of a small church. The one confessional had been  sheared²⁶³ in two but which half was left, priest's or parishioner's, Fausto  could not tell. Sun behind the rain clouds appeared as a patch of luminous  grey, a dozen times its normal size, halfway down from the zenith. Almost  brilliant enough to cast shadows. But falling from behind Dnubietna so that  the engineer's features were indistinct. He wore khakis stained with grease,  and a blue fatigue²⁶⁴ cap; large drops of rain fell on the two.

Dnubietna indicated the church with his head. "Have you been, priest?"

"To Mass: no." They hadn't met for a month. But no need to bring each other  up to date.

"Come on. We'll get drunk. How are Elena and your kid?"

"Well."

"Maratt's is pregnant again. Don't you miss the bachelor life?" They were  walking down a narrow cobbled street made slick by the rain. To either side  were rubble heaps, a few standing walls or porch steps. Streaks²⁶⁵ of  stone-dust, matte against the shiny cobblestones, interrupted at random the  pavement's patterning. The sun had almost achieved reality. Their attenuated  shadows strung out behind. Rain still fell. "Or having married when you  did," Dnubietna went on, "perhaps you equate²⁶⁶ singleness with peace."

"Peace," said Fausto. "Quaint²⁶⁷ word." They skipped around and over stray  chunks²⁶⁸ of masonry.

"Sylvana," Dnubietna sang, "in your red petticoat/ Come back, come back/ You  may keep my heart/ But bring back my money . . . ."

"You should get married," Fausto said, mournful: "It's not fair otherwise."

"Poetry and engineering have nothing to do with domesticity."

"We haven't," Fausto remembered, "had a good argument for months."

In here. They went down a flight of steps which led under a building still  reasonably intact. Clouds of powdered plaster rose as they descended²⁶⁹. Sirens  began. Inside the room Tifkira lay on a table, asleep. Two girls played  cards listlessly in a corner. Dnubietna vanished for a moment behind the  bar, reappearing with a small bottle of wine. A bomb fell in the next  street, rattling²⁷⁰ the beams of the ceiling, starting an oil lamp hung there  to swinging.

"I ought to be asleep," Fausto said. "I work tonight."

"Remorse²⁷¹ of a uxorious²⁷² half-man," Dnubietna snarled²⁷³, pouring wine. The girls  looked up. "It's the uniform," he confided²⁷⁴, which was so ridiculous that  Fausto had to laugh. Soon they had moved to the girls' table. Talk was  irregular, there being an artillery emplacement almost directly above them.  The girls were professional and tried for a while to proposition Fausto and  Dnubietna.

"No use," Dnubietna said. "I've never had to pay for mine and this one is  married and a priest." Three laughed: Fausto, getting drunk, was not amused.

"That is long gone," he said quietly.

"Once a priest always a priest," Dnubietna retorted. "Come. Bless this wine.  Consecrate²⁷⁵ it. It's Sunday and you haven't been to Mass."

Overhead, the Bofors began an intermittent²⁷⁶ and deafening²⁷⁷ hack²⁷⁸: two  explosions every second. The four concentrated on drinking wine. Another  bomb fell. "Bracketed," Dnubietna shouted above the a/a barrage. A word  which no longer meant anything in Valletta. Tifkira woke up.

"Stealing my wine," the owner cried. He stumbled to the wall and leaned his  forehead against it. Thoroughly²⁷⁹ he began to scratch his hairy stomach and  back under their singlet. "You might give me a drink."

"It isn't consecrated²⁸⁰. Maijstral the apostate²⁸¹ is at fault."

"Now God and I have an agreement," Fausto began as if to correct a  misapprehension. "He will forget about my not answering His call if I cease  to question. Simply survive, you see."

When had that come to him? In what street: at what point in these months of  impressions? Perhaps he'd thought it up on the spot. He was drunk. So tired  it had only taken four glasses of wine.

"How," one of the girls asked seriously, "how can there be faith if you  don't ask questions? The priest said it's right for us to ask questions."

Dnubietna looked at his friend's face, saw no answer forthcoming: so turned  and patted the girl's shoulder.

"That's the hell of it, love. Drink your wine."

"No," screamed Tifkira, propped²⁸² against the other wall, watching them.  "You'll waste it all." The gun began its racket again.

"Waste," Dnubietna laughed above the noise. "Don't talk of waste, you  idiot." Belligerent¹⁶³, he started across the room. Fausto put his head down on  the table to rest for a moment. The girls resumed their card game, using his  back for a table. Dnubietna had taken the owner by the shoulders. He began a  lengthy²⁸³ denunciation of Tifkira, punctuating²⁸⁴ it with shakes which sent the  fat torso into cyclic shudders²⁸⁵.

Above, the all-clear sounded. Soon after there was noise at the door.  Dnubietna opened and in rollicked the artillery crew, dirty, exhausted and  in search of wine. Fausto awoke and jumped to his feet saluting²⁸⁶, scattering²⁸⁸ the cards in a shower of hearts and spades.

 

"Away, away!" shouted Dnubietna. Tifkira, giving up his dream of a great  wine-hoard, slumped²⁸⁹ down to a sitting position against the wall and closed  his eyes. "We must get Maijstral to work!"

"Go to, caitiff," Fausto cried, saluted²⁹⁰ again and fell over backwards²⁹¹. With  much giggling²⁹² and unsteadiness Dnubietna and one of the girls helped him to  his feet. It was apparently Dnubietna's intention to bring Fausto to Ta Kali  on foot (usual method was to hitch²⁹³ a ride from a lorry) to sober him up. As  they reached the darkening street the sirens began again. Members of the  Bofors crew, each holding a glass of wine, came clattering²⁹⁴ up the steps and  collided with them. Dnubietna, irritated, abruptly ducked out from under  Fausto's arm and came up with a fist to the stomach of the nearest  artilleryman. A brawl²⁹⁵ developed. Bombs were falling over by the Grand  Harbour. The explosions began to approach slow and steady, like the  footsteps of a child's ogre. Fausto lay on the ground feeling no particular  desire to come to the aid of his friend who was outnumbered and being worked  over thoroughly. They finally dropped Dnubietna and headed towards the  Bofors. Not so far overhead, an ME-109, pinned by searchlights, suddenly  broke out of the cloud-cover and swooped²⁹⁶ in. Orange tracers followed. "Get  the bugger," someone at the gun emplacement screamed. The Bofors opened up.  Fausto looked on with mild interest. Shadows of the gun crew, lit from above  by the exploding projectiles²⁹⁷ and "scatter²⁸⁷" from the searchlights, flickered  in and out of the night. In one flash Fausto saw the red glow of Tifkira's  wine in a glass held to an ammo-handler's lips and slowly diminishing.  Somewhere over the Harbour a/a shells caught up with the Messerschmitt; its  fuel tanks ignited in a great yellow flowering and down it went, slow as a  balloon, the black smoke of its passage billowing through the searchlight  beams, which lingered a moment at the point of intercept²⁹⁹ before going on to  other business.

Dnubietna hung over him, haggard, one eye beginning to swell. "Away, away,"  he croaked³⁰⁰. Fausto got to his feet reluctant and off they went. There is no  indication in the journal of how they did it, but the two reached Ta Kali  just as the all-clear sounded. They went perhaps a mile on foot. Presumably  they dove for cover whenever the bombing got too close. Finally they  clambered on the back of a passing lorry.

"It was hardly heroic," Fausto wrote. "We were both drunk. But I've not been  able to get it out of my mind that we were given a dispensation that night.  That God had suspended the laws of chance, by which we should rightly have  been killed. Somehow the street - the kingdom of death - was friendly.  Perhaps it was because I observed our agreement and did not bless the wine."

Post hoc. And only part of the over-all "relationship." This is what I meant  about Fausto's simplicity. He did nothing so complex as drift away from God  or reject his church. Losing faith is a complicated business and takes time.  There are no epiphanies, no "moments of truth." It takes much thought and  concentration in the later phases. which themselves come about through an  accumulation of small accidents: examples of general injustice, misfortune  falling upon the godly, prayers of one's own unanswered. Fausto and his  "Generation" simply hadn't the time for this leisurely³⁰¹ intellectual  hanky-panky. They'd got out of the habit, had lost a certain sense of  themselves, had come further from the University-at-peace and closer to the  beleaguered³⁰² city than any were ready to admit, were more Maltese, i.e., than  English.

All else in his life having gone underground; having acquired a trajectory  in which the sirens figured as only one parameter³⁰³, Fausto realized that the  old covenants³⁰⁴, the old agreements with God would have to change too. For at  least a working relevancy to God therefore, Fausto did exactly what he'd  been doing for a home, food, marital³⁰⁵ love: he jury-rigged - "made do." But  the English part of him was still there, keeping up the journal.

The child - you - grew healthier, more active. By '42 you had fallen in with  a roistering crew of children whose chief amusement was a game called R.A.F.  Between raids a dozen or so of you would go out in the streets, spread your  arms like aeroplanes and run screaming and buzzing in and out of the ruined  walls, rubble heaps and holes of the city. The stronger and taller boys  were, of course, Spitfires. Others - unpopular boys, girls, and younger  children - went to make up the planes of the enemy. You were usually, I  believe, an Italian dirigible. The most buoyant balloon-girl in the stretch  of sewer we occupied that season. Harassed³⁰⁶, chased, dodging³⁰⁷ the rocks and  sticks tossed your way, you managed each time with the "Italian" agility  your role demanded, to escape subjugation³⁰⁸. But always, having outwitted your  opponents, you would finally do your patriotic³⁰⁹ duty by surrendering. And  only when you were ready.

Your mother and Fausto were away from you most of the time: nurse and  sapper. You were left to the two extremes of our underground society: the  old, for whom the distinction between sudden and gradual affliction hardly  existed, and the young - your true own - who unconsciously were creating a  discrete³¹⁰ world, a prototype of the world Fausto III, already outdated³¹¹, would  inherit. Did the two forces neutralize³¹² and leave you on the lonely  promontory³¹³ between two worlds? Can you still look both ways, child? If so  you stand at an enviable vantage: you're still that four-year-old  belligerent with history in defilade. The present Fausto can look nowhere  but back on the separate stages of his own history. No continuity. No logic¹⁹.  "History," Dnubietna wrote, "is a step-function."

Was Fausto believing too much: was the Communion all sham²²⁶ to compensate³¹⁴ for  some failure as a father and husband? By peacetime standards a failure he  certainly was. The normal, pre-war course would have been a slow growing  into love for Elena and Paola as the young man, thrown into marriage and  fatherhood prematurely³¹⁵, learned to take on the burden which is every man's  portion in the adult world.

But the Siege created different burdens and it was impossible to say whose  world was more real: the children's or the parents'. For all their dirt,  noise and roughnecking the kids of Malta served a poetic function. The  R.A.F. game was only one metaphor they devised to veil the world that was.  For whose benefit? The adults were at work, the old did not care, the kids  themselves were all "in" the secret. It must have been for lack of anything  better: until their muscles and brains developed to where they could take on  part of the work-load in the ruin their island was becoming. It was biding  time: it was poetry in a vacuum.

Paola: my child, Elena's child but most of all Malta's, you were one of  them. These children knew what was happening: knew that bombs killed. But  what's a human, after all? No different from a church, obelisk³¹⁶, statue. Only  one thing matters: it's the bomb that wins. Their view of death was  non-human. One wonders if our grown-up attitudes, hopelessly tangled³¹⁷ as they  were with love, social forms and metaphysics, worked any better. Certainly  there was more common sense about the children's way.

The children got about Valletta by their private routes, mostly underground.  Fausto II records their separate world, superimposed an a blasted city:  ragged³¹⁸ tribes scattered³¹⁹ about Xaghriet Mewwija, indulging now and again in  internecine³²⁰ skirmishes. Reconnaissance and foraging³²¹ parties were always  there, always at the edges of the field of vision.

 The tide must be turning. Only one raid today, that in the early morning. We slept last night in the sewer, near Aghtina and his wife. Little Paola went off soon after the all-clear to explore the Dockyard country with Maratt's boy and some others. Even the weather seemed to signal a kind of intermission. Last night's rain had laid the plaster and stone-dust, cleaned the leaves of trees and caused a merry waterfall to enter our quarters, not ten steps from the mattress of clean laundry. Accordingly we made our ablutions in this well-disposed rivulet³²², retiring soon thereafter   to the domicile of Mrs. Aghtina, where we broke our fast on a hearty³²³ porridge the good woman had but recently devised against just such a contingency³²⁴. What abundant graciousness and dignity have been our lot since this Siege began!

 Above in the street the sun was shining. We ascended³²⁵ to the street, Elena took my hand, and once on level ground did not let it go. We began to walk. Her face, fresh from sleep, was so pure in that sun. Malta's old sun, Elena's young face. It seemed I had only now met her for the first time; or that, children again, we'd strayed into the same orange grove⁵⁸, walked into a breathing of azaleas unaware. She began to talk, adolescent girl talk, Maltese: how brave the soldiers and sailors looked ("You mean how sober," I commented: she laughed, mock-annoyed); how amusing was a lone⁸⁶ flush-toilet located in the upper right-hand room of an English club building whose side wall had been blown away: feeling young I became angry and political at this toilet. "What fine democracy in war," I ranted³²⁷. "Before, they locked us out of their grand clubs. Anglo-Maltese intercourse³²⁸ was a farce. Pro bono; ha-ha. Keep the natives in their place. But now even the most sacrosanct³²⁹ room of that temple is open to the public gaze." So we nearly roistered along the sunlit street, rain having brought a kind of spring. On days like that, we felt, Valletta had recalled her own pastoral history. As if vineyards would suddenly bloom along the sea-bastions, olive and pomegranate trees spring up from the pale wounds of Kingsway. The Harbour sparkled: we waved, spoke³³⁰ or smiled to every passer-by; Elena's hair caught the sun in its viscous³³¹ net, sun-freckles³³² danced along her cheeks.

 How we came to that garden or park I can never tell. All morning we walked by the sea. Fishing boats were out. A few wives gossipped among the seaweed and chunks of yellow bastion the bombs had left on the strand. They mended nets, watched the sea, shouted at their children. There were children everywhere in Valletta today, swinging down from the trees, jumping off the ruined ends of jetties into the sea: heard but not seen in the empty shells of bombed-out houses. They sang: chanted, chaffed or merely screeched³³³. Weren't they really our own voices caught for years in any house and only now come to embarrass us at our passing-by?

 We found a cafe, there was wine from the last convoy¹⁶¹ - rare vintage! - wine and a poor chicken - we heard the proprietor³³⁴ killing³³⁵ in the other room. We sat, drank the wine, watched the Harbour. Birds were heading out into the Mediterranean. High barometer³³⁶. Perhaps they had a portal of sense for the Germans too. Hair blew in her eyes. For the first time in a year we could talk. I'd given her some lessons in English conversation before '39. Today she wanted to continue them: who knew, she said, when there would be another chance? Serious child. How I loved her.

 In the early afternoon the proprietor came out to sit with us: one hand still sticky with blood and a few feathers caught there. "I am pleased to make your acquaintance, sir," Elena greeted him. Gleeful. The old man cackled.

 "English," he said. "Yes I knew the moment I saw you. English tourists." It became our private joke. While she kept touching³³⁷ me under the table, mischievous³³⁸ Elena, the owner continued a foolish discourse³³⁹ about the English. Wind off the Harbour was cool, and the water which for some reason I only remembered as yellow-green or brown now was blue - a carnival³⁴⁰ blue and stippled³⁴¹ with whitecaps. Jolly Harbour.

 Half a dozen children came running round the corner: boys in singlets, brown arms, two little girls in shifts tagging behind but ours was not one. They went by without seeing us, running downhill towards the Harbour. From somewhere a cloud had appeared, a solid-looking puff hung stock-still between the sun's invisible trolleys³⁴². Sun was on collision-course. Elena and I rose at last and wandered down the street. Soon from an alley³⁴³ burst another crowd of children, twenty yards ahead of us: cutting across in front, angling up the street to disappear single-file into the basement of what had been a house. Sunlight came to us broken by walls, window frames, roof beams: skeletal. Our street was pocked by thousands of little holes like the Harbour in noon's unbroken sun. We stumbled, unsprightly; each using the other now and again for balance.

 Forenoon for sea, afternoon for the city. Poor shattered city. Tilted³⁴⁴ toward Marsamuscetto; no stone shell - roofless, walless, windowless - could hide from the sun, which threw all their shadows uphill and out to sea. Children, it seemed, dogged our footsteps. We'd hear them behind a broken wall: or only a whispering of bare feet and the small wind of a passage. And they'd call, now and again, somewhere over in the next street. Name indistinct for the wind off the Harbour. Sun inched downhill closer to the cloud that blocked its way.

 Fausto, were they calling? Elena? And was our child one of their own or off on some private tracing-of-steps? We did trace our own about the city's grid³⁴⁵, aimless, in fugue: a fugue of love or memory or some abstract sentiment which always comes after the fact and had nothing to do that afternoon with the quality of the light or the pressure of five fingers on my arm which awoke my five senses and more . . .

 Sad is a foolish word. Light is not sad: or should not be. Afraid even to look behind at our shadows lest they move differently, slip away into the gutter²⁴¹ or one of the earth's cracks, we combed Valletta till late afternoon as if it were something finite we sought.

 Until at length - late afternoon - we arrived at a tiny park in the heart of the city. At one end a band pavilion creaked in the wind, its roof supported miraculously³⁴⁶ by only a few upright beams. The structure sagged³⁴⁷ and birds of some sort had abandoned their nests all round the edge: all but one whose head was visible, looking out at God knew what, unfrightened at our approach. It looked stuffed.

 It was there we awoke, there the children closed in on us. Had it been hare-and-hounds all day? Had all residual³⁴⁸ music gone with the quick birds, or was there a waltz we'd only now dreamed? We stood in sawdust and wood  chips from an unlucky tree. Azalea bushes waited for us across from the pavilion but the wind was the wrong way: from the future, driving all scent³²⁶ back to its past. Above, tall palms leaned over us, false-solicitous, casting blade-shadows.

 Cold. And then the sun met its cloud, and other clouds we'd not noticed at all began it seemed to move in radially towards the suncloud. As if winds were blowing today from all thirty-two points of the rose at once to meet at the centre in a great windspout to bear up the fire-balloon like an offering - set alight the undershorings of Heaven. Blade-shadows disappeared, all light and shadow were passing into a great acid-green. The fire-balloon continued its creep downhill. Leaves of all trees in the park began to scrape at one another like the legs of locusts. Music enough.

 She shivered, held to me for a moment, then abruptly seated herself on the littered grass. I sat beside her. We must have been a queer-looking pair: shoulders hunched³⁴⁹ for the wind, facing the pavilion silent, as if waiting for a performance to begin. In the trees, at the edges of eyes, we saw children. White flashes which could have been faces, or only the other sides of leaves, signalling storm. Sky was clouding: the green light deepened, drowning the island of Malta and the island of Fausto and Elena hopelessly deeper in its oneiric chill.

 O God, it was the same stupidity to be gone through again: the sudden fall in the barometer which we did not expect; the bad faith of dreams that send surprise skirmish-parties across a frontier which ought to be stable; the terror at the unfamiliar³⁵⁰ stair-step in the dark on what we thought was a level street. We'd traced nostalgic steps indeed this afternoon. Where had they brought us?

 To a park we'd never find again.

 We had been using, it seemed, nothing but Valletta to fill up the hollows of ourselves. Stone and metal cannot nourish. We sat hungry-eyed, listening to the nervous leaves. What could there be to feed on? Only one another.

 "I am cold." In Maltese: and she did not move closer. There could be no more question of English today. I wanted to ask: Elena what do we wait for - for the weather to break, the trees or dead buildings to speak to us? I asked: "What is wrong?" She shook her head. Let her eyes wander between the  ground and the creaking pavilion.

 

 The more I studied her face - dark hair blowing, foreshortened eyes, freckles fading into the general green of that afternoon - the more anxious I became. I wanted to protest, but there was no one to protest to. Perhaps I wanted to cry, but the salt Harbour we had left to gulls³⁵¹ and fishing boats; had not taken it in as we had the city.

 Were there in her the same memories of azaleas, or any sense that this city was a mockery, a promise always unfulfilled? Did we share anything? The deeper we all sank into twilight³⁵² the less I knew. I did - so I argued - love this woman with all there was in me to expedite or make secure any love: but here it was love in a growing dark: giving out, with no clear knowledge of how much was being lost, how much would ever be returned. Was she even seeing the same pavilion, hearing the same children at the frontiers of our park: was she here in fact or like Paola - dear God, not even our child but Valletta's - out alone, vibrating like a shadow in some street where the light is too clear, the horizon too sharp to be anything but a street created out of sickness for the past, for the Malta that was but can never be again!

 Palm leaves abraded³⁵³ together, shredding³⁵⁴ one another to green fibres of light; tree limbs scraped, leaves of the carob, dry as leather, throbbed³⁵⁵ and shook. As if there were a gathering³⁵⁶ behind the trees, a gathering in the sky. The quiverings about us, mounting, panicked, grew louder than the children or ghosts of children. Afraid to look, we could stare only at the pavilion though God knew what might appear there.

 Her nails, broken from burying the dead, had been digging into the bare part of my arm where the shirt was rolled up. Pressure and pain increased, our heads lolled slowly like the heads of puppets toward a meeting of eyes. In the dusk her eyes had grown huge and filmed. I tried to look at the whites as we look at the margins³⁵⁷ of a page, trying to avoid what was written in iris³⁵⁸-black. Was it only night "gathering" outside? Something nightlike had found its way here, distilled³⁵⁹ and pre-shaped in eyes that only this morning had reflected sun, whitecaps, real children.

 My own nails fastened in reply and we became twinned, symmetric, sharing pain, perhaps all we could ever share: her face began to go distorted, half with the strength it took to hurt me, half with what I was doing to her. The pain mounted, palms and carob trees went mad: her irises³⁶⁰ rolled towards   the sky.

 "Missierna li-inti fis-smewwiet, jitqaddes ismek . . ." She was praying. In retreat. Having reached a threshold, slipped back to what was most sure. Raids, the death of a parent, the daily handling of corpses had not been able to do it. It took a park, a siege of children, trees astir, night coming in.

 "Elena."

 Her eyes returned to me. "I love you," moving on the grass, "love you, Fausto." Pain, nostalgia³⁶¹, want mixed in her eyes: so it seemed. But how could I know: with the same positive comfort in knowing the sun grows colder, the Hagiar Kim ruins progress towards dust, as do we, as does my little Hillman Minx which was sent to a garage for old age in 1939 and is now disintegrating³⁶² quietly under tons of garage-rubble. How could I infer: the only ghost of an excuse being to reason by analogy that the nerves chafed³⁶³ and stabbed by my fingernails were the same as my own, that her pain was mine and by extension that of the jittering leaves all round us.

 Looking past her eyes I saw all white leaves. They had turned their pale sides out and the clouds were storm clouds after all. "The children," I heard her say. "We have lost them."

 Lost them. Or they had lost us.

 "O," she breathed, "O look," releasing me as I released her and we both stood and watched the gulls filling half the visible sky, gulls that were all in our island now catching³⁶⁴ the sunlight. Coming in all together, because of a storm somewhere out at sea - terribly silent - drifting slow, up and down and inexorably landward, a thousand drops of fire.

 There had been nothing. Whether children, maddened leaves or dream-meteorology were or were not real, there are no epiphanies on Malta this season, no moments of truth. We had used our dead fingernails only to swage quick flesh; to gouge³⁶⁵ or destroy, not to probe the wards⁷⁹ of either soul.

I will limit the inevitable³⁶⁶ annotating³⁶⁷ to this request. Observe the  predominance of human attributes applied³⁶⁸ to the inanimate. The entire  "day" - if it was a single day, rather than the projection³⁶⁹ of a mood lasting  perhaps longer - reads like a resurgence³⁷⁰ of humanity in the automaton,  health in the decadent³⁷¹.

The passage is important not so much for this apparent contradiction as for  the children, who were quite real, whatever their function in Fausto's  iconology. They seemed to be the only ones conscious at the time that  history had not been suspended after all. That troops were relocated,  Spitfires delivered, convoys lying to off St. Elmo. This was, to be sore, in  1943, at the "turn of the tide" when bombers based here had begun to return  part of the war to Italy and when the quality of antisubmarine warfare in  the Mediterranean had developed to where we could see more than Dr.  Johnson's "three meals ahead." But earlier - after the kids had recovered  from the first shock - we "adults" looked on them with a kind of  superstitious leeriness, as if they were recording³⁷² angels, keeping the rolls  of quick, dead, malingering; noting what Governor Dobbie wore, what churches  had been destroyed, what was the volume of turnover³⁷³ at the hospitals.

They also knew about the Bad Priest. There is a certain fondness for the  Manichaean common to all children. Here the combination of a siege, a Roman  Catholic upbringing and an unconscious identification of one's own mother  with the Virgin all sent simple dualism into strange patterns indeed.  Preached to they might be about some abstract struggle between good and  evil; but even the dogfights were too high above them to be real. They'd  brought the Spitfires and ME's down to earth with their R.A.F. game, but it  was only simple metaphor, as noted³⁷⁴. The Germans to be sure were pure evil  and the Allies pure good. The children weren't alone in that feeling. But if  their idea of the struggle could be described graphically³⁷⁵ it would not be as  two equal-sized vectors head-to-head - their heads making an X of unknown  quantity; rather as a point, dimensionless - good - surrounded by any number  of radial arrows - vectors of evil - pointing inward. Good, i.e., at bay.  The Virgin assailed³⁷⁶. The winged mother protective. The woman passive. Malta  in siege.

A wheel, this diagram: Fortune's wheel. Spin as it might the basic  arrangement was constant. Stroboscopic effects could change the apparent  number of spokes³⁷⁷; direction could change; but the hub still held the spokes  in place and the meeting-place of the spokes still defined the hub. The old  cyclic idea of history had taught only the rim⁵⁶, to which princes and serfs  alike were lashed³⁷⁸; that wheel was oriented vertical³⁷⁹; one rose and fell. But  the children's wheel was dead-level, its own rim only that of the sea's  horizon - so sensuous³⁸⁰, so "visual" a race are we Maltese.

Thus they assigned the Bad Priest no opposite number: neither Dobbie nor  Archbishop Gonzi nor Father Avalanche. The Bad Priest was ubiquitous as  night and the children, to sustain their observations, had to be at least as  mobile.

It wasn't an organized affair. These recording angels never wrote anything  down. It was more, if you will, a "group awareness." They merely watched,  passive: you'd see them like sentinels at the top of a rubble pile any  sunset; or peering round the corner of the street, squatting³⁸¹ on the steps,  loping in pairs, arms flung round each other's shoulders, across a vacant  lot, going apparently nowhere. But always somewhere in their line-of-sight  would be the flicker²⁹⁸ of a soutane or a shadow darker than the rest.

What was there about this priest to put him Outside; a radius³⁸² along with  leather-winged Lucifer, Hitler, Mussolini? Only part, I think, of what makes  us suspect the wolf in the dog, the traitor in the ally. There was little  wishful thinking about those children. Priests, like mothers, were to be  venerated³⁸³: but look at Italy, look at the sky. Here had been betrayal and  hypocrisy³⁸⁴: why not even among the priests? Once the sky had been our most  constant and safe friend: a medium or plasma³⁸⁵ for the sun. A sun which the  government is now trying to exploit for reasons of tourism: but formerly³⁸⁶ -  in the days of Fausto I - the watchful³⁸⁷ eye of God and the sky his clear  cheek. Since 3 September 1939 there had appeared pustules, blemishes³⁸⁸ and  marks of pestilence³⁸⁹: Messerschmitts. God's face had gone sick and his eye  begun to wander, close (wink, insisted the rampant³⁹⁰ atheist³⁹¹, Dnubietna). But  such is the devotion of the people and the sure strength of the Church that  the betrayal was not looked on as God's; rather as the sky's - knavery³⁹² of  the skin which could harbour such germs and thus turn so against its divine  owner.

The children, being poets in a vacuum, adept³⁹³ at metaphor, had no trouble in  transferring a similar infection to any of God's representatives the  priests. Not all priests; but one, parishless, an alien - Sliema was like  another country - and having already a bad reputation, was fit vehicle for  their scepticism.

Reports of him were confused. Fausto would hear - through the children or  Father Avalanche - that the Bad Priest "was converting by the shores of  Marsamuscetto" or "had been active in Xaghriet Mewwija." Sinister  uncertainty³⁹⁴ surrounded the priest. Elena showed no concern: did not feel  that she herself had encountered any evil that day in the street, was not  worried about Paola coming under any evil influence, though the Bad Priest  had been known to gather about him a small knot of children in the street  and give them sermons. He taught no consistent philosophy that anyone could  piece together from the fragments borne back to us by the children. The  girls he advised to become nuns³⁹⁵, avoid the sensual extremes - pleasure of  intercourse, pain of childbirth. The bays he told to find strength in - and  be like - the rock of their island. He returned, curiously³⁹⁶ like the  Generation of '37, often to the rock: preaching that the object of male  existence was to be like a crystal: beautiful and soulless. "God is  soulless?" speculated Father Avalanche. "Having created souls, He Himself  has none? So that to be like God we must allow to be eroded³⁹⁷ the soul in  ourselves. Seek mineral symmetry, for here is eternal life: the immortality  of rock. Plausible³⁹⁸. But apostasy."

The children were not, of course, having any. Knowing full well that if  every girl became a sister there would be no more Maltese: and that rock,  however fine as an object of contemplation, does no work: labours not and  thus displeases³⁹⁹ God, who is favourably⁴⁰⁰ disposed towards human labour. So  they stayed passive, letting him talk, hanging like shadows at his heels,  keeping a watchful eye. Surveillance in various forms continued for three  years. With an apparent abating⁴⁰¹ of the Siege - begun perhaps the day of  Fausto and Elena's walk - the stalking only intensified⁴⁰² because there was  more time for it.

Intensified too - beginning, one suspects, the same day - was a friction⁴⁰³  between Fausto and Elena - the same unceasing, wearying friction of the  leaves in the park that afternoon. The smaller arguments were centred,  unhappily, around you, Paola. As if the pair had both rediscovered a  parental⁴⁰⁴ duty. With more time on their hands they belatedly took up  providing for their child moral guidance, mother love, comfort in moments of  fear. Both were inept⁴⁰⁵ at it and each time their energies inevitably turned  away from the child and on one another. During such times the child would  more often than not slip away quietly to trail the Bad Priest.

Until one evening Elena told the rest of her meeting with the Bad Priest.  The argument itself isn't recorded in any detail; only:

 Our words became more and more agitated⁴⁰⁶, higher in pitch, more bitter until finally she cried, "Oh the child. I should have done what he told me . . ." Then realizing what she'd said, silence. She moved away, I caught her.

 "Told you." I shook her until she spoke. I would have killed her, I think.

 "The Bad Priest," finally, "told me not to have the child. Told me he knew of a way. I would have. But I met Father Avalanche. By accident."

And as she had begun to pray in the park had then apparently let the old  habits reassert themselves. By accident.

I would never be telling you this had you been brought up under any illusion  you were "wanted." But having been abandoned so early to a common  underworld, questions of want or possession never occurred to you. So at  least I assume; not, I hope, falsely.

The day after Elena's revelation the Luftwaffe came in thirteen times. Elena  was killed early in the morning, the ambulance in which she was riding  having apparently suffered a direct hit.

Word got to me at Ta Kali in the afternoon, during a lull. I don't remember  the messenger's face. I do remember sliding the shovel into a pile of dirt  and walking away. And then a blank space.

The next I knew I was in the street, in a part of the city I did not  recognise. The all-clear had sounded so I must have walked through a raid. I  stood at the top of a slope of debris. I heard cries: hostile shouting.  Children. A hundred yards away they swarmed⁴⁰⁷ among the ruins, closing in on a  broken structure I recognized as the cellar of a house. Curious, I lurched  down the slope after them. For some reason, I felt like a spy. Circling the  ruin I went up another small bank to the roof. There were holes: I could  look through. The children inside were clustered round a figure in black.  The Bad Priest. Wedged under a fallen beam. Face - what could be  seen - impassive.

"Is he dead," one asked. Others were picking already at the black rags.

"Speak to us, Father," they called, mocking. "What is your sermon for today?"

"Funny hat," giggled⁴⁰⁸ a little girl. She reached out and tugged⁴⁰⁹ off the hat.  A long coil of white hair came loose and fell into the plaster-dust. One  beam of sunlight cut across the space and the dust now turned it white.

"It's a lady," said the girl.

"Ladies can't be priests," replied a boy scornfully. He began to examine the  hair. Soon he had pulled out an ivory comb and handed it to the little girl.  She smiled. Other girls gathered round her to look at the prize. "It's not  real hair," the boy announced. "See." He removed the long white wig⁴¹⁰ from the  priest's head.

"That's Jesus," cried a tall boy. Tattooed⁴¹¹ on the bare scalp was a  two-colour Crucifixion. It was to be only the first of many surprises.

Two children had been busy at the victim's feet, unlacing the shoes. Shoes  were a welcome windfall in Malta at this time.

"Please," the priest said suddenly.

"He's alive."

"She's alive, stupid."

"Please what, Father."

"Sister. May sisters dress up as priests, sister?"

"Please lift this beam," said the sister/priest.

"Look, look," came cries at the woman's feet. They held up one of the black  shoes. It was high-topped and impossible to wear. The cavity of the shoe was  the exact imprint⁴¹² of a woman's high-heeled slipper⁴¹³. I could now see one of  the slippers⁴¹⁴, dull gold, protruding⁴¹⁵ from under the black robes. Girls  whispered excitedly about how pretty the slippers were. One began to undo  the buckles⁴¹⁶.

"If you can't lift the beam," the woman said (with perhaps a hint of panic),  "please get help."

"Ah." From the other end. Up came one of the slippers and a foot - an  artificial foot - the two sliding out as a unit, lug-and-slot.

"She comes apart."

The woman did not seem to notice. Perhaps she could no longer feel. But when  they brought the feet to her head to show her, I saw two tears grow and slip  from the outside corners of her eyes. She remained quiet while the children  removed her robes and the shirt; and the gold cufflinks in the shape of a  claw, and the black trousers which fit close to her skin. One of the boys  had stolen a Commando's bayonet. There were rust-spots. They had to use it  twice to get the trousers off.

The nude⁴¹⁷ body was surprisingly young. The skin healthy-looking. Somehow we'd  all thought of the Bad Priest as an older person. At her navel was a star  sapphire⁴¹⁸. The boy with the knife picked at the stone. It would not come  away. He dug in with the point of the bayonet, working for a few minutes  before he was able to bring out the sapphire. Blood had begun to well in its  place.

Other children crowded round her head. One pried⁴¹⁹ her jaws⁴²⁰ apart while  another removed a set of false teeth. She did not struggle: only closed her  eyes and waited.

But she could not even keep them closed. For the children peeled back one  eyelid⁴²¹ to reveal a glass eye with the iris in the shape of a clock. This,  too, they removed.

I wondered if the disassembly of the Bad Priest might not go on, and on,  into evening. Surely her arms and breasts could be detached; the skin of her  legs be peeled away to reveal some intricate understructure of silver  openwork. Perhaps the trunk itself contained other wonders: intestines⁴²² of  parti-coloured silk, gay balloon-lungs, a rococo⁴²³ heart. But the sirens  started up then. The children dispersed⁴²⁴ bearing away their new-found  treasures, and the abdominal⁴²⁵ wound made by the bayonet was doing its work. I  lay prone⁴²⁶ under a hostile sky looking down for moments more at what the  children had left; suffering Christ foreshortened on the bare skull⁴²⁷, one eye  and one socket⁴²⁸, staring up at me: a dark hole for the mouth, stumps⁴²⁹ at the  bottoms of the legs. And the blood which had formed a black sash across the  waist, flowing down both sides from the navel.

I went down into the cellar to kneel by her.

"Are you alive."

At the first bomb-bursts, she moaned.

"I will pray for you." Night was coming in.

She began to cry. Tearless, half-nasal; more a curious succession of  drawn-out wails⁴³⁰, originating far back in the mouth cavity. All through the  raid she cried.

I gave her what I remembered of the sacrament of Extreme Unction. I could  not hear her confession: her teeth were gone and she must have been past  speech. But in those cries - so unlike human or even animal sound that they  might have been only the wind blowing past any dead reed - I detected a  sincere hatred for all her sins which must have been countless⁴³¹; a profound  sorrow at having hurt God by sinning; a fear of losing Him which was worse  than the fear of death. The interior darkness was lit by flares over  Valletta, incendiary bombs in the Dockyard. Often both our voices were  drowned in the explosions or the chattering of the ground artillery.

I did not hear only what I wanted to hear in these sounds that issued  unceasing from the poor woman. I have been over it, Paola, and over it. I  have since attacked myself more scathingly than any of your doubts could.  You will say I had forgotten my understanding with God in administering a  sacrament only a priest can give. That after losing Elena I'd "regressed" to  the priesthood I would have joined had I not married her.

At the time I only knew that a dying human must be prepared. I had no oil to  anoint her organs of sense - so mutilated now - and so used her own blood,  dipping it from the navel as from a chalice⁴³². Her lips were cold. Though I  saw and handled many corpses in the course of the siege, to this day I  cannot live with that cold. Often, when I fall asleep at my desk, the blood  supply to an arm is cut off. I wake and touch it and am no further from  nightmare, for it is night's cold, object's cold, nothing human, nothing of  me about it at all.

Now touching her lips my fingers recoiled⁴³³ and I returned from wherever I'd  been. The all-clear sounded. She cried once or twice more and fell silent. I  knelt by her and began to pray for myself. For her I'd done all I could. How  long did I pray? No way of knowing.

But soon the cold of the wind - shared now with what had been a quick body -  began to chill me. Kneeling grew uncomfortable. Only saints and lunatics can  remain "devoted⁴³⁴" for extended periods of time. I did feel far a pulse or  heartbeat. None. I arose, limped about the cellar aimlessly, and finally  emerged into Valletta without looking back.

I returned to Ta Kali, on foot. My shovel was still where I had left it.

 

Of Fausto III's return to life, little can be said. It happened. What inner  resources were there to give it nourishment⁴³⁵ are still unknown to the present  Fausto. This is a confession and in that return from the rock was nothing to  confess. There are no records of Fausto III except for indecipherable  entries.

And sketches⁴³⁶ of an azalea blossom, a carob tree.

There remained two unanswered questions. If he had truly broken his covenant  with God in administering the sacrament why did he survive the raid?

And why did he not stop the children: or lift the beam?

In answer to the first one can only suggest that he was now Fausto III, with  no further need for God.

The second has caused his successor to write this confession. Fausto  Maijstral is guilty of murder: a sin of omission⁴³⁷ if you will. He will answer  to no tribunal but God. And God at this moment is far away.

May He be closer to you.

 Valletta: 27 August 1956

 Stencil let the last thin scribbled⁴³⁸ sheet flutter to bare linoleum⁴³⁹. Had his  coincidence, the accident to shatter the surface of this stagnant pool and  send all the mosquitoes of hope zinging away to the exterior⁴⁴⁰ night; had it  happened?

"An Englishman; a mysterious being named Stencil."

Valletta. As if Paola's silence since - God, eight months. Had she, by her  refusal to tell him anything, been all this time forcing him closer to the  day when he'd have to admit Valletta as a possibility? Why?

Stencil would have liked to go on believing the death and V. had been  separate for his father. This he still could choose to do (couldn't he?),  and continue on in calm weather. He could go to Malta and possibly end it.  He had stayed off Malta. He was afraid of ending it; but, damn it all,  staying here would end it too. Funking out; finding V.; he didn't know which  he was most afraid of, V. or sleep. Or whether they were two versions of the  same thing.

Was there nothing for it but Valletta?

1 confessions   

n.承认( confession的名词复数 )；自首；声明；（向神父的）忏悔

参考例句：

• It is strictly forbidden to obtain confessions and to give them credence. 严禁逼供信。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• Neither trickery nor coercion is used to secure confessions. 既不诱供也不逼供。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

2 confession   

n.自白，供认，承认

参考例句：

• Her confession was simply tantamount to a casual explanation.她的自白简直等于一篇即席说明。
• The police used torture to extort a confession from him.警察对他用刑逼供。

3 persuasive   

adj.有说服力的，能说得使人相信的

参考例句：

• His arguments in favour of a new school are very persuasive.他赞成办一座新学校的理由很有说服力。
• The evidence was not really persuasive enough.证据并不是太有说服力。

4 metaphor   

n.隐喻，暗喻

参考例句：

• Using metaphor,we say that computers have senses and a memory.打个比方，我们可以说计算机有感觉和记忆力。
• In poetry the rose is often a metaphor for love.玫瑰在诗中通常作为爱的象征。

5 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。

6 mattress   

n.床垫，床褥

参考例句：

• The straw mattress needs to be aired.草垫子该晾一晾了。
• The new mattress I bought sags in the middle.我买的新床垫中间陷了下去。

7 halfway   

adj.中途的，不彻底的，部分的；adv.半路地，在中途，在半途

参考例句：

• We had got only halfway when it began to get dark.走到半路，天就黑了。
• In study the worst danger is give up halfway.在学习上，最忌讳的是有始无终。

8 rubble   

n.（一堆）碎石，瓦砾

参考例句：

• After the earthquake,it took months to clean up the rubble.地震后，花了数月才清理完瓦砾。
• After the war many cities were full of rubble.战后许多城市到处可见颓垣残壁。

9 inert   

adj.无活动能力的，惰性的；迟钝的

参考例句：

• Inert gas studies are providing valuable information about other planets,too.对惰性气体的研究，也提供了有关其它行星的有价值的资料。
• Elemental nitrogen is a very unreactive and inert material.元素氮是一个十分不活跃的惰性物质。

10 cape   

n.海角，岬；披肩，短披风

参考例句：

• I long for a trip to the Cape of Good Hope.我渴望到好望角去旅行。
• She was wearing a cape over her dress.她在外套上披着一件披肩。

11 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。

12 pro   

n.赞成，赞成的意见，赞成者

参考例句：

• The two debating teams argued the question pro and con.辩论的两组从赞成与反对两方面辩这一问题。
• Are you pro or con nuclear disarmament?你是赞成还是反对核裁军？

13 poetic   

adj.富有诗意的，有诗人气质的，善于抒情的

参考例句：

• His poetic idiom is stamped with expressions describing group feeling and thought.他的诗中的措辞往往带有描写群体感情和思想的印记。
• His poetic novels have gone through three different historical stages.他的诗情小说创作经历了三个不同的历史阶段。

14 feats   

功绩，伟业，技艺( feat的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• He used to astound his friends with feats of physical endurance. 过去，他表现出来的惊人耐力常让朋友们大吃一惊。
• His heroic feats made him a legend in his own time. 他的英雄业绩使他成了他那个时代的传奇人物。

15 premature   

adj.比预期时间早的；不成熟的，仓促的

参考例句：

• It is yet premature to predict the possible outcome of the dialogue.预言这次对话可能有什么结果为时尚早。
• The premature baby is doing well.那个早产的婴儿很健康。

16 accomplished   

adj.有才艺的；有造诣的；达到了的

参考例句：

• Thanks to your help,we accomplished the task ahead of schedule.亏得你们帮忙,我们才提前完成了任务。
• Removal of excess heat is accomplished by means of a radiator.通过散热器完成多余热量的排出。

17 stagnant   

adj.不流动的，停滞的，不景气的

参考例句：

• Due to low investment,industrial output has remained stagnant.由于投资少，工业生产一直停滞不前。
• Their national economy is stagnant.他们的国家经济停滞不前。

18 anticlimax   

n.令人扫兴的结局；突降法

参考例句：

• Travelling in Europe was something of an anticlimax after the years he'd spent in Africa.他在非洲生活了多年，到欧洲旅行真是有点太平淡了。
• It was an anticlimax when they abandoned the game.他们放弃比赛，真是扫兴。

19 logic   

n.逻辑(学)；逻辑性

参考例句：

• What sort of logic is that?这是什么逻辑？
• I don't follow the logic of your argument.我不明白你的论点逻辑性何在。

20 justify   

vt.证明…正当(或有理)，为…辩护

参考例句：

• He tried to justify his absence with lame excuses.他想用站不住脚的借口为自己的缺席辩解。
• Can you justify your rude behavior to me?你能向我证明你的粗野行为是有道理的吗？

21 rejection   

n.拒绝，被拒，抛弃，被弃

参考例句：

• He decided not to approach her for fear of rejection.他因怕遭拒绝决定不再去找她。
• The rejection plunged her into the dark depths of despair.遭到拒绝使她陷入了绝望的深渊。

22 personalities   

n. 诽谤，（对某人容貌、性格等所进行的）人身攻击； 人身攻击；人格, 个性, 名人( personality的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• There seemed to be a degree of personalities in her remarks.她话里有些人身攻击的成分。
• Personalities are not in good taste in general conversation.在一般的谈话中诽谤他人是不高尚的。

23 installments   

部分( installment的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The first two installments were pretty close together in 1980. 第一次和节二次提款隔得很近，都是在1980年提的。
• You have an installments sales contract. 你已经订立了一份分期付款的买卖契约了。

24 reign   

n.统治时期，统治，支配，盛行；v.占优势

参考例句：

• The reign of Queen Elizabeth lapped over into the seventeenth century.伊丽莎白王朝延至17世纪。
• The reign of Zhu Yuanzhang lasted about 31 years.朱元璋统治了大约三十一年。

25 slated   

用石板瓦盖( slate的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• Yuki is working up an in-home phonics program slated for Thursdays, and I'm drilling her on English conversation at dinnertime. Yuki每周四还有一次家庭语音课。我在晚餐时训练她的英语口语。
• Bromfield was slated to become U.S. Secretary of Agriculture. 布罗姆菲尔德被提名为美国农业部长。

26 scrutiny   

n.详细检查，仔细观察

参考例句：

• His work looks all right,but it will not bear scrutiny.他的工作似乎很好，但是经不起仔细检查。
• Few wives in their forties can weather such a scrutiny.很少年过四十的妻子经得起这么仔细的观察。

27 vocation   

n.职业，行业

参考例句：

• She struggled for years to find her true vocation.她多年来苦苦寻找真正适合自己的职业。
• She felt it was her vocation to minister to the sick.她觉得照料病人是她的天职。

28 trauma   

n.外伤，精神创伤

参考例句：

• Counselling is helping him work through this trauma.心理辅导正帮助他面对痛苦。
• The phobia may have its root in a childhood trauma.恐惧症可能源于童年时期的创伤。

29 animate   

v.赋于生命，鼓励；adj.有生命的，有生气的

参考例句：

• We are animate beings,living creatures.我们是有生命的存在，有生命的动物。
• The girls watched,little teasing smiles animating their faces.女孩们注视着，脸上挂着调皮的微笑，显得愈加活泼。

30 debris   

n.瓦砾堆，废墟，碎片

参考例句：

• After the bombing there was a lot of debris everywhere.轰炸之后到处瓦砾成堆。
• Bacteria sticks to food debris in the teeth,causing decay.细菌附着在牙缝中的食物残渣上，导致蛀牙。

31 masonry   

n.砖土建筑；砖石

参考例句：

• Masonry is a careful skill.砖石工艺是一种精心的技艺。
• The masonry of the old building began to crumble.旧楼房的砖石结构开始崩落。

32 physically   

adj.物质上，体格上，身体上，按自然规律

参考例句：

• He was out of sorts physically,as well as disordered mentally.他浑身不舒服，心绪也很乱。
• Every time I think about it I feel physically sick.一想起那件事我就感到极恶心。

33 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。

34 numb   

adj.麻木的，失去感觉的；v.使麻木

参考例句：

• His fingers were numb with cold.他的手冻得发麻。
• Numb with cold,we urged the weary horses forward.我们冻得发僵，催着疲惫的马继续往前走。

35 sonnet   

n.十四行诗

参考例句：

• The composer set a sonnet to music.作曲家为一首十四行诗谱了曲。
• He wrote a sonnet to his beloved.他写了一首十四行诗，献给他心爱的人。

36 monographs   

n.专著，专论( monograph的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The scholarly monographs were published as pamphlet. 学术专著是以小册子形式出版的。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Subsequent individual monographs will proceed at increasing levels of sophistication. 此后几集将继续提高论述水平。 来自辞典例句

37 survivor   

n.生存者，残存者，幸存者

参考例句：

• The sole survivor of the crash was an infant.这次撞车的惟一幸存者是一个婴儿。
• There was only one survivor of the plane crash.这次飞机失事中只有一名幸存者。

38 linguistic   

adj.语言的，语言学的

参考例句：

• She is pursuing her linguistic researches.她在从事语言学的研究。
• The ability to write is a supreme test of linguistic competence.写作能力是对语言能力的最高形式的测试。

39 rivet   

n.铆钉；vt.铆接，铆牢；集中(目光或注意力)

参考例句：

• They were taught how to bore rivet holes in the sides of ships.有人教他们如何在船的舷侧钻铆孔。
• The rivet heads are in good condition and without abrasion.铆钉钉头状况良好，并无过度磨损。

40 traitor   

n.叛徒，卖国贼

参考例句：

• The traitor was finally found out and put in prison.那个卖国贼终于被人发现并被监禁了起来。
• He was sold out by a traitor and arrested.他被叛徒出卖而被捕了。

41 gilding   

n.贴金箔，镀金

参考例句：

• The dress is perfect. Don't add anything to it at all. It would just be gilding the lily. 这条裙子已经很完美了，别再作任何修饰了，那只会画蛇添足。
• The gilding is extremely lavish. 这层镀金极为奢华。

42 forth   

adv.向前；向外，往外

参考例句：

• The wind moved the trees gently back and forth.风吹得树轻轻地来回摇晃。
• He gave forth a series of works in rapid succession.他很快连续发表了一系列的作品。

43 barrage   

n.火力网，弹幕

参考例句：

• The attack jumped off under cover of a barrage.进攻在炮火的掩护下开始了。
• The fierce artillery barrage destroyed the most part of the city in a few minutes.猛烈的炮火几分钟内便毁灭了这座城市的大部分地区。

44 regain   

vt.重新获得，收复，恢复

参考例句：

• He is making a bid to regain his World No.1 ranking.他正为重登世界排名第一位而努力。
• The government is desperate to regain credibility with the public.政府急于重新获取公众的信任。

45 wondrous   

adj.令人惊奇的，奇妙的；adv.惊人地；异乎寻常地；令人惊叹地

参考例句：

• The internal structure of the Department is wondrous to behold.看一下国务院的内部结构是很有意思的。
• We were driven across this wondrous vast land of lakes and forests.我们乘车穿越这片有着湖泊及森林的广袤而神奇的土地。

46 caravan   

n.大蓬车；活动房屋

参考例句：

• The community adviser gave us a caravan to live in.社区顾问给了我们一间活动住房栖身。
• Geoff connected the caravan to the car.杰弗把旅行用的住屋拖车挂在汽车上。

47 fleas   

n.跳蚤( flea的名词复数 )；爱财如命；没好气地（拒绝某人的要求）

参考例句：

• The dog has fleas. 这条狗有跳蚤。
• Nothing must be done hastily but killing of fleas. 除非要捉跳蚤，做事不可匆忙。 来自《简明英汉词典》

48 dwarves   

n.矮子( dwarf的名词复数 )；有魔法的小矮人

参考例句：

• Everyone will try to claim it: Men, Dwarves, wizards. 每个种族都会争取它的拥有权：人类，矮人，巫师。 来自电影对白
• Have you learned nothing of the stubbornness of Dwarves? 难道你还不了解那个矮人的倔强吗？ 来自电影对白

49 prodigies   

n.奇才，天才（尤指神童）( prodigy的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• It'seldom happened that a third party ever witnessed any of these prodigies. 这类壮举发生的时候，难得有第三者在场目睹过。 来自辞典例句
• She is by no means inferior to other prodigies. 她绝不是不如其他神童。 来自互联网

50 centaurs   

n.（希腊神话中）半人半马怪物( centaur的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Centaurs – marauders does not have penalty when shooting into support. 半人马掠夺者在支援射击时不受惩罚。 来自互联网
• Centaurs burn this, observing the fumes and flames to refine the results of their stargazing (OP27). 人马用烧鼠尾草产生的火焰和烟雾来提炼他们观星的结果（凤凰社，第27章）。 来自互联网

51 guts   

v.狼吞虎咽，贪婪地吃，飞碟游戏（比赛双方每组5人，相距15码，互相掷接飞碟）；毁坏（建筑物等）的内部( gut的第三人称单数 )；取出…的内脏n.勇气( gut的名词复数 )；内脏；消化道的下段；肠

参考例句：

• I'll only cook fish if the guts have been removed. 鱼若已收拾干净，我只需烧一下即可。
• Barbara hasn't got the guts to leave her mother. 巴巴拉没有勇气离开她妈妈。 来自《简明英汉词典》

52 metaphors   

隐喻( metaphor的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• I can only represent it to you by metaphors. 我只能用隐喻来向你描述它。
• Thus, She's an angel and He's a lion in battle are metaphors. 因此她是天使，他是雄狮都是比喻说法。

53 illustrating   

给…加插图( illustrate的现在分词 )； 说明； 表明； （用示例、图画等）说明

参考例句：

• He upstaged the other speakers by illustrating his talk with slides. 他演讲中配上幻灯片，比其他演讲人更吸引听众。
• Material illustrating detailed structure of graptolites has been etched from limestone by means of hydrofluoric acid. 表明笔石详细构造的物质是利用氢氟酸从石灰岩中侵蚀出来。

54 whimsy   

n.古怪，异想天开

参考例句：

• They are like oracular messages,but witty-jaunty at times-and sometimes trembling on the edge of whimsy.它们都像神谕，但很机智，有时极其轻快，有时又濒于怪诞。
• He had a whimsy about flying to the moon.他有个想飞上月球的怪念头。

55 crimson   

n./adj.深(绯)红色(的)；vi.脸变绯红色

参考例句：

• She went crimson with embarrassment.她羞得满脸通红。
• Maple leaves have turned crimson.枫叶已经红了。

56 rim   

n.(圆物的)边，轮缘；边界

参考例句：

• The water was even with the rim of the basin.盆里的水与盆边平齐了。
• She looked at him over the rim of her glass.她的目光越过玻璃杯的边沿看着他。

57 groves   

树丛，小树林( grove的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The early sun shone serenely on embrowned groves and still green fields. 朝阳宁静地照耀着已经发黄的树丛和还是一片绿色的田地。
• The trees grew more and more in groves and dotted with old yews. 那里的树木越来越多地长成了一簇簇的小丛林，还点缀着几棵老紫杉树。

58 grove   

n.林子，小树林，园林

参考例句：

• On top of the hill was a grove of tall trees.山顶上一片高大的树林。
• The scent of lemons filled the grove.柠檬香味充满了小树林。

59 swelling   

n.肿胀

参考例句：

• Use ice to reduce the swelling. 用冰敷消肿。
• There is a marked swelling of the lymph nodes. 淋巴结处有明显的肿块。

60 swell   

vi.膨胀，肿胀；增长，增强

参考例句：

• The waves had taken on a deep swell.海浪汹涌。
• His injured wrist began to swell.他那受伤的手腕开始肿了。

61 brute   

n.野兽，兽性

参考例句：

• The aggressor troops are not many degrees removed from the brute.侵略军简直象一群野兽。
• That dog is a dangerous brute.It bites people.那条狗是危险的畜牲，它咬人。

62 invader   

n.侵略者，侵犯者，入侵者

参考例句：

• They suffered a lot under the invader's heel.在侵略者的铁蹄下，他们受尽了奴役。
• A country must have the will to repel any invader.一个国家得有决心击退任何入侵者。

63 strand   

vt.使（船）搁浅，使（某人）困于（某地）

参考例句：

• She tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ears.她把一缕散发夹到了耳后。
• The climbers had been stranded by a storm.登山者被暴风雨困住了。

64 rout   

n.溃退，溃败；v.击溃，打垮

参考例句：

• The enemy was put to rout all along the line.敌人已全线崩溃。
• The people's army put all to rout wherever they went.人民军队所向披靡。

65 satire   

n.讽刺，讽刺文学，讽刺作品

参考例句：

• The movie is a clever satire on the advertising industry.那部影片是关于广告业的一部巧妙的讽刺作品。
• Satire is often a form of protest against injustice.讽刺往往是一种对不公正的抗议形式。

66 injustice   

n.非正义，不公正，不公平，侵犯（别人的）权利

参考例句：

• They complained of injustice in the way they had been treated.他们抱怨受到不公平的对待。
• All his life he has been struggling against injustice.他一生都在与不公正现象作斗争。

67 camouflage   

n./v.掩饰，伪装

参考例句：

• The white fur of the polar bear is a natural camouflage.北极熊身上的白色的浓密软毛是一种天然的伪装。
• The animal's markings provide effective camouflage.这种动物身上的斑纹是很有效的伪装。

68 cant   

n.斜穿，黑话，猛扔

参考例句：

• The ship took on a dangerous cant to port.船只出现向左舷危险倾斜。
• He knows thieves'cant.他懂盗贼的黑话。

69 misery   

n.痛苦，苦恼，苦难；悲惨的境遇，贫苦

参考例句：

• Business depression usually causes misery among the working class.商业不景气常使工薪阶层受苦。
• He has rescued me from the mire of misery.他把我从苦海里救了出来。

70 gallant   

adj.英勇的，豪侠的；(向女人)献殷勤的

参考例句：

• Huang Jiguang's gallant deed is known by all men. 黄继光的英勇事迹尽人皆知。
• These gallant soldiers will protect our country.这些勇敢的士兵会保卫我们的国家的。

71 hatred   

n.憎恶，憎恨，仇恨

参考例句：

• He looked at me with hatred in his eyes.他以憎恨的眼光望着我。
• The old man was seized with burning hatred for the fascists.老人对法西斯主义者充满了仇恨。

72 impatience   

n.不耐烦，急躁

参考例句：

• He expressed impatience at the slow rate of progress.进展缓慢，他显得不耐烦。
• He gave a stamp of impatience.他不耐烦地跺脚。

73 sanctuaries   

n.避难所( sanctuary的名词复数 )；庇护；圣所；庇护所

参考例句：

• The designation of special marine reserves and marine sanctuaries shall be subject to the State Council for approval. 海洋特别保护区、海上自然保护区的确定，须经国务院批准。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• After 1965 he acquiesced when they established sanctuaries on that soil. 1965年以后，他默认了他们在那块土地上建立庇护所。 来自辞典例句

74 troglodytes   

n.类人猿( troglodyte的名词复数 )；隐居者；穴居者；极端保守主义者

参考例句：

• He dismissed advocates of a completely free market as economic troglodytes with no concern for the social consequences. 他认为那些鼓吹完全自由市场经济的人对经济只是一知半解，完全没有顾及到可能产生的社会后果。 来自柯林斯例句

75 bowels   

n.肠，内脏，内部；肠( bowel的名词复数 )；内部，最深处

参考例句：

• Salts is a medicine that causes movements of the bowels. 泻盐是一种促使肠子运动的药物。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The cabins are in the bowels of the ship. 舱房设在船腹内。 来自《简明英汉词典》

76 spawn   

n.卵，产物，后代，结果；vt.产卵，种菌丝于，产生，造成；vi.产卵，大量生产

参考例句：

• The fish were madly pushing their way upstream to spawn.鱼群为产卵而疯狂地向上游挤进。
• These fish will lay spawn in about one month from now.这些鱼大约一个月内会产卵。

77 automaton   

n.自动机器，机器人

参考例句：

• This is a fully functional automaton.这是一个有全自动功能的机器人。
• I get sick of being thought of as a political automaton.我讨厌被看作政治机器。

78 dual   

adj.双的；二重的，二元的

参考例句：

• The people's Republic of China does not recognize dual nationality for any Chinese national.中华人民共和国不承认中国公民具有双重国籍。
• He has dual role as composer and conductor.他兼作曲家及指挥的双重身分。

79 wards   

区( ward的名词复数 )； 病房； 受监护的未成年者； 被人照顾或控制的状态

参考例句：

• This hospital has 20 medical [surgical] wards. 这所医院有 20 个内科[外科]病房。
• It was a big constituency divided into three wards. 这是一个大选区，下设三个分区。

80 simplicity   

n.简单，简易；朴素；直率，单纯

参考例句：

• She dressed with elegant simplicity.她穿着朴素高雅。
• The beauty of this plan is its simplicity.简明扼要是这个计划的一大特点。

81 exhausted   

adj.极其疲惫的，精疲力尽的

参考例句：

• It was a long haul home and we arrived exhausted.搬运回家的这段路程特别长，到家时我们已筋疲力尽。
• Jenny was exhausted by the hustle of city life.珍妮被城市生活的忙乱弄得筋疲力尽。

82 excerpt   

n.摘录，选录，节录

参考例句：

• This is an excerpt from a novel.这是一部小说的摘录。
• Can you excerpt something from the newspaper? 你能从报纸上选录些东西吗？

83 inadequacy   

n.无法胜任，信心不足

参考例句：

• the inadequacy of our resources 我们的资源的贫乏
• The failure is due to the inadequacy of preparations. 这次失败是由于准备不足造成的。

84 inevitably   

adv.不可避免地；必然发生地

参考例句：

• In the way you go on,you are inevitably coming apart.照你们这样下去，毫无疑问是会散伙的。
• Technological changes will inevitably lead to unemployment.技术变革必然会导致失业。

85 aged   

adj.年老的，陈年的

参考例句：

• He had put on weight and aged a little.他胖了，也老点了。
• He is aged,but his memory is still good.他已年老，然而记忆力还好。

86 lone   

adj.孤寂的，单独的；唯一的

参考例句：

• A lone sea gull flew across the sky.一只孤独的海鸥在空中飞过。
• She could see a lone figure on the deserted beach.她在空旷的海滩上能看到一个孤独的身影。

87 sewer   

n.排水沟，下水道

参考例句：

• They are tearing up the street to repair a sewer. 他们正挖开马路修下水道。
• The boy kicked a stone into the sewer. 那个男孩把一石子踢进了下水道。

88 flares   

n.喇叭裤v.（使）闪耀( flare的第三人称单数 )；（使）（船舷）外倾；（使）鼻孔张大；（使）（衣裙、酒杯等）呈喇叭形展开

参考例句：

• The side of a ship flares from the keel to the deck. 船舷从龙骨向甲板外倾。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He's got a fiery temper and flares up at the slightest provocation. 他是火爆性子，一点就着。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

89 chattering   

n. （机器振动发出的）咔嗒声，(鸟等)鸣，啁啾 adj. 喋喋不休的，啾啾声的 动词chatter的现在分词形式

参考例句：

• The teacher told the children to stop chattering in class. 老师叫孩子们在课堂上不要叽叽喳喳讲话。
• I was so cold that my teeth were chattering. 我冷得牙齿直打战。

90 knights   

骑士； （中古时代的）武士( knight的名词复数 )； 骑士； 爵士； （国际象棋中）马

参考例句：

• stories of knights and fair maidens 关于骑士和美女的故事
• He wove a fascinating tale of knights in shining armour. 他编了一个穿着明亮盔甲的骑士的迷人故事。

91 rape   

n.抢夺，掠夺，强奸；vt.掠夺，抢夺，强奸

参考例句：

• The rape of the countryside had a profound ravage on them.对乡村的掠夺给他们造成严重创伤。
• He was brought to court and charged with rape.他被带到法庭并被指控犯有强奸罪。

92 Mediterranean   

adj.地中海的；地中海沿岸的

参考例句：

• The houses are Mediterranean in character.这些房子都属地中海风格。
• Gibraltar is the key to the Mediterranean.直布罗陀是地中海的要冲。

93 fascination   

n.令人着迷的事物，魅力，迷恋

参考例句：

• He had a deep fascination with all forms of transport.他对所有的运输工具都很着迷。
• His letters have been a source of fascination to a wide audience.广大观众一直迷恋于他的来信。

94 ongoing   

adj.进行中的，前进的

参考例句：

• The problem is ongoing.这个问题尚未解决。
• The issues raised in the report relate directly to Age Concern's ongoing work in this area.报告中提出的问题与“关心老人”组织在这方面正在做的工作有直接的关系。

95 breach   

n.违反，不履行；破裂；vt.冲破，攻破

参考例句：

• We won't have any breach of discipline.我们不允许任何破坏纪律的现象。
• He was sued for breach of contract.他因不履行合同而被起诉。

96 celibate   

adj.独身的，独身主义的；n.独身者

参考例句：

• He had defended the institution of a celibate priesthood.他捍卫了独身牧师制度。
• The instinct of the celibate warned him to hold back.单身汉的本能告诫他回头是岸。

97 celibacy   

n.独身(主义)

参考例句：

• People in some religious orders take a vow of celibacy. 有些宗教修会的人发誓不结婚。
• The concept of celibacy carries connotations of asceticism and religious fervor. 修道者的独身观念含有禁欲与宗教热情之意。

98 flux   

n.流动；不断的改变

参考例句：

• The market is in a constant state of flux.市场行情在不断变化。
• In most reactors,there is a significant flux of fast neutrons.在大部分反应堆中都有一定强度的快中子流。

99 glorification   

n.赞颂

参考例句：

• Militant devotion to and glorification of one's country; fanatical patriotism. 对国家的军事效忠以及美化；狂热的爱国主义。
• Glorification-A change of place, a new condition with God. 得荣─在神面前新处境，改变了我们的结局。

100 hissing   

n. 发嘶嘶声, 蔑视 动词hiss的现在分词形式

参考例句：

• The steam escaped with a loud hissing noise. 蒸汽大声地嘶嘶冒了出来。
• His ears were still hissing with the rustle of the leaves. 他耳朵里还听得萨萨萨的声音和屑索屑索的怪声。 来自汉英文学 - 春蚕

101 zephyrs   

n.和风，微风( zephyr的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• If you but smile, spring zephyrs blow through my spirits, wondrously. 假使你只是仅仅对我微笑，春天的和风就会惊奇的吹过我的心灵间。 来自互联网

102 puff   

n.一口(气)；一阵(风)；v.喷气，喘气

参考例句：

• He took a puff at his cigarette.他吸了一口香烟。
• They tried their best to puff the book they published.他们尽力吹捧他们出版的书。

103 cynical   

adj.(对人性或动机)怀疑的，不信世道向善的

参考例句：

• The enormous difficulty makes him cynical about the feasibility of the idea.由于困难很大，他对这个主意是否可行持怀疑态度。
• He was cynical that any good could come of democracy.他不相信民主会带来什么好处。

104 promptly   

adv.及时地，敏捷地

参考例句：

• He paid the money back promptly.他立即还了钱。
• She promptly seized the opportunity his absence gave her.她立即抓住了因他不在场给她创造的机会。

105 jealousy   

n.妒忌，嫉妒，猜忌

参考例句：

• Some women have a disposition to jealousy.有些女人生性爱妒忌。
• I can't support your jealousy any longer.我再也无法忍受你的嫉妒了。

106 farce   

n.闹剧，笑剧，滑稽戏；胡闹

参考例句：

• They played a shameful role in this farce.他们在这场闹剧中扮演了可耻的角色。
• The audience roared at the farce.闹剧使观众哄堂大笑。

107 precisely   

adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地

参考例句：

• It's precisely that sort of slick sales-talk that I mistrust.我不相信的正是那种油腔滑调的推销宣传。
• The man adjusted very precisely.那个人调得很准。

108 virgin   

n.处女，未婚女子；adj.未经使用的；未经开发的

参考例句：

• Have you ever been to a virgin forest?你去过原始森林吗？
• There are vast expanses of virgin land in the remote regions.在边远地区有大片大片未开垦的土地。

109 reluctance   

n.厌恶，讨厌，勉强，不情愿

参考例句：

• The police released Andrew with reluctance.警方勉强把安德鲁放走了。
• He showed the greatest reluctance to make a reply.他表示很不愿意答复。

110 rustling   

n. 瑟瑟声，沙沙声 adj. 发沙沙声的

参考例句：

• the sound of the trees rustling in the breeze 树木在微风中发出的沙沙声
• the soft rustling of leaves 树叶柔和的沙沙声

111 avalanche   

n.雪崩，大量涌来

参考例句：

• They were killed by an avalanche in the Swiss Alps.他们在瑞士阿尔卑斯山的一次雪崩中罹难。
• Higher still the snow was ready to avalanche.在更高处积雪随时都会崩塌。

112 sobbing   

<主方>Ⅰ adj.湿透的

参考例句：

• I heard a child sobbing loudly. 我听见有个孩子在呜呜地哭。
• Her eyes were red with recent sobbing. 她的眼睛因刚哭过而发红。

113 plausibly   

似真地

参考例句：

• The case was presented very plausibly. 案情的申述似很可信。
• He argued very plausibly for its acceptance. 他为使之认可辩解得头头是道。

114 secrecy   

n.秘密，保密，隐蔽

参考例句：

• All the researchers on the project are sworn to secrecy.该项目的所有研究人员都按要求起誓保守秘密。
• Complete secrecy surrounded the meeting.会议在绝对机密的环境中进行。

115 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。

116 rumour   

n.谣言，谣传，传闻

参考例句：

• I should like to know who put that rumour about.我想知道是谁散布了那谣言。
• There has been a rumour mill on him for years.几年来，一直有谣言产生，对他进行中伤。

117 villa   

n.别墅，城郊小屋

参考例句：

• We rented a villa in France for the summer holidays.我们在法国租了一幢别墅消夏。
• We are quartered in a beautiful villa.我们住在一栋漂亮的别墅里。

118 sinister   

adj.不吉利的，凶恶的，左边的

参考例句：

• There is something sinister at the back of that series of crimes.在这一系列罪行背后有险恶的阴谋。
• Their proposals are all worthless and designed out of sinister motives.他们的建议不仅一钱不值，而且包藏祸心。

119 corruption   

n.腐败，堕落，贪污

参考例句：

• The people asked the government to hit out against corruption and theft.人民要求政府严惩贪污盗窃。
• The old man reviled against corruption.那老人痛斥了贪污舞弊。

120 awed   

adj.充满敬畏的，表示敬畏的v.使敬畏，使惊惧( awe的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• The audience was awed into silence by her stunning performance. 观众席上鸦雀无声，人们对他出色的表演感到惊叹。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• I was awed by the huge gorilla. 那只大猩猩使我惊惧。 来自《简明英汉词典》

121 aisle   

n.（教堂、教室、戏院等里的）过道，通道

参考例句：

• The aisle was crammed with people.过道上挤满了人。
• The girl ushered me along the aisle to my seat.引座小姐带领我沿着通道到我的座位上去。

122 agile   

adj.敏捷的，灵活的

参考例句：

• She is such an agile dancer!她跳起舞来是那么灵巧！
• An acrobat has to be agile.杂技演员必须身手敏捷。

123 parasitic   

adj.寄生的

参考例句：

• Will global warming mean the spread of tropical parasitic diseases?全球变暖是否意味着热带寄生虫病会蔓延呢？
• By definition,this way of life is parasitic.从其含义来说，这是种寄生虫的生活方式。

124 mighty   

adj.强有力的；巨大的

参考例句：

• A mighty force was about to break loose.一股巨大的力量即将迸发而出。
• The mighty iceberg came into view.巨大的冰山出现在眼前。

125 malignant   

adj.恶性的，致命的；恶意的，恶毒的

参考例句：

• Alexander got a malignant slander.亚历山大受到恶意的诽谤。
• He started to his feet with a malignant glance at Winston.他爬了起来，不高兴地看了温斯顿一眼。

126 bosom   

n.胸，胸部；胸怀；内心；adj.亲密的

参考例句：

• She drew a little book from her bosom.她从怀里取出一本小册子。
• A dark jealousy stirred in his bosom.他内心生出一阵恶毒的嫉妒。

127 parable   

n.寓言，比喻

参考例句：

• This is an ancient parable.这是一个古老的寓言。
• The minister preached a sermon on the parable of the lost sheep.牧师讲道时用了亡羊的比喻。

128 ravages   

劫掠后的残迹，破坏的结果，毁坏后的残迹

参考例句：

• the ravages of war 战争造成的灾难
• It is hard for anyone to escape from the ravages of time. 任何人都很难逃避时间的摧残。

129 garbled   

adj.（指信息）混乱的，引起误解的v.对（事实）歪曲，对（文章等）断章取义，窜改( garble的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• He gave a garbled account of what had happened. 他对所发生事情的叙述含混不清。
• The Coastguard needs to decipher garbled messages in a few minutes. 海岸警卫队需要在几分钟内解读这些含混不清的信息。 来自辞典例句

130 mythical   

adj.神话的；虚构的；想像的

参考例句：

• Undeniably,he is a man of mythical status.不可否认，他是一个神话般的人物。
• Their wealth is merely mythical.他们的财富完全是虚构的。

131 moratorium   

n.(行动、活动的)暂停(期)，延期偿付

参考例句：

• The government has called for a moratorium on weapons testing.政府已要求暂停武器试验。
• We recommended a moratorium on two particular kinds of experiments.我们建议暂禁两种特殊的实验。

132 enlisted   

adj.应募入伍的v.（使）入伍， （使）参军( enlist的过去式和过去分词 )；获得（帮助或支持）

参考例句：

• enlisted men and women 男兵和女兵
• He enlisted with the air force to fight against the enemy. 他应募加入空军对敌作战。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

133 bombers   

n.轰炸机( bomber的名词复数 )；投弹手；安非他明胶囊；大麻叶香烟

参考例句：

• Enemy bombers carried out a blitz on the city. 敌军轰炸机对这座城市进行了突袭。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The Royal Airforce sill remained dangerously short of bombers. 英国皇家空军仍未脱离极为缺乏轰炸机的危境。 来自《简明英汉词典》

134 airfield   

n.飞机场

参考例句：

• The foreign guests were motored from the airfield to the hotel.用车把外宾从机场送到旅馆。
• The airfield was seized by enemy troops.机场被敌军占领。

135 drudgery   

n.苦工，重活，单调乏味的工作

参考例句：

• People want to get away from the drudgery of their everyday lives.人们想摆脱日常生活中单调乏味的工作。
• He spent his life in pointlessly tiresome drudgery.他的一生都在做毫无意义的烦人的苦差事。

136 wardens   

n.看守人( warden的名词复数 )；管理员；监察员；监察官

参考例句：

• Air raid wardens in tin hats self-importantly stalked the streets. 空袭民防队员戴着钢盔神气活现地走在街上昂首阔步。 来自辞典例句
• The game wardens tranquillized the rhinoceros with a drugged dart. 猎物保护区管理员用麻醉射器让犀牛静了下来。 来自辞典例句

137 artillery   

n.(军)火炮，大炮；炮兵(部队)

参考例句：

• This is a heavy artillery piece.这是一门重炮。
• The artillery has more firepower than the infantry.炮兵火力比步兵大。

138 seamen   

n.海员

参考例句：

• Experienced seamen will advise you about sailing in this weather. 有经验的海员会告诉你在这种天气下的航行情况。
• In the storm, many seamen wished they were on shore. 在暴风雨中，许多海员想，要是他们在陆地上就好了。

139 shovel   

n.铁锨，铲子，一铲之量；v.铲，铲出

参考例句：

• He was working with a pick and shovel.他在用镐和铲干活。
• He seized a shovel and set to.他拿起一把铲就干上了。

140 glorifying   

赞美( glorify的现在分词 )； 颂扬； 美化； 使光荣

参考例句：

• I had no intention of either glorifying or belittling Christianity, merely the desire to understand it. 我并没有赞扬基督教或蔑视它的立意，我所想的只是了解它。
• You are glorifying a rather mediocre building. 你正在美化一栋普普通通的建筑。

141 condemned   

adj. 被责难的, 被宣告有罪的 动词condemn的过去式和过去分词

参考例句：

• He condemned the hypocrisy of those politicians who do one thing and say another. 他谴责了那些说一套做一套的政客的虚伪。
• The policy has been condemned as a regressive step. 这项政策被认为是一种倒退而受到谴责。

142 shovelling   

v.铲子( shovel的现在分词 )；锹；推土机、挖土机等的)铲；铲形部份

参考例句：

• The workers are shovelling the sand. 工人们正在铲沙子。 来自辞典例句
• They were shovelling coal up. 他们在铲煤。 来自辞典例句

143 purgatory   

n.炼狱；苦难；adj.净化的，清洗的

参考例句：

• Every step of the last three miles was purgatory.最后3英里时每一步都像是受罪。
• Marriage,with peace,is this world's paradise;with strife,this world's purgatory.和谐的婚姻是尘世的乐园，不和谐的婚姻则是人生的炼狱。

144 expiating   

v.为（所犯罪过）接受惩罚，赎（罪）( expiate的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• It seemed that Alice was expiating her father's sins with her charity work. 似乎艾丽斯正在通过自己的慈善工作来弥补父亲的罪过。 来自辞典例句

145 unaware   

a.不知道的，未意识到的

参考例句：

• They were unaware that war was near. 他们不知道战争即将爆发。
• I was unaware of the man's presence. 我没有察觉到那人在场。

146 recurred   

再发生，复发( recur的过去式和过去分词 )； 治愈

参考例句：

• Old memories constantly recurred to him. 往事经常浮现在他的脑海里。
• She always winced when he recurred to the subject of his poems. 每逢他一提到他的诗作的时候，她总是有点畏缩。

147 tempted   

v.怂恿（某人）干不正当的事；冒…的险（tempt的过去分词）

参考例句：

• I was sorely tempted to complain, but I didn't. 我极想发牢骚，但还是没开口。
• I was tempted by the dessert menu. 甜食菜单馋得我垂涎欲滴。

148 warfare   

n.战争(状态)；斗争；冲突

参考例句：

• He addressed the audience on the subject of atomic warfare.他向听众演讲有关原子战争的问题。
• Their struggle consists mainly in peasant guerrilla warfare.他们的斗争主要是农民游击战。

149 gilded   

a.镀金的，富有的

参考例句：

• The golden light gilded the sea. 金色的阳光使大海如金子般闪闪发光。
• "Friends, they are only gilded disks of lead!" "朋友们，这只不过是些镀金的铅饼！ 来自英汉文学 - 败坏赫德莱堡

150 lull   

v.使安静，使入睡，缓和，哄骗；n.暂停，间歇

参考例句：

• The drug put Simpson in a lull for thirty minutes.药物使辛普森安静了30分钟。
• Ground fighting flared up again after a two-week lull.经过两个星期的平静之后，地面战又突然爆发了。

151 arrogance   

n.傲慢，自大

参考例句：

• His arrogance comes out in every speech he makes.他每次讲话都表现得骄傲自大。
• Arrogance arrested his progress.骄傲阻碍了他的进步。

152 poignant   

adj.令人痛苦的，辛酸的，惨痛的

参考例句：

• His lyrics are as acerbic and poignant as they ever have been.他的歌词一如既往的犀利辛辣。
• It is especially poignant that he died on the day before his wedding.他在婚礼前一天去世了，这尤其令人悲恸。

153 vein   

n.血管，静脉；叶脉，纹理；情绪；vt.使成脉络

参考例句：

• The girl is not in the vein for singing today.那女孩今天没有心情唱歌。
• The doctor injects glucose into the patient's vein.医生把葡萄糖注射入病人的静脉。

154 soothe   

v.安慰；使平静；使减轻；缓和；奉承

参考例句：

• I've managed to soothe him down a bit.我想方设法使他平静了一点。
• This medicine should soothe your sore throat.这种药会减轻你的喉痛。

155 radical   

n.激进份子，原子团，根号；adj.根本的，激进的，彻底的

参考例句：

• The patient got a radical cure in the hospital.病人在医院得到了根治。
• She is radical in her demands.她的要求十分偏激。

156 gallop   

v./n.(马或骑马等)飞奔；飞速发展

参考例句：

• They are coming at a gallop towards us.他们正朝着我们飞跑过来。
• The horse slowed to a walk after its long gallop.那匹马跑了一大阵后慢下来缓步而行。

157 toil   

vi.辛劳工作，艰难地行动；n.苦工，难事

参考例句：

• The wealth comes from the toil of the masses.财富来自大众的辛勤劳动。
• Every single grain is the result of toil.每一粒粮食都来之不易。

158 posturing   

做出某种姿势( posture的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• She was posturing a model. 她正在摆模特儿的姿势。
• She says the President may just be posturing. 她说总统也许只是在做样子而已。

159 theatrical   

adj.剧场的，演戏的；做戏似的，做作的

参考例句：

• The final scene was dismayingly lacking in theatrical effect.最后一场缺乏戏剧效果，叫人失望。
• She always makes some theatrical gesture.她老在做些夸张的手势。

160 convoys   

n.（有护航的）船队( convoy的名词复数 )；车队；护航（队）；护送队

参考例句：

• Truck convoys often stop over for lunch here. 车队经常在这里停下来吃午饭。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• A UN official said aid programs will be suspended until there's adequate protection for relief convoys. 一名联合国官员说将会暂停援助项目，直到援助车队能够得到充分的保护为止。 来自辞典例句

161 convoy   

vt.护送，护卫，护航；n.护送；护送队

参考例句：

• The convoy was snowed up on the main road.护送队被大雪困在干路上了。
• Warships will accompany the convoy across the Atlantic.战舰将护送该船队过大西洋。

162 belligerently   

参考例句：

• Cars zoomed helter-skelter, honking belligerently. 大街上来往车辆穿梭不停，喇叭声刺耳。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Harass, threaten, insult, or behave belligerently towards others. 向其它交战地折磨，威胁，侮辱，或表现。 来自互联网

163 belligerent   

adj.好战的，挑起战争的；n.交战国，交战者

参考例句：

• He had a belligerent aspect.他有种好斗的神色。
• Our government has forbidden exporting the petroleum to the belligerent countries.我们政府已经禁止向交战国输出石油。

164 decadence   

n.衰落，颓废

参考例句：

• The decadence of morals is bad for a nation.道德的堕落对国家是不利的。
• His article has the power to turn decadence into legend.他的文章具有化破朽为神奇的力量。

165 crucible   

n.坩锅，严酷的考验

参考例句：

• The alliance had been forged in the crucible of war.这个联盟经受了战争的严峻考验。
• Put the required amount of metal into the crucible.把适量的金属放入坩埚。

166 slag   

n.熔渣，铁屑，矿渣；v.使变成熔渣，变熔渣

参考例句：

• Millions of tons of slag now go into building roads each year.每年有数百万吨炉渣用于铺路。
• The slag powder had been widely used as the additive in the cement and concrete.矿渣微粉作为水泥混凝土的掺和料已得到广泛应用。

167 craters   

n.火山口( crater的名词复数 )；弹坑等

参考例句：

• Small meteorites have left impact craters all over the planet's surface. 这个行星的表面布满了小块陨石留下的撞击坑。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The battlefield was full of craters made by exploding shells. 战场上布满弹坑。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》

168 carrion   

n.腐肉

参考例句：

• A crow of bloodthirsty ants is attracted by the carrion.一群嗜血的蚂蚁被腐肉所吸引。
• Vultures usually feed on carrion or roadkill.兀鹫通常以腐肉和公路上的死伤动物为食。

169 sweeping   

adj.范围广大的，一扫无遗的

参考例句：

• The citizens voted for sweeping reforms.公民投票支持全面的改革。
• Can you hear the wind sweeping through the branches?你能听到风掠过树枝的声音吗？

170 locus   

n.中心

参考例句：

• Barcelona is the locus of Spanish industry.巴塞罗那是西班牙工业中心。
• Thereafter,the military remained the locus of real power.自此之后，军方一直掌握着实权。

171 locusts   

n.蝗虫( locust的名词复数 )；贪吃的人；破坏者；槐树

参考例句：

• a swarm of locusts 一大群蝗虫
• In no time the locusts came down and started eating everything. 很快蝗虫就飞落下来开始吃东西，什么都吃。 来自《简明英汉词典》

172 ambiguity   

n.模棱两可；意义不明确

参考例句：

• The telegram was misunderstood because of its ambiguity.由于电文意义不明确而造成了误解。
• Her answer was above all ambiguity.她的回答毫不含糊。

173 graceful   

adj.优美的，优雅的；得体的

参考例句：

• His movements on the parallel bars were very graceful.他的双杠动作可帅了!
• The ballet dancer is so graceful.芭蕾舞演员的姿态是如此的优美。

174 attainable   

a.可达到的，可获得的

参考例句：

• They set the limits of performance attainable. 它们确定着可达到的运行限度。
• If objectives are to be meaningful to people, they must be clear, attainable, actionable, and verifiable. 如果目标对人们是具有意义的，则目标必须是清晰的，能达到的，可以行动的，以及可供检验的。

175 subconscious   

n./adj.潜意识(的)，下意识(的)

参考例句：

• Nail biting is often a subconscious reaction to tension.咬指甲通常是紧张时的下意识反映。
• My answer seemed to come from the subconscious.我的回答似乎出自下意识。

176 briefly   

adv.简单地，简短地

参考例句：

• I want to touch briefly on another aspect of the problem.我想简单地谈一下这个问题的另一方面。
• He was kidnapped and briefly detained by a terrorist group.他被一个恐怖组织绑架并短暂拘禁。

177 sullen   

adj.愠怒的，闷闷不乐的，(天气等)阴沉的

参考例句：

• He looked up at the sullen sky.他抬头看了一眼阴沉的天空。
• Susan was sullen in the morning because she hadn't slept well.苏珊今天早上郁闷不乐，因为昨晚没睡好。

178 clefts   

n.裂缝( cleft的名词复数 )；裂口；cleave的过去式和过去分词；进退维谷

参考例句：

• Clefts are often associated with other more serious congenital defects. 裂口常与其他更严重的先天性异常并发。 来自辞典例句
• Correction of palate clefts is much more difficult and usually not as satisfactory. 硬腭裂的矫正更为困难，且常不理想。 来自辞典例句

179 subterranean   

adj.地下的，地表下的

参考例句：

• London has 9 miles of such subterranean passages.伦敦像这样的地下通道有9英里长。
• We wandered through subterranean passages.我们漫游地下通道。

180 disturbances   

n.骚乱( disturbance的名词复数 )；打扰；困扰；障碍

参考例句：

• The government has set up a commission of inquiry into the disturbances at the prison. 政府成立了一个委员会来调查监狱骚乱事件。
• Extra police were called in to quell the disturbances. 已调集了增援警力来平定骚乱。

181 doomed   

命定的

参考例句：

• The court doomed the accused to a long term of imprisonment. 法庭判处被告长期监禁。
• A country ruled by an iron hand is doomed to suffer. 被铁腕人物统治的国家定会遭受不幸的。

182 limbo   

n.地狱的边缘；监狱

参考例句：

• His life seemed stuck in limbo and he could not go forward and he could not go back.他的生活好像陷入了不知所措的境地，进退两难。
• I didn't know whether my family was alive or dead.I felt as if I was in limbo.我不知道家人是生是死，感觉自己茫然无措。

183 stencil   

v.用模版印刷；n.模版；复写纸，蜡纸

参考例句：

• He then stencilled the ceiling with a moon and stars motif.他随后用模版在天花板上印上了月亮和繁星图案。
• Serveral of commonly used methods are photoprinting,photoengraving,mechnical engraving,and stencil.通常所采用的几种储存方法是：影印法、照相蚀刻、机械雕刻和模板。

184 immortality   

n.不死，不朽

参考例句：

• belief in the immortality of the soul 灵魂不灭的信念
• It was like having immortality while you were still alive. 仿佛是当你仍然活着的时候就得到了永生。

185 unity   

n.团结，联合，统一；和睦，协调

参考例句：

• When we speak of unity,we do not mean unprincipled peace.所谓团结，并非一团和气。
• We must strengthen our unity in the face of powerful enemies.大敌当前，我们必须加强团结。

186 determined   

adj.坚定的；有决心的

参考例句：

• I have determined on going to Tibet after graduation.我已决定毕业后去西藏。
• He determined to view the rooms behind the office.他决定查看一下办公室后面的房间。

187 frail   

adj.身体虚弱的；易损坏的

参考例句：

• Mrs. Warner is already 96 and too frail to live by herself.华纳太太已经九十六岁了，身体虚弱，不便独居。
• She lay in bed looking particularly frail.她躺在床上，看上去特别虚弱。

188 superstition   

n.迷信，迷信行为

参考例句：

• It's a common superstition that black cats are unlucky.认为黑猫不吉祥是一种很普遍的迷信。
• Superstition results from ignorance.迷信产生于无知。

189 reminder   

n.提醒物，纪念品；暗示，提示

参考例句：

• I have had another reminder from the library.我又收到图书馆的催还单。
• It always took a final reminder to get her to pay her share of the rent.总是得发给她一份最后催缴通知，她才付应该交的房租。

190 vibration   

n.颤动，振动；摆动

参考例句：

• There is so much vibration on a ship that one cannot write.船上的震动大得使人无法书写。
• The vibration of the window woke me up.窗子的震动把我惊醒了。

191 stifling   

a.令人窒息的

参考例句：

• The weather is stifling. It looks like rain. 今天太闷热，光景是要下雨。
• We were stifling in that hot room with all the windows closed. 我们在那间关着窗户的热屋子里，简直透不过气来。

192 concussion   

n.脑震荡；震动

参考例句：

• He was carried off the field with slight concussion.他因轻微脑震荡给抬离了现场。
• She suffers from brain concussion.她得了脑震荡。

193 erect   

n./v.树立，建立，使竖立；adj.直立的，垂直的

参考例句：

• She held her head erect and her back straight.她昂着头，把背挺得笔直。
• Soldiers are trained to stand erect.士兵们训练站得笔直。

194 awareness   

n.意识，觉悟，懂事，明智

参考例句：

• There is a general awareness that smoking is harmful.人们普遍认识到吸烟有害健康。
• Environmental awareness has increased over the years.这些年来人们的环境意识增强了。

195 chiromancy   

n.手相术

参考例句：

• She's busy writing a book on chiromancy.她正忙着写一本关于手相术的书。
• Do you believe in chiromancy?你相信手相术吗？

196 motes   

n.尘埃( mote的名词复数 )；斑点

参考例句：

• In those warm beams the motes kept dancing up and down. 只见温暖的光芒里面，微细的灰尘在上下飞扬。 来自辞典例句
• So I decided to take lots of grammar motes in every class. 因此我决定每堂课多做些语法笔记。 来自互联网

197 corpses   

n.死尸，尸体( corpse的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The living soldiers put corpses together and burned them. 活着的战士把尸体放在一起烧了。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Overhead, grayish-white clouds covered the sky, piling up heavily like decaying corpses. 天上罩满了灰白的薄云，同腐烂的尸体似的沉沉的盖在那里。 来自汉英文学 - 中国现代小说

198 swirl   

v.(使)打漩，(使)涡卷；n.漩涡，螺旋形

参考例句：

• The car raced roughly along in a swirl of pink dust.汽车在一股粉红色尘土的漩涡中颠簸着快速前进。
• You could lie up there,watching the flakes swirl past.你可以躺在那儿，看着雪花飘飘。

199 cormorant   

n.鸬鹚，贪婪的人

参考例句：

• The cormorant is a large,long-necked,dark-colored bird which lives near sea coasts and eats fish.鸬鹚是一种长脖子黑颜色的大鸟，生活在海滨而且以吃鱼为生。
• The exciting cormorant fishing performance is over there.那边有令人刺激的鱼鹰捕鱼表演。

200 fray   

v.争吵；打斗；磨损，磨破；n.吵架；打斗

参考例句：

• Why should you get involved in their fray?你为什么要介入他们的争吵呢？
• Tempers began to fray in the hot weather.大热天脾气烦燥。

201 shuffle   

n.拖著脚走，洗纸牌；v.拖曳，慢吞吞地走

参考例句：

• I wish you'd remember to shuffle before you deal.我希望在你发牌前记得洗牌。
• Don't shuffle your feet along.别拖着脚步走。

202 flicked   

（尤指用手指或手快速地）轻击( flick的过去式和过去分词 )； （用…）轻挥； （快速地）按开关； 向…笑了一下（或瞥了一眼等）

参考例句：

• She flicked the dust off her collar. 她轻轻弹掉了衣领上的灰尘。
• I idly picked up a magazine and flicked through it. 我漫不经心地拿起一本杂志翻看着。

203 taper   

n.小蜡烛，尖细，渐弱；adj.尖细的；v.逐渐变小

参考例句：

• You'd better taper off the amount of time given to rest.你最好逐渐地减少休息时间。
• Pulmonary arteries taper towards periphery.肺动脉向周围逐渐变细。

204 hoarse   

adj.嘶哑的，沙哑的

参考例句：

• He asked me a question in a hoarse voice.他用嘶哑的声音问了我一个问题。
• He was too excited and roared himself hoarse.他过于激动，嗓子都喊哑了。

205 sane   

adj.心智健全的，神志清醒的，明智的，稳健的

参考例句：

• He was sane at the time of the murder.在凶杀案发生时他的神志是清醒的。
• He is a very sane person.他是一个很有头脑的人。

206 treacherous   

adj.不可靠的，有暗藏的危险的；adj.背叛的，背信弃义的

参考例句：

• The surface water made the road treacherous for drivers.路面的积水对驾车者构成危险。
• The frozen snow was treacherous to walk on.在冻雪上行走有潜在危险。

207 jittering   

v.紧张不安，战战兢兢( jitter的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• FLASH OF LIGHTNING outside his window sends harsh barred shadows jittering across cell. A storm breaking. 闪电夺目，把牢房的栅影颤抖地映出，暴雨突来。 来自互联网

208 fixed   

adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的

参考例句：

• Have you two fixed on a date for the wedding yet?你们俩选定婚期了吗？
• Once the aim is fixed,we should not change it arbitrarily.目标一旦确定，我们就不应该随意改变。

209 tusks   

n.（象等动物的）长牙( tusk的名词复数 )；獠牙；尖形物；尖头

参考例句：

• The elephants are poached for their tusks. 为获取象牙而偷猎大象。
• Elephant tusks, monkey tails and salt were used in some parts of Africa. 非洲的一些地区则使用象牙、猴尾和盐。 来自英语晨读30分（高一）

210 millennia   

n.一千年，千禧年

参考例句：

• For two millennia, exogamy was a major transgression for Jews. 两千年来，异族通婚一直是犹太人的一大禁忌。
• In the course of millennia, the dinosaurs died out. 在几千年的时间里，恐龙逐渐死绝了。

211 axe   

n.斧子；v.用斧头砍，削减

参考例句：

• Be careful with that sharp axe.那把斧子很锋利，你要当心。
• The edge of this axe has turned.这把斧子卷了刃了。

212 steadily   

adv.稳定地；不变地；持续地

参考例句：

• The scope of man's use of natural resources will steadily grow.人类利用自然资源的广度将日益扩大。
• Our educational reform was steadily led onto the correct path.我们的教学改革慢慢上轨道了。

213 Fertilized   

v.施肥( fertilize的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• The study of psychology has recently been widely cross-fertilized by new discoveries in genetics. 心理学研究最近从遗传学的新发现中受益匪浅。
• Flowers are often fertilized by bees as they gather nectar. 花常在蜜蜂采蜜时受粉。

214 random   

adj.随机的；任意的；n.偶然的(或随便的)行动

参考例句：

• The list is arranged in a random order.名单排列不分先后。
• On random inspection the meat was found to be bad.经抽查，发现肉变质了。

215 fictional   

adj.小说的，虚构的

参考例句：

• The names of the shops are entirely fictional.那些商店的名字完全是虚构的。
• The two authors represent the opposite poles of fictional genius.这两位作者代表了天才小说家两个极端。

216 compensating   

补偿，补助，修正

参考例句：

• I am able to set up compensating networks of nerve connections. 我能建立起补偿性的神经联系网。
• It is desirable that compensating cables be run in earthed conduit. 补偿导线最好在地下管道中穿过。

217 possessed   

adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的

参考例句：

• He flew out of the room like a man possessed.他像着了魔似地猛然冲出房门。
• He behaved like someone possessed.他行为举止像是魔怔了。

218 dictate   

v.口授；(使)听写；指令，指示，命令

参考例句：

• It took him a long time to dictate this letter.口述这封信花了他很长时间。
• What right have you to dictate to others?你有什么资格向别人发号施令？

219 trajectory   

n.弹道，轨道

参考例句：

• It is not difficult to sketch the subsequent trajectory.很容易描绘出它们最终的轨迹。
• The path followed by a projectile is called its trajectory.抛物体所循的路径称为它的轨道。

220 apparently   

adv.显然地；表面上，似乎

参考例句：

• An apparently blind alley leads suddenly into an open space.山穷水尽，豁然开朗。
• He was apparently much surprised at the news.他对那个消息显然感到十分惊异。

221 degenerate   

v.退步，堕落；adj.退步的，堕落的；n.堕落者

参考例句：

• He didn't let riches and luxury make him degenerate.他不因财富和奢华而自甘堕落。
• Will too much freedom make them degenerate?太多的自由会令他们堕落吗？

222 arena   

n.竞技场，运动场所；竞争场所，舞台

参考例句：

• She entered the political arena at the age of 25. 她25岁进入政界。
• He had not an adequate arena for the exercise of his talents.他没有充分发挥其才能的场所。

223 drawn   

v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的

参考例句：

• All the characters in the story are drawn from life.故事中的所有人物都取材于生活。
• Her gaze was drawn irresistibly to the scene outside.她的目光禁不住被外面的风景所吸引。

224 apostasy   

n.背教，脱党

参考例句：

• Apostasy often has its roots in moral failure.背道的人通常是先在道德方面一败涂地。
• He was looked down upon for apostasy.他因背教而受轻视。

225 blessings   

n.（上帝的）祝福( blessing的名词复数 )；好事；福分；因祸得福

参考例句：

• Afflictions are sometimes blessings in disguise. 塞翁失马，焉知非福。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• We don't rely on blessings from Heaven. 我们不靠老天保佑。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

226 sham   

n./adj.假冒(的)，虚伪(的)

参考例句：

• They cunningly played the game of sham peace.他们狡滑地玩弄假和平的把戏。
• His love was a mere sham.他的爱情是虚假的。

227 scramble   

v.爬行，攀爬，杂乱蔓延，碎片，片段，废料

参考例句：

• He broke his leg in his scramble down the wall.他爬墙摔断了腿。
• It was a long scramble to the top of the hill.到山顶须要爬登一段长路。

228 excrement   

n.排泄物，粪便

参考例句：

• The cage smelled of excrement.笼子里粪臭熏人。
• Clothing can also become contaminated with dust,feathers,and excrement.衣着则会受到微尘、羽毛和粪便的污染。

229 streak   

n.条理，斑纹，倾向，少许，痕迹；v.加条纹，变成条纹，奔驰，快速移动

参考例句：

• The Indians used to streak their faces with paint.印第安人过去常用颜料在脸上涂条纹。
• Why did you streak the tree?你为什么在树上刻条纹？

230 civilian   

adj.平民的，民用的，民众的

参考例句：

• There is no reliable information about civilian casualties.关于平民的伤亡还没有确凿的信息。
• He resigned his commission to take up a civilian job.他辞去军职而从事平民工作。

231 affinity   

n.亲和力，密切关系

参考例句：

• I felt a great affinity with the people of the Highlands.我被苏格兰高地人民深深地吸引。
• It's important that you share an affinity with your husband.和丈夫有共同的爱好是十分重要的。

232 deviates   

v.偏离，越轨( deviate的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• The boy's behavior deviates from the usual pattern. 这个男孩子的举止与一般人不同。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The limit occurs when the ordinate deviates appreciably from unity. 这个限度发生在纵坐标明显地从单位1偏离的时候。 来自辞典例句

233 melodrama   

n.音乐剧；情节剧

参考例句：

• We really don't need all this ridiculous melodrama!别跟我们来这套荒唐的情节剧表演！
• White Haired Woman was a melodrama,but in certain spots it was deliberately funny.《白毛女》是一出悲剧性的歌剧，但也有不少插科打诨。

234 isolation   

n.隔离，孤立，分解，分离

参考例句：

• The millionaire lived in complete isolation from the outside world.这位富翁过着与世隔绝的生活。
• He retired and lived in relative isolation.他退休后，生活比较孤寂。

235 hostility   

n.敌对，敌意；抵制［pl.］交战，战争

参考例句：

• There is open hostility between the two leaders.两位领导人表现出公开的敌意。
• His hostility to your plan is well known.他对你的计划所持的敌意是众所周知的。

236 abruptly   

adv.突然地，出其不意地

参考例句：

• He gestured abruptly for Virginia to get in the car.他粗鲁地示意弗吉尼亚上车。
• I was abruptly notified that a half-hour speech was expected of me.我突然被通知要讲半个小时的话。

237 artifice   

n.妙计，高明的手段；狡诈，诡计

参考例句：

• The use of mirrors in a room is an artifice to make the room look larger.利用镜子装饰房间是使房间显得大一点的巧妙办法。
• He displayed a great deal of artifice in decorating his new house.他在布置新房子中表现出富有的技巧。

238 potent   

adj.强有力的，有权势的；有效力的

参考例句：

• The medicine had a potent effect on your disease.这药物对你的病疗效很大。
• We must account of his potent influence.我们必须考虑他的强有力的影响。

239 lucid   

adj.明白易懂的，清晰的，头脑清楚的

参考例句：

• His explanation was lucid and to the point.他的解释扼要易懂。
• He wasn't very lucid,he didn't quite know where he was.他神志不是很清醒，不太知道自己在哪里。

240 gutters   

（路边）排水沟( gutter的名词复数 )； 阴沟； （屋顶的）天沟； 贫贱的境地

参考例句：

• Gutters lead the water into the ditch. 排水沟把水排到这条水沟里。
• They were born, they grew up in the gutters. 他们生了下来，以后就在街头长大。

241 gutter   

n.沟，街沟，水槽，檐槽，贫民窟

参考例句：

• There's a cigarette packet thrown into the gutter.阴沟里有个香烟盒。
• He picked her out of the gutter and made her a great lady.他使她脱离贫苦生活，并成为贵妇。

242 tugging   

n.牵引感v.用力拉，使劲拉，猛扯( tug的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• Tom was tugging at a button-hole and looking sheepish. 汤姆捏住一个钮扣眼使劲地拉，样子显得很害羞。 来自英汉文学 - 汤姆历险
• She kicked him, tugging his thick hair. 她一边踢他，一边扯着他那浓密的头发。 来自辞典例句

243 expectancy   

n.期望，预期，（根据概率统计求得）预期数额

参考例句：

• Japanese people have a very high life expectancy.日本人的平均寿命非常长。
• The atomosphere of tense expectancy sobered everyone.这种期望的紧张气氛使每个人变得严肃起来。

244 boredom   

n.厌烦，厌倦，乏味，无聊

参考例句：

• Unemployment can drive you mad with boredom.失业会让你无聊得发疯。
• A walkman can relieve the boredom of running.跑步时带着随身听就不那么乏味了。

245 permanently   

adv.永恒地，永久地，固定不变地

参考例句：

• The accident left him permanently scarred.那次事故给他留下了永久的伤疤。
• The ship is now permanently moored on the Thames in London.该船现在永久地停泊在伦敦泰晤士河边。

246 lookout   

n.注意，前途，瞭望台

参考例句：

• You can see everything around from the lookout.从了望台上你可以看清周围的一切。
• It's a bad lookout for the company if interest rates don't come down.如果利率降不下来，公司的前景可就不妙了。

247 clans   

宗族( clan的名词复数 )； 氏族； 庞大的家族； 宗派

参考例句：

• There are many clans in European countries. 欧洲国家有很多党派。
• The women were the great power among the clans [gentes], as everywhere else. 妇女在克兰〈氏族〉里，乃至一般在任何地方，都有很大的势力。 来自英汉非文学 - 家庭、私有制和国家的起源

248 incompatible   

adj.不相容的，不协调的，不相配的

参考例句：

• His plan is incompatible with my intent.他的计划与我的意图不相符。
• Speed and safety are not necessarily incompatible.速度和安全未必不相容。

249 prey   

n.被掠食者，牺牲者，掠食；v.捕食，掠夺，折磨

参考例句：

• Stronger animals prey on weaker ones.弱肉强食。
• The lion was hunting for its prey.狮子在寻找猎物。

250 lair   

n.野兽的巢穴；躲藏处

参考例句：

• How can you catch tiger cubs without entering the tiger's lair?不入虎穴，焉得虎子？
• I retired to my lair,and wrote some letters.我回到自己的躲藏处，写了几封信。

251 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。

252 virility   

n.雄劲，丈夫气

参考例句：

• He wanted his sons to become strong,virile,and athletic like himself.他希望他的儿子们能长得像他一样强壮、阳刚而又健美。
• He is a tall,virile man with rugged good looks.他是个身材高大、体魄健壮、相貌粗犷英俊的男子。

253 mobility   

n.可动性，变动性，情感不定

参考例句：

• The difference in regional house prices acts as an obstacle to mobility of labour.不同地区房价的差异阻碍了劳动力的流动。
• Mobility is very important in guerrilla warfare.机动性在游击战中至关重要。

254 motives   

n.动机，目的( motive的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• to impeach sb's motives 怀疑某人的动机
• His motives are unclear. 他的用意不明。

255 delusion   

n.谬见，欺骗，幻觉，迷惑

参考例句：

• He is under the delusion that he is Napoleon.他患了妄想症，认为自己是拿破仑。
• I was under the delusion that he intended to marry me.我误认为他要娶我。

256 gad   

n.闲逛；v.闲逛

参考例句：

• He is always on the gad.他老是闲荡作乐。
• Let it go back into the gloaming and gad with a lot of longing.就让它回到暮色中，满怀憧憬地游荡吧。

257 innate   

adj.天生的，固有的，天赋的

参考例句：

• You obviously have an innate talent for music.你显然有天生的音乐才能。
• Correct ideas are not innate in the mind.人的正确思想不是自己头脑中固有的。

258 dwellings   

n.住处，处所( dwelling的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The development will consist of 66 dwellings and a number of offices. 新建楼区将由66栋住房和一些办公用房组成。
• The hovels which passed for dwellings are being pulled down. 过去用作住室的陋屋正在被拆除。 来自《简明英汉词典》

259 twitched   

vt.& vi.（使）抽动，（使）颤动（twitch的过去式与过去分词形式）

参考例句：

• Her lips twitched with amusement. 她忍俊不禁地颤动着嘴唇。
• The child's mouth twitched as if she were about to cry. 这小孩的嘴抽动着，像是要哭。 来自《简明英汉词典》

260 tragic   

adj.悲剧的，悲剧性的，悲惨的

参考例句：

• The effect of the pollution on the beaches is absolutely tragic.污染海滩后果可悲。
• Charles was a man doomed to tragic issues.查理是个注定不得善终的人。

261 hoard   

n./v.窖藏，贮存，囤积

参考例句：

• They have a hoard of food in the basement.地下室里有他们贮藏的食物。
• How many curios do you hoard in your study?你在你书房里聚藏了多少古玩？

262 foul   

adj.污秽的；邪恶的；v.弄脏；妨害；犯规；n.犯规

参考例句：

• Take off those foul clothes and let me wash them.脱下那些脏衣服让我洗一洗。
• What a foul day it is!多么恶劣的天气！

263 sheared   

v.剪羊毛( shear的过去式和过去分词 )；切断；剪切

参考例句：

• A jet plane sheared the blue sky. 一架喷气式飞机划破蓝空。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
• The pedal had sheared off at the pivot. 踏板在枢轴处断裂了。 来自辞典例句

264 fatigue   

n.疲劳，劳累

参考例句：

• The old lady can't bear the fatigue of a long journey.这位老妇人不能忍受长途旅行的疲劳。
• I have got over my weakness and fatigue.我已从虚弱和疲劳中恢复过来了。

265 streaks   

n.（与周围有所不同的）条纹( streak的名词复数 )；（通常指不好的）特征（倾向）；（不断经历成功或失败的）一段时期v.快速移动( streak的第三人称单数 )；使布满条纹

参考例句：

• streaks of grey in her hair 她头上的绺绺白发
• Bacon has streaks of fat and streaks of lean. 咸肉中有几层肥的和几层瘦的。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》

266 equate   

v.同等看待，使相等

参考例句：

• You can't equate passing examination and being intelligent.你不能把考试及格看成是聪明。
• You cannot equate his poems with his plays.你不可以把他的诗歌和他的剧本相提并论。

267 quaint   

adj.古雅的，离奇有趣的，奇怪的

参考例句：

• There were many small lanes in the quaint village.在这古香古色的村庄里，有很多小巷。
• They still keep some quaint old customs.他们仍然保留着一些稀奇古怪的旧风俗。

268 chunks   

厚厚的一块( chunk的名词复数 )； （某物）相当大的数量或部分

参考例句：

• a tin of pineapple chunks 一罐菠萝块
• Those chunks of meat are rather large—could you chop them up a bIt'smaller? 这些肉块相当大，还能再切小一点吗？

269 descended   

a.为...后裔的，出身于...的

参考例句：

• A mood of melancholy descended on us. 一种悲伤的情绪袭上我们的心头。
• The path descended the hill in a series of zigzags. 小路呈连续的之字形顺着山坡蜿蜒而下。

270 rattling   

adj. 格格作响的, 活泼的, 很好的 adv. 极其, 很, 非常 动词rattle的现在分词

参考例句：

• This book is a rattling good read. 这是一本非常好的读物。
• At that same instant,a deafening explosion set the windows rattling. 正在这时，一声震耳欲聋的爆炸突然袭来，把窗玻璃震得当当地响。

271 remorse   

n.痛恨，悔恨，自责

参考例句：

• She had no remorse about what she had said.她对所说的话不后悔。
• He has shown no remorse for his actions.他对自己的行为没有任何悔恨之意。

272 uxorious   

adj.宠爱妻子的

参考例句：

• There are those who regard him as the uxorious spouse of a beautiful wife.有些人认为他是一个宠爱美貌妻子的丈夫。
• His friends laughed at him because he was so uxorious and submissive to his wife's desires.他的朋友们嘲笑他，因为他溺爱妻子到了百依百顺的程度。

273 snarled   

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

参考例句：

• The dog snarled at us. 狗朝我们低声吼叫。
• As I advanced towards the dog, It'snarled and struck at me. 我朝那条狗走去时，它狂吠着向我扑来。 来自《简明英汉词典》

274 confided   

v.吐露（秘密，心事等）( confide的过去式和过去分词 )；（向某人）吐露（隐私、秘密等）

参考例句：

• She confided all her secrets to her best friend. 她向她最要好的朋友倾吐了自己所有的秘密。
• He confided to me that he had spent five years in prison. 他私下向我透露，他蹲过五年监狱。 来自《简明英汉词典》

275 consecrate   

v.使圣化，奉…为神圣；尊崇；奉献

参考例句：

• Consecrate your life to the church.把你的生命奉献给教堂吧。
• The priest promised God he would consecrate his life to helping the poor.牧师对上帝允诺他将献身帮助穷人。

276 intermittent   

adj.间歇的，断断续续的

参考例句：

• Did you hear the intermittent sound outside?你听见外面时断时续的声音了吗？
• In the daytime intermittent rains freshened all the earth.白天里，时断时续地下着雨，使整个大地都生气勃勃了。

277 deafening   

adj. 振耳欲聋的, 极喧闹的 动词deafen的现在分词形式

参考例句：

• The noise of the siren was deafening her. 汽笛声震得她耳朵都快聋了。
• The noise of the machine was deafening. 机器的轰鸣声震耳欲聋。

278 hack   

n.劈，砍，出租马车；v.劈，砍，干咳

参考例句：

• He made a hack at the log.他朝圆木上砍了一下。
• Early settlers had to hack out a clearing in the forest where they could grow crops.早期移民不得不在森林里劈出空地种庄稼。

279 thoroughly   

adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地

参考例句：

• The soil must be thoroughly turned over before planting.一定要先把土地深翻一遍再下种。
• The soldiers have been thoroughly instructed in the care of their weapons.士兵们都系统地接受过保护武器的训练。

280 consecrated   

adj.神圣的，被视为神圣的v.把…奉为神圣，给…祝圣( consecrate的过去式和过去分词 )；奉献

参考例句：

• The church was consecrated in 1853. 这座教堂于1853年祝圣。
• They consecrated a temple to their god. 他们把庙奉献给神。 来自《简明英汉词典》

281 apostate   

n.背叛者，变节者

参考例句：

• He is an apostate from Christianity.他是一个基督教的背信者。
• The most furious anarchist become the most barefaced apostate.最激烈的无政府主义者，居然成了最露骨的变节者。

282 propped   

支撑，支持，维持( prop的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• He sat propped up in the bed by pillows. 他靠着枕头坐在床上。
• This fence should be propped up. 这栅栏该用东西支一支。

283 lengthy   

adj.漫长的，冗长的

参考例句：

• We devoted a lengthy and full discussion to this topic.我们对这个题目进行了长时间的充分讨论。
• The professor wrote a lengthy book on Napoleon.教授写了一部有关拿破仑的巨著。

284 punctuating   

v.（在文字中）加标点符号，加标点( punctuate的现在分词 )；不时打断某事物

参考例句：

• Finally, it all came to a halt, with only Leehom's laboured breathing punctuating the silence. 最后，一切静止，只剩力宏吃力的呼吸，打破寂静。 来自互联网
• Li, punctuating the air with her hands, her fingernails decorated with pink rose decals. 一边说着，一边用手在空中一挥，指甲上还画了粉红玫瑰图案。 来自互联网

285 shudders   

n.颤动，打颤，战栗( shudder的名词复数 )v.战栗( shudder的第三人称单数 )；发抖；（机器、车辆等）突然震动；颤动

参考例句：

• It gives me the shudders. （（口语））它使我战栗。 来自辞典例句
• The ghastly sight gave him the shudders. 那恐怖的景象使他感到恐惧。 来自辞典例句

286 saluting   

v.欢迎，致敬( salute的现在分词 )；赞扬，赞颂

参考例句：

• 'Thank you kindly, sir,' replied Long John, again saluting. “万分感谢，先生。”高个子约翰说着又行了个礼。 来自英汉文学 - 金银岛
• He approached the young woman and, without saluting, began at once to converse with her. 他走近那年青女郎，马上就和她攀谈起来了，连招呼都不打。 来自辞典例句

287 scatter   

vt.撒，驱散，散开；散布/播；vi.分散，消散

参考例句：

• You pile everything up and scatter things around.你把东西乱堆乱放。
• Small villages scatter at the foot of the mountain.村庄零零落落地散布在山脚下。

288 scattering   

n.[物]散射；散乱，分散；在媒介质中的散播adj.散乱的；分散在不同范围的；广泛扩散的；（选票）数量分散的v.散射(scatter的ing形式)；散布；驱散

参考例句：

• The child felle into a rage and began scattering its toys about. 这孩子突发狂怒，把玩具扔得满地都是。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The farmers are scattering seed. 农夫们在播种。 来自《简明英汉词典》

289 slumped   

大幅度下降，暴跌( slump的过去式和过去分词 )； 沉重或突然地落下[倒下]

参考例句：

• Sales have slumped this year. 今年销售量锐减。
• The driver was slumped exhausted over the wheel. 司机伏在方向盘上，疲惫得睡着了。

290 saluted   

v.欢迎，致敬( salute的过去式和过去分词 )；赞扬，赞颂

参考例句：

• The sergeant stood to attention and saluted. 中士立正敬礼。
• He saluted his friends with a wave of the hand. 他挥手向他的朋友致意。 来自《简明英汉词典》

291 backwards   

adv.往回地，向原处，倒，相反，前后倒置地

参考例句：

• He turned on the light and began to pace backwards and forwards.他打开电灯并开始走来走去。
• All the girls fell over backwards to get the party ready.姑娘们迫不及待地为聚会做准备。

292 giggling   

v.咯咯地笑( giggle的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• We just sat there giggling like naughty schoolchildren. 我们只是坐在那儿像调皮的小学生一样的咯咯地傻笑。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• I can't stand her giggling, she's so silly. 她吃吃地笑，叫我真受不了，那样子傻透了。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》

293 hitch   

v.免费搭(车旅行)；系住；急提；n.故障；急拉

参考例句：

• They had an eighty-mile journey and decided to hitch hike.他们要走80英里的路程，最后决定搭便车。
• All the candidates are able to answer the questions without any hitch.所有报考者都能对答如流。

294 clattering   

发出咔哒声（clatter的现在分词形式）

参考例句：

• Typewriters keep clattering away. 打字机在不停地嗒嗒作响。
• The typewriter was clattering away. 打字机啪嗒啪嗒地响着。

295 brawl   

n.大声争吵，喧嚷；v.吵架，对骂

参考例句：

• They had nothing better to do than brawl in the street.他们除了在街上斗殴做不出什么好事。
• I don't want to see our two neighbours engaged in a brawl.我不希望我们两家吵架吵得不可开交。

296 swooped   

俯冲，猛冲( swoop的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• The aircraft swooped down over the buildings. 飞机俯冲到那些建筑物上方。
• The hawk swooped down on the rabbit and killed it. 鹰猛地朝兔子扑下来，并把它杀死。

297 projectiles   

n.抛射体( projectile的名词复数 )；（炮弹、子弹等）射弹，（火箭等）自动推进的武器

参考例句：

• These differences are connected with the strong absorption of the composite projectiles. 这些差别与复杂的入射粒子的强烈吸收有关。 来自辞典例句
• Projectiles became more important because cannons could now fire balls over hundreds or yards. 抛射体变得更加重要，因为人们已能用大炮把炮弹射到几百码的距离之外。 来自辞典例句

298 flicker   

vi./n.闪烁，摇曳，闪现

参考例句：

• There was a flicker of lights coming from the abandoned house.这所废弃的房屋中有灯光闪烁。
• At first,the flame may be a small flicker,barely shining.开始时，光辉可能是微弱地忽隐忽现，几乎并不灿烂。

299 intercept   

vt.拦截，截住，截击

参考例句：

• His letter was intercepted by the Secret Service.他的信被特工处截获了。
• Gunmen intercepted him on his way to the airport.持枪歹徒在他去机场的路上截击了他。

300 croaked   

v.呱呱地叫( croak的过去式和过去分词 )；用粗的声音说

参考例句：

• The crow croaked disaster. 乌鸦呱呱叫预报灾难。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
• 'she has a fine head for it," croaked Jacques Three. “她有一个漂亮的脑袋跟着去呢，”雅克三号低沉地说。 来自英汉文学 - 双城记

301 leisurely   

adj.悠闲的；从容的，慢慢的

参考例句：

• We walked in a leisurely manner,looking in all the windows.我们慢悠悠地走着，看遍所有的橱窗。
• He had a leisurely breakfast and drove cheerfully to work.他从容的吃了早餐，高兴的开车去工作。

302 beleaguered   

adj.受到围困[围攻]的；包围的v.围攻( beleaguer的过去式和过去分词)；困扰；骚扰

参考例句：

• The beleaguered party leader was forced to resign. 那位饱受指责的政党领导人被迫辞职。
• We are beleaguered by problems. 我们被许多困难所困扰。 来自《简明英汉词典》

303 parameter   

n.参数，参量

参考例句：

• It is the parameter of distribution.这就是分布参数。
• One parameter which always comes into play is the national economy.国民经济是一个经常起作用的参量。

304 covenants   

n.（有法律约束的）协议( covenant的名词复数 )；盟约；公约；（向慈善事业、信托基金会等定期捐款的）契约书

参考例句：

• Do I need to review the Deed of mutual Covenants (DMC)? 我是否需要覆核公共契约(DMC)吗？ 来自互联网
• Many listed and unlisted companies need to sell to address covenants. 许多上市公司和非上市公司需要出售手中资产，以满足借贷契约的要求。 来自互联网

305 marital   

adj.婚姻的，夫妻的

参考例句：

• Her son had no marital problems.她的儿子没有婚姻问题。
• I regret getting involved with my daughter's marital problems;all its done is to bring trouble about my ears.我后悔干涉我女儿的婚姻问题, 现在我所做的一切将给我带来无穷的烦恼。

306 harassed   

adj. 疲倦的，厌烦的 动词harass的过去式和过去分词

参考例句：

• He has complained of being harassed by the police. 他投诉受到警方侵扰。
• harassed mothers with their children 带着孩子的疲惫不堪的母亲们

307 dodging   

n.避开，闪过，音调改变v.闪躲( dodge的现在分词 )；回避

参考例句：

• He ran across the road, dodging the traffic. 他躲开来往的车辆跑过马路。
• I crossed the highway, dodging the traffic. 我避开车流穿过了公路。 来自辞典例句

308 subjugation   

n.镇压，平息，征服

参考例句：

• The Ultra-Leftist line was a line that would have wrecked a country, ruined the people, and led to the destruction of the Party and national subjugation. 极左路线是一条祸国殃民的路线，亡党亡国的路线。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• This afflicted German intelligence with two fatal flaws: inefficiency, and subjugation to a madman. 这给德国情报工作造成了两个致命的弱点，一个是缺乏效率，另一个是让一个疯子总管情报。 来自辞典例句

309 patriotic   

adj.爱国的，有爱国心的

参考例句：

• His speech was full of patriotic sentiments.他的演说充满了爱国之情。
• The old man is a patriotic overseas Chinese.这位老人是一位爱国华侨。

310 discrete   

adj.个别的，分离的，不连续的

参考例句：

• The picture consists of a lot of discrete spots of colour.这幅画由许多不相连的色点组成。
• Most staple fibers are discrete,individual entities.大多数短纤维是不联系的单独实体。

311 outdated   

adj.旧式的，落伍的，过时的；v.使过时

参考例句：

• That list of addresses is outdated,many have changed.那个通讯录已经没用了，许多地址已经改了。
• Many of us conform to the outdated customs laid down by our forebears.我们许多人都遵循祖先立下的过时习俗。

312 neutralize   

v.使失效、抵消，使中和

参考例句：

• Nothing could neutralize its good effects.没有什么能抵消它所产生的好影响。
• Acids neutralize alkalis and vice versa.酸能使碱中和碱，亦能使酸中和。

313 promontory   

n.海角；岬

参考例句：

• Genius is a promontory jutting out of the infinite.天才是茫茫大地突出的岬角。
• On the map that promontory looks like a nose,naughtily turned up.从地图上面，那个海角就像一只调皮地翘起来的鼻子。

314 compensate   

vt.补偿，赔偿；酬报 vi.弥补；补偿；抵消

参考例句：

• She used her good looks to compensate her lack of intelligence. 她利用她漂亮的外表来弥补智力的不足。
• Nothing can compensate for the loss of one's health. 一个人失去了键康是不可弥补的。

315 prematurely   

adv.过早地，贸然地

参考例句：

• She was born prematurely with poorly developed lungs. 她早产，肺部未发育健全。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• His hair was prematurely white, but his busy eyebrows were still jet-black. 他的头发已经白了，不过两道浓眉还是乌黑乌黑的。 来自辞典例句

316 obelisk   

n.方尖塔

参考例句：

• The obelisk was built in memory of those who died for their country.这座方尖塔是为了纪念那些为祖国献身的人而建造的。
• Far away on the last spur,there was a glittering obelisk.远处，在最后一个山峦上闪烁着一个方尖塔。

317 tangled   

adj. 纠缠的，紊乱的 动词tangle的过去式和过去分词

参考例句：

• Your hair's so tangled that I can't comb it. 你的头发太乱了，我梳不动。
• A movement caught his eye in the tangled undergrowth. 乱灌木丛里的晃动引起了他的注意。

318 ragged   

adj.衣衫褴褛的，粗糙的，刺耳的

参考例句：

• A ragged shout went up from the small crowd.这一小群人发出了刺耳的喊叫。
• Ragged clothing infers poverty.破衣烂衫意味着贫穷。

319 scattered   

adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的

参考例句：

• Gathering up his scattered papers,he pushed them into his case.他把散乱的文件收拾起来，塞进文件夹里。

320 internecine   

adj.两败俱伤的

参考例句：

• Strife was internecine during the next fortnight.在以后两个星期的冲突中我们两败俱伤。
• Take the concern that metaphysical one-sided point of view observes and treats both,can cause internecine.采取形而上学的片面观点观察和处理二者的关系，就会造成两败俱伤。

321 foraging   

v.搜寻（食物），尤指动物觅（食）( forage的现在分词 )；（尤指用手）搜寻（东西）

参考例句：

• They eke out a precarious existence foraging in rubbish dumps. 他们靠在垃圾场捡垃圾维持着朝不保夕的生活。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The campers went foraging for wood to make a fire. 露营者去搜寻柴木点火。 来自辞典例句

322 rivulet   

n.小溪，小河

参考例句：

• The school is located near the rivulet.学校坐落在小河附近。
• They passed the dry bed of a rivulet.他们跨过了一道干涸的河床。

323 hearty   

adj.热情友好的；衷心的；尽情的，纵情的

参考例句：

• After work they made a hearty meal in the worker's canteen.工作完了，他们在工人食堂饱餐了一顿。
• We accorded him a hearty welcome.我们给他热忱的欢迎。

324 contingency   

n.意外事件，可能性

参考例句：

• We should be prepared for any contingency.我们应该对任何应急情况有所准备。
• A fire in our warehouse was a contingency that we had not expected.库房的一场大火是我们始料未及的。

325 ascended   

v.上升，攀登( ascend的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• He has ascended into heaven. 他已经升入了天堂。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The climbers slowly ascended the mountain. 爬山运动员慢慢地登上了这座山。 来自《简明英汉词典》

326 scent   

n.气味，香味，香水，线索，嗅觉；v.嗅，发觉

参考例句：

• The air was filled with the scent of lilac.空气中弥漫着丁香花的芬芳。
• The flowers give off a heady scent at night.这些花晚上散发出醉人的芳香。

327 ranted   

v.夸夸其谈( rant的过去式和过去分词 )；大叫大嚷地以…说教；气愤地)大叫大嚷；不停地大声抱怨

参考例句：

• Drink in hand,he ranted about his adventures in Africa. 他端着酒杯，激动地叙述他在非洲的经历。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Lu Xun ranted and raved against the enemy, but he felt warmth towards the people. 鲁迅对敌人冷嘲热讽，而对人民却是满腔热忱。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

328 intercourse   

n.性交；交流，交往，交际

参考例句：

• The magazine becomes a cultural medium of intercourse between the two peoples.该杂志成为两民族间文化交流的媒介。
• There was close intercourse between them.他们过往很密。

329 sacrosanct   

adj.神圣不可侵犯的

参考例句：

• In India,the cow is a sacrosanct animal.牛在印度是神圣的动物。
• Philip Glass is ignorant of establishing an immutable, sacrosanct urtext.菲利普·格拉斯不屑于创立不变的、神圣的原始文本。

330 spoke   

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

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

331 viscous   

adj.粘滞的，粘性的

参考例句：

• Gases are much less viscous than liquids.气体的粘滞性大大小于液体。
• The mud is too viscous.You must have all the agitators run.泥浆太稠，你们得让所有的搅拌机都开着。

332 freckles   

n.雀斑，斑点( freckle的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• She had a wonderful clear skin with an attractive sprinkling of freckles. 她光滑的皮肤上有几处可爱的小雀斑。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• When she lies in the sun, her face gets covered in freckles. 她躺在阳光下时，脸上布满了斑点。 来自《简明英汉词典》

333 screeched   

v.发出尖叫声( screech的过去式和过去分词 )；发出粗而刺耳的声音；高叫

参考例句：

• She screeched her disapproval. 她尖叫着不同意。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The car screeched to a stop. 汽车嚓的一声停住了。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

334 proprietor   

n.所有人；业主；经营者

参考例句：

• The proprietor was an old acquaintance of his.业主是他的一位旧相识。
• The proprietor of the corner grocery was a strange thing in my life.拐角杂货店店主是我生活中的一个怪物。

335 killing   

n.巨额利润；突然赚大钱，发大财

参考例句：

• Investors are set to make a killing from the sell-off.投资者准备清仓以便大赚一笔。
• Last week my brother made a killing on Wall Street.上个周我兄弟在华尔街赚了一大笔。

336 barometer   

n.气压表，睛雨表，反应指标

参考例句：

• The barometer marked a continuing fall in atmospheric pressure.气压表表明气压在继续下降。
• The arrow on the barometer was pointing to"stormy".气压计上的箭头指向“有暴风雨”。

337 touching   

adj.动人的，使人感伤的

参考例句：

• It was a touching sight.这是一幅动人的景象。
• His letter was touching.他的信很感人。

338 mischievous   

adj.调皮的，恶作剧的，有害的，伤人的

参考例句：

• He is a mischievous but lovable boy.他是一个淘气但可爱的小孩。
• A mischievous cur must be tied short.恶狗必须拴得短。

339 discourse   

n.论文，演说；谈话；话语；vi.讲述，著述

参考例句：

• We'll discourse on the subject tonight.我们今晚要谈论这个问题。
• He fell into discourse with the customers who were drinking at the counter.他和站在柜台旁的酒客谈了起来。

340 carnival   

n.嘉年华会，狂欢，狂欢节，巡回表演

参考例句：

• I got some good shots of the carnival.我有几个狂欢节的精彩镜头。
• Our street puts on a carnival every year.我们街的居民每年举行一次嘉年华会。

341 stippled   

v.加点、绘斑，加粒( stipple的过去式和过去分词 )；（把油漆、水泥等的表面）弄粗糙

参考例句：

• They crossed a field stippled with purple weeds. 他们穿过点缀着紫色草的田地。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• There was a gray stubble of beard stippled over Primitivo's jaws, his lip and his neck. 普里米蒂沃的下巴上，嘴唇上，脖子上布满了灰色的胡茬。 来自辞典例句

342 trolleys   

n.（两轮或四轮的）手推车( trolley的名词复数 )；装有脚轮的小台车；电车

参考例句：

• Cars and trolleys filled the street. 小汽车和有轨电车挤满了街道。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Garbage from all sources was deposited in bins on trolleys. 来自各方的垃圾是装在手推车上的垃圾箱里的。 来自辞典例句

343 alley   

n.小巷，胡同；小径，小路

参考例句：

• We live in the same alley.我们住在同一条小巷里。
• The blind alley ended in a brick wall.这条死胡同的尽头是砖墙。

344 tilted   

v. 倾斜的

参考例句：

• Suddenly the boat tilted to one side. 小船突然倾向一侧。
• She tilted her chin at him defiantly. 她向他翘起下巴表示挑衅。

345 grid   

n.高压输电线路网；地图坐标方格；格栅

参考例句：

• In this application,the carrier is used to encapsulate the grid.在这种情况下，要用载体把格栅密封起来。
• Modern gauges consist of metal foil in the form of a grid.现代应变仪则由网格形式的金属片组成。

346 miraculously   

ad.奇迹般地

参考例句：

• He had been miraculously saved from almost certain death. 他奇迹般地从死亡线上获救。
• A schoolboy miraculously survived a 25 000-volt electric shock. 一名男学生在遭受2.5 万伏的电击后奇迹般地活了下来。

347 sagged   

下垂的

参考例句：

• The black reticule sagged under the weight of shapeless objects. 黑色的拎包由于装了各种形状的东西而中间下陷。
• He sagged wearily back in his chair. 他疲倦地瘫坐到椅子上。

348 residual   

adj.复播复映追加时间；存留下来的，剩余的

参考例句：

• There are still a few residual problems with the computer program.电脑程序还有一些残留问题。
• The resulting residual chromatism is known as secondary spectrum.所得到的剩余色差叫做二次光谱。

349 hunched   

（常指因寒冷、生病或愁苦）耸肩弓身的，伏首前倾的

参考例句：

• He sat with his shoulders hunched up. 他耸起双肩坐着。
• Stephen hunched down to light a cigarette. 斯蒂芬弓着身子点燃一支烟。

350 unfamiliar   

adj.陌生的，不熟悉的

参考例句：

• I am unfamiliar with the place and the people here.我在这儿人地生疏。
• The man seemed unfamiliar to me.这人很面生。

351 gulls   

n.鸥( gull的名词复数 )v.欺骗某人( gull的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• A flock of sea gulls are hovering over the deck. 一群海鸥在甲板上空飞翔。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• The gulls which haunted the outlying rocks in a prodigious number. 数不清的海鸥在遥远的岩石上栖息。 来自辞典例句

352 twilight   

n.暮光，黄昏；暮年，晚期，衰落时期

参考例句：

• Twilight merged into darkness.夕阳的光辉融于黑暗中。
• Twilight was sweet with the smell of lilac and freshly turned earth.薄暮充满紫丁香和新翻耕的泥土的香味。

353 abraded   

adj.[医]刮擦的v.刮擦( abrade的过去式和过去分词 )；（在精神方面）折磨（人）；消磨（意志、精神等）；使精疲力尽

参考例句：

• Much of the skin on her arm was abraded. 她胳膊上的大片皮肤被擦破了。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Their gossips abraded her into restlessness. 他们的流言蜚语使她心烦意乱。 来自《简明英汉词典》

354 shredding   

v.撕碎，切碎( shred的现在分词 )；用撕毁机撕毁（文件）

参考例句：

• Like the Tehran experience, the shredding may be all for naught. 如同德黑兰事件中的情况一样，切碎文件可能是徒劳的。 来自时文部分
• How shredding began is subject to some guesswork. 粉碎处理行业的起源是个有争议的问题。 来自时文部分

355 throbbed   

抽痛( throb的过去式和过去分词 )； （心脏、脉搏等）跳动

参考例句：

• His head throbbed painfully. 他的头一抽一跳地痛。
• The pulse throbbed steadily. 脉搏跳得平稳。

356 gathering   

n.集会，聚会，聚集

参考例句：

• He called on Mr. White to speak at the gathering.他请怀特先生在集会上讲话。
• He is on the wing gathering material for his novels.他正忙于为他的小说收集资料。

357 margins   

边( margin的名词复数 )； 利润； 页边空白； 差数

参考例句：

• They have always had to make do with relatively small profit margins. 他们不得不经常设法应付较少的利润额。
• To create more space between the navigation items, add left and right margins to the links. 在每个项目间留更多的空隙，加左或者右的margins来定义链接。

358 iris   

n.虹膜，彩虹

参考例句：

• The opening of the iris is called the pupil.虹膜的开口处叫做瞳孔。
• This incredible human eye,complete with retina and iris,can be found in the Maldives.又是在马尔代夫，有这样一只难以置信的眼睛，连视网膜和虹膜都刻画齐全了。

359 distilled   

adj.由蒸馏得来的v.蒸馏( distil的过去式和过去分词 )；从…提取精华

参考例句：

• The televised interview was distilled from 16 hours of film. 那次电视采访是从16个小时的影片中选出的精华。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Gasoline is distilled from crude oil. 汽油是从原油中提炼出来的。 来自《简明英汉词典》

360 irises   

n.虹( iris的名词复数 )；虹膜；虹彩；鸢尾（花）

参考例句：

• The cottage gardens blaze with irises, lilies and peonies. 村舍花园万紫千红，鸢尾、百合花和牡丹竞相争艳。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The irises were of flecked grey. 虹膜呈斑驳的灰色。 来自《简明英汉词典》

361 nostalgia   

n.怀乡病，留恋过去，怀旧

参考例句：

• He might be influenced by nostalgia for his happy youth.也许是对年轻时幸福时光的怀恋影响了他。
• I was filled with nostalgia by hearing my favourite old song.我听到这首喜爱的旧歌，心中充满了怀旧之情。

362 disintegrating   

v.（使）破裂[分裂，粉碎]，（使）崩溃( disintegrate的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• As a poetic version of a disintegrating world, this one pleased him. 作为世界崩溃论在文学上的表现，他非常喜欢这个学说。 来自辞典例句
• Soil animals increase the speed of litter breakdown by disintegrating tissue. 土壤动物通过分解组织，加速落叶层降解的速度。 来自辞典例句

363 chafed   

v.擦热（尤指皮肤）( chafe的过去式 )；擦痛；发怒；惹怒

参考例句：

• Her wrists chafed where the rope had been. 她的手腕上绳子勒过的地方都磨红了。
• She chafed her cold hands. 她揉搓冰冷的双手使之暖和。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》

364 catching   

adj.易传染的，有魅力的，迷人的，接住

参考例句：

• There are those who think eczema is catching.有人就是认为湿疹会传染。
• Enthusiasm is very catching.热情非常富有感染力。

365 gouge   

v.凿；挖出；n.半圆凿；凿孔；欺诈

参考例句：

• To make a Halloween lantern,you first have to gouge out the inside of the pumpkin.要做一个万圣节灯笼，你先得挖空这个南瓜。
• In the Middle Ages,a favourite punishment was to gouge out a prisoner's eyes.在中世纪，惩罚犯人最常用的办法是剜眼睛。

366 inevitable   

adj.不可避免的，必然发生的

参考例句：

• Mary was wearing her inevitable large hat.玛丽戴着她总是戴的那顶大帽子。
• The defeat had inevitable consequences for British policy.战败对英国政策不可避免地产生了影响。

367 annotating   

v.注解，注释( annotate的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• Historians are checking and annotating the History of the Former Han Dynasty. 史学家们在校点《汉书》。 来自互联网
• This great flowering of annotating and indexing will alter the way we discover books, too. 注解和索引的大繁荣也会改变我们发现书籍的方式。 来自互联网

368 applied   

adj.应用的；v.应用，适用

参考例句：

• She plans to take a course in applied linguistics.她打算学习应用语言学课程。
• This cream is best applied to the face at night.这种乳霜最好晚上擦脸用。

369 projection   

n.发射，计划，突出部分

参考例句：

• Projection takes place with a minimum of awareness or conscious control.投射在最少的知觉或意识控制下发生。
• The projection of increases in number of house-holds is correct.对户数增加的推算是正确的。

370 resurgence   

n.再起，复活，再现

参考例句：

• A resurgence of his grief swept over Nim.悲痛又涌上了尼姆的心头。
• Police say drugs traffickers are behind the resurgence of violence.警方说毒贩是暴力活动重新抬头的罪魁祸首。

371 decadent   

adj.颓废的，衰落的，堕落的

参考例句：

• Don't let decadent ideas eat into yourselves.别让颓废的思想侵蚀你们。
• This song was once banned, because it was regarded as decadent.这首歌曾经被认定为是靡靡之音而被禁止播放。

372 recording   

n.录音，记录

参考例句：

• How long will the recording of the song take?录下这首歌得花多少时间？
• I want to play you a recording of the rehearsal.我想给你放一下彩排的录像。

373 turnover   

n.人员流动率，人事变动率；营业额，成交量

参考例句：

• The store greatly reduced the prices to make a quick turnover.这家商店实行大减价以迅速周转资金。
• Our turnover actually increased last year.去年我们的营业额竟然增加了。

374 noted   

adj.著名的，知名的

参考例句：

• The local hotel is noted for its good table.当地的那家酒店以餐食精美而著称。
• Jim is noted for arriving late for work.吉姆上班迟到出了名。

375 graphically   

adv.通过图表；生动地，轮廓分明地

参考例句：

• This data is shown graphically on the opposite page. 对页以图表显示这些数据。
• The data can be represented graphically in a line diagram. 这些数据可以用单线图表现出来。 来自《简明英汉词典》

376 assailed   

v.攻击( assail的过去式和过去分词 )；困扰；质问；毅然应对

参考例句：

• He was assailed with fierce blows to the head. 他的头遭到猛烈殴打。
• He has been assailed by bad breaks all these years. 这些年来他接二连三地倒霉。 来自《用法词典》

377 spokes   

n.（车轮的）辐条( spoke的名词复数 )；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动

参考例句：

• Her baby caught his fingers in the spokes of the pram wheel. 她宝宝的手指被婴儿车轮的辐条卡住了。 来自辞典例句
• The new edges are called the spokes of the wheel. 新的边称为轮的辐。 来自辞典例句

378 lashed   

adj.具睫毛的v.鞭打( lash的过去式和过去分词 )；煽动；紧系；怒斥

参考例句：

• The rain lashed at the windows. 雨点猛烈地打在窗户上。
• The cleverly designed speech lashed the audience into a frenzy. 这篇精心设计的演说煽动听众使他们发狂。 来自《简明英汉词典》

379 vertical   

adj.垂直的，顶点的，纵向的；n.垂直物，垂直的位置

参考例句：

• The northern side of the mountain is almost vertical.这座山的北坡几乎是垂直的。
• Vertical air motions are not measured by this system.垂直气流的运动不用这种系统来测量。

380 sensuous   

adj.激发美感的；感官的，感觉上的

参考例句：

• Don't get the idea that value of music is commensurate with its sensuous appeal.不要以为音乐的价值与其美的感染力相等。
• The flowers that wreathed his parlor stifled him with their sensuous perfume.包围著客厅的花以其刺激人的香味使他窒息。

381 squatting   

v.像动物一样蹲下( squat的现在分词 )；非法擅自占用（土地或房屋）；为获得其所有权；而占用某片公共用地。

参考例句：

• They ended up squatting in the empty houses on Oxford Road. 他们落得在牛津路偷住空房的境地。
• They've been squatting in an apartment for the past two years. 他们过去两年来一直擅自占用一套公寓。 来自《简明英汉词典》

382 radius   

n.半径，半径范围；有效航程，范围，界限

参考例句：

• He has visited every shop within a radius of two miles.周围两英里以内的店铺他都去过。
• We are measuring the radius of the circle.我们正在测量圆的半径。

383 venerated   

敬重（某人或某事物），崇敬( venerate的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• My father venerated General Eisenhower. 我父亲十分敬仰艾森豪威尔将军。
• He used the sacraments and venerated the saints. 他行使圣事，崇拜圣人。 来自英汉非文学 - 文明史

384 hypocrisy   

n.伪善，虚伪

参考例句：

• He railed against hypocrisy and greed.他痛斥伪善和贪婪的行为。
• He accused newspapers of hypocrisy in their treatment of the story.他指责了报纸在报道该新闻时的虚伪。

385 plasma   

n.血浆，细胞质，乳清

参考例句：

• Keep some blood plasma back for the serious cases.留一些血浆给重病号。
• The plasma is the liquid portion of blood that is free of cells .血浆是血液的液体部分，不包含各种细胞。

386 formerly   

adv.从前，以前

参考例句：

• We now enjoy these comforts of which formerly we had only heard.我们现在享受到了过去只是听说过的那些舒适条件。
• This boat was formerly used on the rivers of China.这船从前航行在中国内河里。

387 watchful   

adj.注意的，警惕的

参考例句：

• The children played under the watchful eye of their father.孩子们在父亲的小心照看下玩耍。
• It is important that health organizations remain watchful.卫生组织保持警惕是极为重要的。

388 blemishes   

n.（身体的）瘢点( blemish的名词复数 )；伤疤；瑕疵；污点

参考例句：

• make-up to cover blemishes 遮盖霜
• The blemishes of ancestors appear. 祖先的各种瑕疵都渐渐显露出来。 来自辞典例句

389 pestilence   

n.瘟疫

参考例句：

• They were crazed by the famine and pestilence of that bitter winter.他们因那年严冬的饥饿与瘟疫而折磨得发狂。
• A pestilence was raging in that area. 瘟疫正在那一地区流行。

390 rampant   

adj.(植物)蔓生的；狂暴的，无约束的

参考例句：

• Sickness was rampant in the area.该地区疾病蔓延。
• You cannot allow children to rampant through the museum.你不能任由小孩子在博物馆里乱跑。

391 atheist   

n.无神论者

参考例句：

• She was an atheist but now she says she's seen the light.她本来是个无神论者，可是现在她说自己的信仰改变了。
• He is admittedly an atheist.他被公认是位无神论者。

392 knavery   

n.恶行，欺诈的行为

参考例句：

• Knavery may serve,but honesty is best.欺诈可能有用，诚实却是上策。
• This is flat knavery.这是十足的无赖作风。

393 adept   

adj.老练的，精通的

参考例句：

• When it comes to photography,I'm not an adept.要说照相，我不是内行。
• He was highly adept at avoiding trouble.他十分善于避开麻烦。

394 uncertainty   

n.易变，靠不住，不确知，不确定的事物

参考例句：

• Her comments will add to the uncertainty of the situation.她的批评将会使局势更加不稳定。
• After six weeks of uncertainty,the strain was beginning to take its toll.6个星期的忐忑不安后，压力开始产生影响了。

395 nuns   

n.（通常指基督教的）修女， （佛教的）尼姑( nun的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Ah Q had always had the greatest contempt for such people as little nuns. 小尼姑之流是阿Q本来视如草芥的。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• Nuns are under vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. 修女须立誓保持清贫、贞洁、顺从。 来自辞典例句

396 curiously   

adv.有求知欲地；好问地；奇特地

参考例句：

• He looked curiously at the people.他好奇地看着那些人。
• He took long stealthy strides. His hands were curiously cold.他迈着悄没声息的大步。他的双手出奇地冷。

397 eroded   

adj. 被侵蚀的，有蚀痕的 动词erode的过去式和过去分词形式

参考例句：

• The cliff face has been steadily eroded by the sea. 峭壁表面逐渐被海水侵蚀。
• The stream eroded a channel in the solid rock. 小溪在硬石中侵蚀成一条水道。

398 plausible   

adj.似真实的，似乎有理的，似乎可信的

参考例句：

• His story sounded plausible.他说的那番话似乎是真实的。
• Her story sounded perfectly plausible.她的说辞听起来言之有理。

399 displeases   

冒犯，使生气，使不愉快( displease的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• Nothing displeases me more than loud talking. 没有比大声谈话更使我不高兴的了。
• Bill is a wise guy and displeases others by what he says. 比尔自命不凡，说的话让人生气。

400 favourably   

adv. 善意地，赞成地 =favorably

参考例句：

• The play has been favourably commented by the audience. 本剧得到了观众的好评。
• The open approach contrasts favourably with the exclusivity of some universities. 这种开放式的方法与一些大学的封闭排外形成了有利的对比。

401 abating   

减少( abate的现在分词 )； 减去； 降价； 撤消（诉讼）

参考例句：

• The storm showed no signs of abating. 暴风雨没有减弱的迹象。
• The recent public anxiety about this issue may now be abating. 近来公众对这个问题的焦虑心情现在也许正在缓和下来。

402 intensified   

v.（使）增强， （使）加剧( intensify的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• Violence intensified during the night. 在夜间暴力活动加剧了。
• The drought has intensified. 旱情加剧了。 来自《简明英汉词典》

403 friction   

n.摩擦，摩擦力

参考例句：

• When Joan returned to work,the friction between them increased.琼回来工作后，他们之间的摩擦加剧了。
• Friction acts on moving bodies and brings them to a stop.摩擦力作用于运动着的物体，并使其停止。

404 parental   

adj.父母的；父的；母的

参考例句：

• He encourages parental involvement in the running of school.他鼓励学生家长参与学校的管理。
• Children always revolt against parental disciplines.孩子们总是反抗父母的管束。

405 inept   

adj.不恰当的，荒谬的，拙劣的

参考例句：

• Whan an inept remark to make on such a formal occasion.在如此正式的场合，怎么说这样不恰当的话。
• He's quite inept at tennis.他打网球太笨。

406 agitated   

adj.被鼓动的，不安的

参考例句：

• His answers were all mixed up,so agitated was he.他是那样心神不定，回答全乱了。
• She was agitated because her train was an hour late.她乘坐的火车晚点一个小时，她十分焦虑。

407 swarmed   

密集( swarm的过去式和过去分词 )； 云集； 成群地移动； 蜜蜂或其他飞行昆虫成群地飞来飞去

参考例句：

• When the bell rang, the children swarmed out of the school. 铃声一响，孩子们蜂拥而出离开了学校。
• When the rain started the crowd swarmed back into the hotel. 雨一开始下，人群就蜂拥回了旅社。

408 giggled   

v.咯咯地笑( giggle的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• The girls giggled at the joke. 女孩子们让这笑话逗得咯咯笑。
• The children giggled hysterically. 孩子们歇斯底里地傻笑。 来自《简明英汉词典》

409 tugged   

v.用力拉，使劲拉，猛扯( tug的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• She tugged at his sleeve to get his attention. 她拽了拽他的袖子引起他的注意。
• A wry smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. 他的嘴角带一丝苦笑。 来自《简明英汉词典》

410 wig   

n.假发

参考例句：

• The actress wore a black wig over her blond hair.那个女演员戴一顶黑色假发罩住自己的金黄色头发。
• He disguised himself with a wig and false beard.他用假发和假胡须来乔装。

411 tattooed   

v.刺青，文身( tattoo的过去式和过去分词 )；连续有节奏地敲击；作连续有节奏的敲击

参考例句：

• He had tattooed his wife's name on his upper arm. 他把妻子的名字刺在上臂上。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The sailor had a heart tattooed on his arm. 那水兵在手臂上刺上一颗心。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》

412 imprint   

n.印痕，痕迹；深刻的印象；vt.压印，牢记

参考例句：

• That dictionary is published under the Longman imprint.那本词典以朗曼公司的名义出版。
• Her speech left its imprint on me.她的演讲给我留下了深刻印象。

413 slipper   

n.拖鞋

参考例句：

• I rescued the remains of my slipper from the dog.我从那狗的口中夺回了我拖鞋的残留部分。
• The puppy chewed a hole in the slipper.小狗在拖鞋上啃了一个洞。

414 slippers   

n. 拖鞋

参考例句：

• a pair of slippers 一双拖鞋
• He kicked his slippers off and dropped on to the bed. 他踢掉了拖鞋，倒在床上。

415 protruding   

v.（使某物）伸出，（使某物）突出( protrude的现在分词 )；凸

参考例句：

• He hung his coat on a nail protruding from the wall. 他把上衣挂在凸出墙面的一根钉子上。
• There is a protruding shelf over a fireplace. 壁炉上方有个突出的架子。 来自辞典例句

416 buckles   

搭扣，扣环( buckle的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• She gazed proudly at the shiny buckles on her shoes. 她骄傲地注视着鞋上闪亮的扣环。
• When the plate becomes unstable, it buckles laterally. 当板失去稳定时，就发生横向屈曲。

417 nude   

adj.裸体的；n.裸体者，裸体艺术品

参考例句：

• It's a painting of the Duchess of Alba in the nude.这是一幅阿尔巴公爵夫人的裸体肖像画。
• She doesn't like nude swimming.她不喜欢裸泳。

418 sapphire   

n.青玉，蓝宝石；adj.天蓝色的

参考例句：

• Now let us consider crystals such as diamond or sapphire.现在让我们考虑象钻石和蓝宝石这样的晶体。
• He left a sapphire ring to her.他留给她一枚蓝宝石戒指。

419 pried   

v.打听，刺探（他人的私事）( pry的过去式和过去分词 )；撬开

参考例句：

• We pried open the locked door with an iron bar. 我们用铁棍把锁着的门撬开。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• So Tom pried his mouth open and poured down the Pain-killer. 因此汤姆撬开它的嘴，把止痛药灌下去。 来自英汉文学 - 汤姆历险

420 jaws   

n.口部；嘴

参考例句：

• The antelope could not escape the crocodile's gaping jaws. 那只羚羊无法从鱷鱼张开的大口中逃脱。
• The scored jaws of a vise help it bite the work. 台钳上有刻痕的虎钳牙帮助它紧咬住工件。

421 eyelid   

n.眼睑，眼皮

参考例句：

• She lifted one eyelid to see what he was doing.她抬起一只眼皮看看他在做什么。
• My eyelid has been tumid since yesterday.从昨天起，我的眼皮就肿了。

422 intestines   

n.肠( intestine的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Perhaps the most serious problems occur in the stomach and intestines. 最严重的问题或许出现在胃和肠里。 来自辞典例句
• The traps of carnivorous plants function a little like the stomachs and small intestines of animals. 食肉植物的捕蝇器起着动物的胃和小肠的作用。 来自辞典例句

423 rococo   

n.洛可可；adj.过分修饰的

参考例句：

• She had a passion for Italian rococo.他热衷与意大利的洛可可艺术风格。
• Rococo art portrayed a world of artificiality,make-believe,and game-playing.洛可可艺术描绘出一个人工的、假装的和玩乐性的世界。

424 dispersed   

adj. 被驱散的, 被分散的, 散布的

参考例句：

• The clouds dispersed themselves. 云散了。
• After school the children dispersed to their homes. 放学后，孩子们四散回家了。

425 abdominal   

adj.腹（部）的，下腹的；n.腹肌

参考例句：

• The abdominal aorta is normally smaller than the thoracic aorta.腹主动脉一般比胸主动脉小。
• Abdominal tissues sometimes adhere after an operation.手术之后腹部有时会出现粘连。

426 prone   

adj.(to)易于…的，很可能…的；俯卧的

参考例句：

• Some people are prone to jump to hasty conclusions.有些人往往作出轻率的结论。
• He is prone to lose his temper when people disagree with him.人家一不同意他的意见,他就发脾气。

427 skull   

n.头骨；颅骨

参考例句：

• The skull bones fuse between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five.头骨在15至25岁之间长合。
• He fell out of the window and cracked his skull.他从窗子摔了出去，跌裂了颅骨。

428 socket   

n.窝，穴，孔，插座，插口

参考例句：

• He put the electric plug into the socket.他把电插头插入插座。
• The battery charger plugs into any mains socket.这个电池充电器可以插入任何类型的电源插座。

429 stumps   

（被砍下的树的）树桩( stump的名词复数 )； 残肢； （板球三柱门的）柱； 残余部分

参考例句：

• Rocks and stumps supplied the place of chairs at the picnic. 野餐时石头和树桩都充当了椅子。
• If you don't stir your stumps, Tom, you'll be late for school again. 汤姆，如果你不快走，上学又要迟到了。

430 wails   

痛哭，哭声( wail的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The child burst into loud wails. 那个孩子突然大哭起来。
• Through this glaciated silence the white wails of the apartment fixed arbitrary planes. 在这冰封似的沉寂中，公寓的白色墙壁构成了一个个任意的平面。 来自英汉非文学 - 科幻

431 countless   

adj.无数的，多得不计其数的

参考例句：

• In the war countless innocent people lost their lives.在这场战争中无数无辜的人丧失了性命。
• I've told you countless times.我已经告诉你无数遍了。

432 chalice   

n.圣餐杯；金杯毒酒

参考例句：

• He inherited a poisoned chalice when he took over the job as union leader.他接手工会领导职务，看似风光，实则会给他带来很多麻烦。
• She was essentially feminine,in other words,a parasite and a chalice.她在本质上是个女人，换句话说，是一个食客和一只酒杯。

433 recoiled   

v.畏缩( recoil的过去式和过去分词 )；退缩；报应；返回

参考例句：

• She recoiled from his touch. 她躲开他的触摸。
• Howard recoiled a little at the sharpness in my voice. 听到我的尖声，霍华德往后缩了一下。 来自《简明英汉词典》

434 devoted   

adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的

参考例句：

• He devoted his life to the educational cause of the motherland.他为祖国的教育事业贡献了一生。
• We devoted a lengthy and full discussion to this topic.我们对这个题目进行了长时间的充分讨论。

435 nourishment   

n.食物，营养品；营养情况

参考例句：

• Lack of proper nourishment reduces their power to resist disease.营养不良降低了他们抵抗疾病的能力。
• He ventured that plants draw part of their nourishment from the air.他大胆提出植物从空气中吸收部分养分的观点。

436 sketches   

n.草图( sketch的名词复数 )；素描；速写；梗概

参考例句：

• The artist is making sketches for his next painting. 画家正为他的下一幅作品画素描。
• You have to admit that these sketches are true to life. 你得承认这些素描很逼真。 来自《简明英汉词典》

437 omission   

n.省略，删节；遗漏或省略的事物，冗长

参考例句：

• The omission of the girls was unfair.把女孩排除在外是不公平的。
• The omission of this chapter from the third edition was a gross oversight.第三版漏印这一章是个大疏忽。

438 scribbled   

v.潦草的书写( scribble的过去式和过去分词 )；乱画；草草地写；匆匆记下

参考例句：

• She scribbled his phone number on a scrap of paper. 她把他的电话号码匆匆写在一张小纸片上。
• He scribbled a note to his sister before leaving. 临行前，他给妹妹草草写了一封短信。

439 linoleum   

n.油布，油毯

参考例句：

• They mislaid the linoleum.他们把油毡放错了地方。
• Who will lay the linoleum?谁将铺设地板油毡？

440 exterior   

adj.外部的，外在的；表面的

参考例句：

• The seed has a hard exterior covering.这种子外壳很硬。
• We are painting the exterior wall of the house.我们正在给房子的外墙涂漆。