That was the end of the optimism epidemic1. In the morning a sweeper-woman entered the offices of the Free Islam Convocation and found the Hummingbird2, silenced, on the floor, surrounded by paw-prints and the shreds3 of his murderers. She screamed; but later, when the authorities had been and gone, she was told to clean up the room. After clearing away innumerable dog-hairs, swatting countless4 fleas5 and extracting from the carpet the remnants of a shattered glass eye, she protested to the University's comptroller of works that, if this sort of thing was going to keep happening, she deserved a small pay rise. She was possibly the last victim of the optimism bug6, and in her case the illness didn't last long, because the comptroller was a hard man, and gave her the boot.
The assassins were never identified, nor were their paymasters named. My grandfather was called to the campus by Major Zulfikar, Brigadier Dodson's A.D.C., to write his friend's death certificate. Major Zulfikar promised to call on Doctor Aziz to tie up a few loose ends; my grandfather blew his nose and left. At the maidan, tents were coming down like punctured7 hopes; the Convocation would never be held again. The Rani of Cooch Naheen took to her bed.
After a lifetime of making light of her illnesses she allowed them to claim her, and lay still for years, watching herself turn the colour of her bedsheets.
Meanwhile, in the old house on Cornwallis Road, the days were full of potential mothers and possible fathers. You see, Padma: you're going to find out now.
Using my nose (because, although it has lost the powers which enabled it, so recently, to make history, it has acquired other, compensatory gifts) - turning it inwards, I've been sniffing9 out the atmosphere in my grandfather's house in those days after the death of India's humming hope; and wafting10 down to me through the years comes a curious melange11 of odours, filled with unease, the whiff of things concealed12 mingling13 with the odours of burgeoning14 romance and the sharp stink15 of my grandmother's curiosity and strength ... while the Muslim League rejoiced, secretly of course, at the fall of its opponent, my grandfather could be found (my nose finds him) seated every morning on what he called his 'thunderbox', tears standing16 in his eyes. But these are not tears of grief; Aadam Aziz has simply paid the price of being Indianized, and suffers terribly from constipation. Balefully, he eyes the enema contraption hanging on the toilet wall.
Why have I invaded my grandfather's privacy? Why, when I might have described how, after Mian Abdullah's death, Aadam buried himself in his work, taking upon himself the care of the sick in the shanty-towns by the railway tracks - rescuing them from quacks18 who injected them with pepperwater and thought that fried spiders could cure blindness - while continuing to fulfil his dudes as university physician; when I might have elaborated on the great love that had begun to grow between my grandfather and his second daughter, Mumtaz, whose dark skin stood between her and the affections of her mother, but whose gifts of gentleness, care and fragility endeared her to her father with his inner torments19 which cried out for her form of unquestioning tenderness; why, when I might have chosen to describe the by-now-constant itch20 in his nose, do I choose to wallow in excrement21? Because this is where Aadam Aziz was, on the afternoon after his signing of a death certificate, when all of a sudden a voice -soft, cowardly, embarrassed, the voice of a rhymeless poet - spoke22 to him from the depths of the large old laundry-chest standing in the corner of the room, giving him a shock so profound that it proved laxative, and the enema contraption did not have to be unhooked from its perch23. Rashid the rickshaw boy had let Nadir24 Khan into the thunderbox-room by way of the sweeper's entrance, and he had taken refuge in the washing-chest. While my grandfather's astonished sphincter relaxed, his ears heard a request for sanctuary25, a request muffled26 by linen27, dirty underwear, old shirts and the embarrassment28 of the speaker. And so it was that Aadam Aziz resolved to hide Nadir Khan.
Now comes the scent29 of a quarrel, because Reverend Mother Naseem is thinking about her daughters, twenty-one-year-old Alia, black Mumtaz, who is nineteen, and pretty, nighty Emerald, who isn't fifteen yet but has a look in her eyes that's older than anything her sisters possess. In the town, among spittoon-hitters and rickshaw-wallahs, among film-poster-trolley pushers and college students alike, the three sisters are known as the Teen Batti', the three bright lights ...and how can Reverend Mother permit a strange man to dwell in the same house as Alia's gravity, Mumtaz's black, luminous30 skin and Emerald's eyes?... 'You are out of your mind, husband; that death has hurt your brain.'
But Aziz, determinedly31: 'He is staying.' In the cellars ... because concealment32 has always been a crucial architectural consideration in India, so that Aziz's house has extensive underground chambers34, which can be reached only through trap-doors in the floors, which are covered by carpets and mats... Nadir Khan hears the dull rumble35 of the quarrel and fears for his fate. My God (I sniff8 the thoughts of the clammy-palmed poet), the world is gone insane... are we men in this country? Are we beasts? And if I must go, when will the knives come for me?... And through his mind pass images of peacock-feather fans and the new moon seen through glass and transformed into a stabbing, red-stained blade...
Upstairs, Reverend Mother says, 'The house is full of young unmarried girls, whatsitsname; is this how you show your daughters respect?' And now the aroma36 of a temper lost; the great destroying rage of Aadam Aziz is unleashed37, and instead of pointing out that Nadir Khan will be under ground, swept under the carpet where he will scarcely be able to defile38 daughters; instead of paying due testimony39 to the verbless bard's sense of propriety40, which is so advanced that he could not even dream of making improper41 advances without blushing in his sleep; instead of these avenues of reason, my grandfather bellows42, 'Be silent, woman! The man needs our shelter; he will stay.' Whereupon an implacable perfume, a hard cloud of determination settles upon my grandmother, who says, 'Very well. You ask me, whatsitsname, for silence. So not one word, whatsitsname, will pass my lips from now on.' And Aziz, groaning43, 'Oh, damnation, woman, spare us your crazy oaths!'
But Reverend Mother's lips were sealed, and silence descended44. The smell of silence, like a rotting goose-egg, fills my nostrils45; overpowering everything else, it possesses the earth ... While Nadir Khan hid in his half-lit underworld, his hostess hid, too, behind a deafening46 wall of soundlessness. At first my grandfather probed the wall, looking for chinks; he found none. At last he gave up, and waited for her sentences to offer up their glimpses of her self, just as once he had lusted47 after the brief fragments of her body he had seen through a perforated sheet; and the silence filled the house, from wall to wall, from floor to ceiling, so that the flies seemed to give up buzzing, and mosquitoes refrained from humming before they bit; silence stilling the hissing48 of geese in the courtyard. The children spoke in whispers at first, and then fell quiet: while in the cornfield, Rashid the rickshaw boy yelled his silent 'yell of hate', and kept his own vow49 of silence, which he had sworn upon his mother's hairs.
Into this bog50 of muteness there came, one evening, a short man whose head was as flat as the cap upon it; whose legs were as bowed as reeds in the wind; whose nose nearly touched his up-curving chin; and whose voice, as a result, was thin and sharp - it had to be, to squeeze through the narrow gap between his breathing apparatus51 and his jaw52 ... a man whose short sight obliged him to take life one step at a time, which gained him a reputation for thoroughness and dullness, and endeared him to his superiors by enabling them to feel well-served without feeling threatened; a man whose starched53, pressed uniform reeked54 of Blanco and rectitude, and about whom, despite his appearance of a character out of a puppet-show, there hung the unmistakable scent of success: Major Zulfikar, a man with a future, came to call, as he had promised, to tie up a few loose ends. Abdullah's murder, and Nadir Khan's suspicious disappearance55, were much on his mind, and since he knew about Aadam Aziz's infection by the optimism bug, he mistook the silence in the house for a hush56 of mourning, and did not stay for long. (In the cellar, Nadir huddled57 with cockroaches58.) Sitting quietly in the drawing-room with the five children, his hat and stick beside him on the Telefunken radiogram, the life-size images of the young Azizes staring at him from the walls, Major Zulfikar fell in love. He was short-sighted, but he wasn't blind, and in the impossibly adult gaze of young Emerald, the brightest of the 'three bright lights', he saw that she had understood his future, and forgiven him, because of it, for his appearance; and before he left, he had decided59 to marry her after a decent interval60. ('Her?' Padma guesses. 'That hussy is your mother?' But there are other mothers-to-be, other future fathers, wafting in and out through the silence.)
In that marshy61 time without words the emotional life of grave Alia, the eldest62, was also developing; and Reverend Mother, locked up in the pantry and kitchen, sealed behind her lips, was incapable63 -because of her vow - of expressing her distrust of the young merchant in reccine and leathercloth who came to visit her daughter. (Aadam Aziz had always insisted that his daughters be permitted to have male friends.) Ahmed Sinai - 'Ahaa!' yells Padma in triumphant64 recognition - had met Alia at the University, and seemed intelligent enough for the bookish, brainy girl on whose face my grandfather's nose had acquired an air of overweight wisdom; but Naseem Aziz felt uneasy about him, because he had been divorced at twenty. ('Anyone can make one mistake,' Aadam had told her, and that nearly began a fight, because she thought for a moment that there had been something overly personal in his tone of voice. But then Aadam had added, 'Just let this divorce of his fade away for a year or two; then we'll give this house its first wedding, with a big marquee in the garden, and singers and sweetmeats and all.' Which, despite everything, was an idea that appealed to Naseem.) Now, wandering through the walled-jn gardens of silence, Ahmed Sinai and Alia communed without speech; but although everyone expected him to propose, the silence seemed to have got through to him, too, and the question remained unasked. Alia's face acquired a weigh tiness at this time, a jowly pessimistic quality which she was never entirely65 to lose. ('Now then,' Padma reproves me, 'that's no way to describe your respected motherji.')
One more thing: Alia had inherited her mother's tendency to put on fat. She would balloon outwards66 with the passing years.
And Mumtaz, who had come out of her mother's womb black as midnight? Mumtaz was never brilliant; not as beautiful as Emerald; but she was good, and dutiful, and alone. She spent more time with her father than any of her sisters, fortifying67 him against the bad temper which was being exaggerated nowadays by the constant itch in his nose; and she took upon herself the duties of caring for the needs of Nadir Khan, descending68 daily into his underworld bearing trays of food, and brooms, and even emptying his personal thunderbox, so that not even a latrine cleaner could guess at his presence. When she descended, he lowered his eyes; and no words, in that dumb house, were exchanged between them.
What was it the spittoon hitters said about Naseem Aziz? 'She eavesdropped69 on her daughters' dreams, just to know what they were up to.' Yes, there's no other explanation, stranger things have been known to happen in this country of ours, just pick up any newspaper and see the daily titbits recounting miracles in this village or that -Reverend Mother began to dream her daughters' dreams. (Padma accepts this without blinking; but what others will swallow as effortlessly as a laddoo, Padma may just as easily reject. No audience is without its idiosyncrasies of belief.) So, then: asleep in her bed at night, Reverend Mother visited Emerald's dreams, and found another dream within them - Major Zulfikar's private fantasy, of owning a large modern house with a bath beside his bed. This was the zenith of the Major's ambitions; and in this way Reverend Mother discovered, not only that her daughter had been meeting her Zulfy in secret, in places where speech was possible, but also that Emerald's ambitions were greater than her man's. And (why not?) in Aadam Aziz's dreams she saw her husband walking mournfully up a mountain in Kashmir with a hole in his stomach the size of a fist, and guessed that he was falling out of love with her, and also foresaw his death; so that years later, when she heard, she said only. 'Oh, I knew it, after all.'
... It could not be long now, Reverend Mother thought, before our Emerald tells her Major about the guest in the cellar; and then I shall be able to speak again. But then, one night, she entered the dreams of her daughter Mumtaz, the blackie whom she had never been able to love because of her skin of a South Indian fisherwoman, and realized the trouble would not stop there; because Mumtaz Aziz - like her admirer under the carpets - was also falling in love.
There was no proof. The invasion of dreams - or a mother's knowledge, or a woman's intuition, call it what you like - is not something that will stand up in court, and Reverend Mother knew that it was a serious business to accuse a daughter of getting up to hanky-panky under her father's roof. In addition to which, something steely had entered Reverend Mother; and she resolved to do nothing, to keep her silence intact, and let Aadam Aziz discover just how badly his modern ideas were ruining his children - let Mm find out for himself, after Ms lifetime of telling her to be quiet with her decent old-fashioned notions. 'A bitter woman,' Padma says; and I agree.
'Well?' Padma demands. 'Was it true?'
Yes: after a fashion: true.
'There was hankying and pankying? In the cellars? Without even chaperones?'
Consider the circumstances - extenuating70, if ever circumstances were. Things seem permissible71 underground that would seem absurd or even wrong in the clear light of day. 'That fat poet did it to the poor blackie? He did?' He was down there a long time, too - long enough to start talking to flying cockroaches and fearing that one day someone would ask Mm to leave and dreaming of crescent knives and howling dogs and wishing and wishing that the Hummingbird were alive to tell Mm what to do and to discover that you could not write poetry underground; and then this girl comes with food and she doesn't mind cleaning away your pots and you lower your eyes but you see an ankle that seems to glow with graciousness, a black ankle like the black of the underground nights ...
'I'd never have thought he was up to it.' Padma sounds admiring. 'The fat old good-for-notMng!'
And eventually in that house where everyone, even the fugitive72 Mding in the cellar from Ms faceless enemies, finds his tongue cleaving73 dryly to the roof of his mouth, where even the sons of the house have to go into the cornfield with the rickshaw boy to joke about whores and compare the length of their members and whisper furtively74 about dreams of being film directors (HaniFs dream, which horrifies75 his dream-invading mother, who believes the cinema to be an extension of the brothel business), where life has been transmuted76 into grotesquery by the irruption into it of history, eventually in the murkiness77 of the underworld he cannot help himself, he finds his eyes straying upwards78, up along delicate sandals and baggy79 pajamas80 and past loose kurta and above the dupatta, the cloth of modesty81, until eyes meet eyes, and then 'And then? Come on, baba, what then?'
shyly, she smiles at him.
'What?'
And after that, there are smiles in the underworld, and something has begun.
'Oh, so what? You're telling me that's all?'
That's all: until the day Nadir Khan asked to see my grandfather -his sentences barely audible in the fog of silence - and asked for Ms daughter's hand in marriage.
'Poor girl,' Padma concludes, 'Kashmiri girls are normally fair like mountain snow, but she turned out black. Well, well, her skin would have stopped her making a good match, probably; and that Nadir's no fool. Now they'll have to let Mm stay, and get fed, and get a roof over Ms head, and all he has to do is hide like a fat earthworm under the ground. Yes, maybe he's not such a fool.'
My grandfather tried hard to persuade Nadir Khan that he was no longer in danger; the assassins were dead, and Mian Abdullah had been their real target; but Nadir Khan still dreamed about the singing knives, and begged, 'Not yet, Doctor Sahib; please, some more time.' So that one night in -the late summer of 1943 - the rains had failed again - my grandfather, Ms voice sounding distant and eerie82 in that house in which so few words were spoken, assembled Ms children in the drawing-room where their portraits hung. When they entered they discovered that their mother was absent, having chosen to remain immured83 in her room with her web of silence; but present were a lawyer and (despite Aziz's reluctance84, he had complied with Mumtaz's wishes) a mullah, both provided by the ailing85 Rani of Cooch Naheen, both 'utterly86 discreet87'. And their sister Mumtaz was there in bridal finery, and beside her in a chair set in front of the radiogram was the lank-haired, overweight, embarrassed figure of Nadir Khan. So it was that the first wedding in the house was one at which there were no tents, no singers, no sweetmeats and only a minimum of guests; and after the rites88 were over and Nadir Khan lifted his bride's veil - giving Aziz a sudden shock, making Mm young for a moment, and in Kashmir again, sitting on a dais while people put rupees in his lap - my grandfather made them all swear an oath not to reveal the presence in their cellar of their new brother-in-law. Emerald, reluctantly, gave her promise last of all.
After that Aadam Aziz made his sons help him carry all manner of furnishings down through the trap-door in the drawing-room floor: draperies and cushions and lamps and a big comfortable bed. And at last Nadir and Mumtaz stepped down into the vaults89; the trap-door was shut and the carpet rolled into place and Nadir Khan, who loved his wife as delicately as a man ever had, had taken her into his underworld.
Mumtaz Aziz began to lead a double life. By day she was a single girl, living chastely90 with her parents, studying mediocrely91 at the university, cultivating those gifts of assiduity, nobility and forbearance which were to be her hallmarks throughout her life, up to and including the time when she was assailed92 by the talking washing-chests of her past and then squashed flat as a rice pancake; but at night, descending through a trap-door, she entered a lamplit, secluded93 marriage chamber33 which her secret husband had taken to calling the Taj Mahal, because Taj Bibi was the name by which people had called an earlier Mumtaz - Mumtaz Mahal, wife of Emperor Shah Jehan, whose name meant 'king of the world'. When she died he built her that mausoleum which has been immortalized on postcards and chocolate boxes and whose outdoor corridors stink of urine and whose walls are covered in graffiti and whose echoes are tested for visitors by guides although there are signs in three languages pleading for silence. Like Shah Jehan and his Mumtaz, Nadir and his dark lady lay side by side, and lapis lazuli inlay work was their companion because the bedridden, dying Rani of Cooch Naheen had sent them, as a wedding gift, a wondrously-carved, lapis-inlaid, gemstone-crusted silver spittoon. In their comfortable lamplit seclusion94, husband and wife played the old men's game.
Mumtaz made the paans for Nadir but did not like the taste herself. She spat95 streams of nibu-pani. His jets were red and hers were lime. It was the happiest time of her life. And she said afterwards, at the ending of the long silence, 'We would have had children in the end; only then it wasn't right, that's all.'
Mumtaz Aziz loved children all her life.
Meanwhile, Reverend Mother moved sluggishly96 through the months in the grip of a silence which had become so absolute that even the servants received their instructions in sign language, and once the cook Daoud had been staring at her, trying to understand her somnolently97 frantic98 signalling, and as a result had not been looking in the direction of the boiling pot of gravy99 which fell upon his foot and fried it like a five-toed egg; he opened-his mouth to scream but no sound emerged, and after that he became convinced that the old hag had the power of witchery, and became too scared to leave her service. He stayed until his death, hobbling around the courtyard and being attacked by the geese.
They were not easy years. The drought led to rationing100, and what with the proliferation of meatless days and riceless days it was hard to feed an extra, hidden mouth. Reverend Mother was forced to dig deep into her pantry, which thickened her rage like heat under a sauce. Hairs began to grow out of the moles101 on her face. Mumtaz noticed with concern that her mother was swelling102, month by month. The unspoken words inside her were blowing her up ... Mumtaz had the impression that her mother's skin was becoming dangerously stretched.
And Doctor Aziz spent his days out of the house, away from the deadening silence, so Mumtaz, who spent her nights underground, saw very little in those days of the father whom she loved; and Emerald kept her promise, telling the Major nothing about the family secret; but conversely, she told her family nothing about her relationship with him, which was fair, she thought; and in the cornfield Mustapha and Hanif and Rashid the rickshaw boy became infected with the listlessness of the times; and finally the house on Cornwallis Road drifted as far as August 9th, 1945, and things changed.
Family history, of course, has its proper dietary laws. One is supposed to swallow and digest only the permitted parts of it, the halal portions of the past, drained of their redness, their blood. Unfortunately, this makes the stories less juicy; so I am about to become the first and only member of my family to flout103 the laws of halal. Letting no blood escape from the body of the tale, I arrive at the unspeakable part; and, undaunted, press on.
What happened in August 1945? The Rani of Cooch Naheen died, but that's not what I'm after, although when she went she had become so sheetly-white that it was difficult to see her against the bed-clothes; having fulfilled her function by bequeathing my story a silver spittoon, she had the grace to exit quickly...
also in 1945, the monsoons104 did not fail. In the Burmese jungle, Orde Wingate and his Chindits, as well as the army of Subhas Chandra Bose, which was fighting on the Japanese side, were drenched106 by the returning rains. Satyagraha demonstrators in Jullundur, lying non-violently across railway lines, were soaked to the skin. The cracks in the long-parched earth began to close; there were towels wedged against the doors and windows of the house on Cornwallis Road, and they had to be wrung107 out and replaced constandy. Mosquitoes sprouted108 in the pools of water standing by every roadside. And the cellar - Mumtaz's Taj Mahal grew damp, until at last she fell ill. For some days she told nobody, but when her eyes became red-rimmed and she began to shake with fever, Nadir, fearing pneumonia109, begged her to go to her father for treatment. She spent the next many weeks back in her maiden's bed, and Aadam Aziz sat by his daughter's bedside, putting cooling flannels110 on her forehead while she shook. On August 6th the illness broke. On the morning of the 9th Mumtaz was well enough to take a little solid food.
And now my grandfather fetched an old leather bag with the word HEIDELBERG burned into the leather at the base, because he had decided that, as she was very run-down, he had better give her a thorough physical check-up. As he unclasped the bag, his daughter began to cry.
(And now we're here. Padma: this is it.)
Ten minutes later the long time of silence was ended for ever as my grandfather emerged roaring from the sick-room. He bellowed111 for his wife, his daughters, his sons. His lungs were strong and the noise reached Nadir Khan in the cellar. It would not have been difficult for him to guess what the fuss was about.
The family assembled in the drawing-room around the radiogram, beneath the ageless photographs. Aziz carried Mumtaz into the room and set her down on a couch. His face looked terrible. Can you imagine how the insides of his nose must have felt? Because he had this bombshell to drop: that, after two years of marriage, his daughter was still a virgin112.
It had been three years since Reverend Mother had spoken. 'Daughter, is this thing true?' The silence, which had been hanging in the corners of the house like a torn cobweb, was finally blown away; but Mumtaz just nodded: Yes. True.
Then she spoke. She said she loved her husband and the other thing would come right in the end. He was a good man and when it was possible to have children he would surely find it possible to do the thing. She said a marriage should not depend on the thing, she had thought, so she had not liked to mention it, and her father was not right to tell everyone out loud like he had. She would have said more; but now Reverend Mother burst.
Three years of words poured out of her (but her body, stretched by the exigencies113 of storing them, did not diminish). My grandfather stood very still by the Telefunken as the storm broke over him. Whose idea had it been? Whose crazy fool scheme, whatsitsname, to let this coward who wasn't even a man into the house? To stay here, whatsitsname, free as a bird, food and shelter for three years, what did you care about meatless days, whatsitsname, what did you know about the cost of rice? Who was the weakling, whatsitsname, yes, the white-haired weakling who had permitted this iniquitous114 marriage? Who had put his daughter into that scoundrel's, whatsitsname, bed? Whose head was full of every damn fool incomprehensible thing, whatsitsname, whose brain was so softened115 by fancy foreign ideas that he could send his child into such an unnatural116 marriage? Who had spent his life offending God, whatsitsname, and on whose head was this a judgment117? Who had brought disaster down upon his house ...
she spoke against my grandfather for an hour and nineteen minutes and by the time she had finished the clouds had run out of water and the house was full of puddles118. And, before she ended, her youngest daughter Emerald did a very curious thing.
Emerald's hands rose up beside her face, bunched into fists, but with index fingers extended. Index fingers entered ear-holes and seemed to life Emerald out of her chair until she was running, fingers plugging ears, running - FULL-TILT! - without her dupatta on, out into the street, through the puddles of water, past the rickshaw-stand, past the paan-shop where the old men were just emerging cautiously into the clean fresh air of after-the-rain, and her speed amazed the urchins119 who were on their marks, waiting to begin their game of dodging120 in and out between the betel-jets, because nobody was used to seeing a young lady, much less one of the Teen Batti, running alone and distraught through the rain-soaked streets with her fingers in her ears and no dupatta around her shoulders.
Nowadays, the cities are full of modern, fashionable, dupatta-less misses; but back then the old men clicked their tongues in sorrow, because a woman without a dupatta was a woman without honour, and why had Emerald Bibi chosen to leave her honour at home? The old ones were baffled, but Emerald knew. She saw, clearly, freshly in the after-rain air, that the fountain-head of her family's troubles was that cowardly plumpie (yes, Padma) who lived underground. If she could get rid of him everyone would be happy again ... Emerald ran without pausing to the Cantonment district. The Cantt, where the army was based; where Major Zulfikar would be! Breaking her oath, my aunt arrived at his office.
Zulfikar is a famous name amongst Muslims. It was the name of the two-pronged sword carried by Ali, the nephew of the prophet Muhammad. It was a weapon such as the world had never seen.
Oh, yes: something else was happening in the world that day. A weapon such as the world had never seen was being dropped on yellow people in Japan. But in Agra, Emerald was using a secret weapon of her own. It was bandylegged, short, flat-headed; its nose almost touched its chin; it dreamed of a big modern house with a plumbed-in bath right beside the bed.
Major Zulfikar had never been absolutely sure whether or not he believed Nadir Khan to have been behind the Hummingbird's murder; but he itched121 for the chance to find out. When Emerald told him about Agra's subterranean122 Taj, he became so excited that he forgot to be angry, and rushed to Cornwallis Road with a force of fifteen men. They arrived in the drawing-room with Emerald at their head. My aunt: treason with a beautiful face, no dupatta and pink loose-pajamas. Aziz watched dumbly as the soldiers rolled back the drawing-room carpet and opened the big trap-door as my grandmother attempted to console Mumtaz. 'Women must marry men,' she said. 'Not mice, whatsitsname! There is no shame in leaving that, whatsitsname, worm.' But her daughter continued to cry.
Absence of Nadir in his underworld! Warned by Aziz's first roar, overcome by the embarrassment which flooded over him more easily than monsoon105 rain, he vanished.
A trap-door flung open in one of the toilets - yes, the very one, why not, in which he had spoken to Doctor Aziz from the sanctuary of a washing-chest. A wooden 'thunderbox' -a 'throne' - lay on one side, empty enamel123 pot rolling on coir matting. The toilet had an outside door giving out on to the gully by the cornfield; the door was open. It had been locked from the outside, but only with an Indian-made lock, so it had been easy to force ... and in the soft lamplit seclusion of the Taj Mahal, a shining spittoon, and a note, addressed to Mumtaz, signed by her husband, three words long, six syllables124, three exclamation125 marks: Talaaq! Talaaq! Talaaq! The English lacks the thunderclap sound of the Urdu, and anyway you know what it means. I divorce thee. I divorce thee. I divorce thee. Nadir Khan had done the decent thing.
?awesome126 rage of Major Zulfy when he found the bird had flown! This was the colour he saw: red. ?anger fully17 comparable to my grandfather's fury, though expressed in petty gestures! Major Zulfy, at first, hopped127 up and down in helpless fits of temper; controlled himself at last; and- rushed out through bathroom, past throne, alongside cornfield, through perimeter128 gate. No sign of a running, plump, longhair, rhymeless poet. Looking left: nothing. And right: zero. Enraged129 Zulfy made his choice, pelted130 past the cycle-rickshaw rank. Old men were playing hit-the-spittoon and the spittoon was out in the street.
Urchins, dodging in and out of the streams of betel-juice. Major Zulfy ran, ononon. Between the old men and their target, but he lacked the urchins' skill.
What an unfortunate moment: a low hard jet of red fluid caught him squarely in the crotch. A stain like a hand clutched at the groin of his battledress; squeezed; arrested his progress. Major Zulfy stopped in almighty131 wrath132. ?even more unfortunate; because a second player, assuming the mad soldier would keep on running' had unleashed a second jet. A second red hand clasped the first and completed Major Zulfy's day... slowly, with deliberation, he went to the spittoon and kicked it over, into the dust. He jumped on it -once! twice! again! - flattening133 it, and refusing to show that it had hurt his foot. Then, with some dignity, he limped away, back to the car parked outside my grandfather's house.
The old ones retrieved134 their brutalized receptacle and began to knock it back into shape.
'Now that I'm getting married,' Emerald told Mumtaz, 'it'll be very rude of you if you don't even try to have a good time. And you should be giving me advice and everything.' At the time, although Mumtaz smiled at her younger sister, she had thought it a great cheek on Emerald's part to say this; and, unintentionally perhaps, had increased the pressure of the pencil with which she was applying henna tracery to the soles of her sister's feet. 'Hey!' Emerald squealed135, 'No need to get mad! I just thought we should try to be friends.'
Relations between the sisters had been somewhat strained since Nadir Khan's disappearance; and Mumtaz hadn't liked it when Major Zulfikar (who had chosen not to charge my grandfather with harbouring a wanted man, and squared it with Brigadier Dodson) asked for, and received, permission to marry Emerald. 'It's like blackmail,' she thought. 'And anyway, what about Alia? The eldest shouldn't be married last, and look how patient she's been with her merchant fellow.' But she said nothing, and smiled her forebearing smile, and devoted136 her gift of assiduity to the wedding preparations, and agreed to try and have a good time; while Alia went on waiting for Ahmed Sinai. ('She'll wait forever,' Padma guesses: correctly.)
January 1946. Marquees, sweetmeats, guests, songs, fainting bride, stiff-at-attention groom137: a beautiful wedding... at which the leather-cloth merchant, Ahmed Sinai, found himself deep in conversation with the newly-divorced Mumtaz. 'You love-children? - what a coincidence, so do I..." 'And you didn't have any, poor girl? Well, matter of fact, my wife couldn't ...'
'Oh, no; how sad for you; and she must have been bad-tempered138 like anything!''... Oh, like hell... excuse me. Strength of emotions carried me away.''- Quite all right; don't think about it. Did she throw dishes and all?'
'Did she throw? In one month we had to eat out of newspaper!' 'No, my goodness, what whoppers you tell!' 'Oh, it's no good, you're too clever for me. But she did throw dishes all the same.' 'You poor, poor man.' 'No - you. Poor, poor you.' And thinking: 'Such a charming chap, with Alia he always looked so bored ...' And,'... This girl, I never looked at her, but my goodness me...' And,'...
You can tell he loves children; and for that I could...' And,'... Well, never mind about the skin...' It was noticeable that, when it was time to sing, Mumtaz found the spirit to join in all the songs; but Alia remained silent. She had been bruised139 even more badly than her father in Jallianwala Bagh; and you couldn't see a mark on her.
'So, gloomy sis, you managed to enjoy yourself after all.'
In June that year, Mumtaz re-married. Her sister - taking her cue from their mother- would not speak to her until, just before they both died, she saw her chance of revenge. Aadam Aziz and Reverend Mother tried, unsuccessfully, to persuade Alia that these things happen, it was better to find out now than later, and Mumtaz had been badly hurt and needed a man to help her recover...
besides, Alia had brains, she would be all right. 'But, but,' Alia said, 'nobody ever married a book.' 'Change your name,' Ahmed Sinai said. 'Time for a fresh start. Throw Mumtaz and her Nadir Khan out of the window, I'll choose you a new name. Amina. Amina Sinai: you'd like that?' 'Whatever you say, husband,' my mother said. 'Anyway,' Alia, the wise child, wrote in her diary, 'who wants to get landed with this marrying business? Not me; never; no.'
Mian Abdullah was a false start for a lot of optimistic people; his assistant (whose name could not be spoken in my father's house) was my mother's wrong turning. But those were the years of the drought; many crops planted at that time ended up by coming to nothing.
'What happened to the plumpie?' Padma asks, crossly, 'You don't mean you aren't going to tell?'
收听单词发音 |
1
epidemic
|
|
| n.流行病；盛行；adj.流行性的，流传极广的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
2
hummingbird
|
|
| n.蜂鸟 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
3
shreds
|
|
| v.撕碎，切碎( shred的第三人称单数 )；用撕毁机撕毁（文件） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
4
countless
|
|
| adj.无数的，多得不计其数的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
5
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： |
|
|
|
|
6
bug
|
|
| n.虫子；故障；窃听器；vt.纠缠；装窃听器 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
7
punctured
|
|
| v.在（某物）上穿孔( puncture的过去式和过去分词 )；刺穿（某物）；削弱（某人的傲气、信心等）；泄某人的气 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
8
sniff
|
|
| vi.嗅…味道；抽鼻涕；对嗤之以鼻，蔑视 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
9
sniffing
|
|
| n.探查法v.以鼻吸气，嗅，闻( sniff的现在分词 )；抽鼻子（尤指哭泣、患感冒等时出声地用鼻子吸气）；抱怨，不以为然地说 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
10
wafting
|
|
| v.吹送，飘送，（使）浮动( waft的现在分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
11
melange
|
|
| n.混合物；大杂烩 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
12
concealed
|
|
| a.隐藏的，隐蔽的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
13
mingling
|
|
| adj.混合的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
14
burgeoning
|
|
| adj.迅速成长的，迅速发展的v.发芽，抽枝( burgeon的现在分词 )；迅速发展；发（芽），抽（枝） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
15
stink
|
|
| vi.发出恶臭；糟透，招人厌恶；n.恶臭 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
16
standing
|
|
| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
17
fully
|
|
| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
18
quacks
|
|
| abbr.quacksalvers 庸医，骗子(16世纪习惯用水银或汞治疗梅毒的人)n.江湖医生( quack的名词复数 )；江湖郎中；（鸭子的）呱呱声v.（鸭子）发出嘎嘎声( quack的第三人称单数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
19
torments
|
|
| （肉体或精神上的）折磨，痛苦( torment的名词复数 )； 造成痛苦的事物[人] | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
20
itch
|
|
| n.痒，渴望，疥癣；vi.发痒，渴望 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
21
excrement
|
|
| n.排泄物，粪便 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
22
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： |
|
|
|
|
23
perch
|
|
| n.栖木，高位，杆；v.栖息，就位，位于 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
24
nadir
|
|
| n.最低点，无底 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
25
sanctuary
|
|
| n.圣所，圣堂，寺庙；禁猎区，保护区 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
26
muffled
|
|
| adj.（声音）被隔的；听不太清的；（衣服）裹严的；蒙住的v.压抑，捂住( muffle的过去式和过去分词 )；用厚厚的衣帽包着（自己） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
27
linen
|
|
| n.亚麻布，亚麻线，亚麻制品；adj.亚麻布制的，亚麻的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
28
embarrassment
|
|
| n.尴尬；使人为难的人(事物)；障碍；窘迫 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
29
scent
|
|
| n.气味，香味，香水，线索，嗅觉；v.嗅，发觉 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
30
luminous
|
|
| adj.发光的，发亮的；光明的；明白易懂的；有启发的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
31
determinedly
|
|
| adv.决意地；坚决地，坚定地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
32
concealment
|
|
| n.隐藏, 掩盖，隐瞒 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
33
chamber
|
|
| n.房间，寝室；会议厅；议院；会所 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
34
chambers
|
|
| n.房间( chamber的名词复数 )；（议会的）议院；卧室；会议厅 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
35
rumble
|
|
| n.隆隆声；吵嚷；v.隆隆响；低沉地说 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
36
aroma
|
|
| n.香气，芬芳，芳香 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
37
unleashed
|
|
| v.把（感情、力量等）释放出来，发泄( unleash的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
38
defile
|
|
| v.弄污，弄脏；n.(山间)小道 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
39
testimony
|
|
| n.证词；见证，证明 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
40
propriety
|
|
| n.正当行为；正当；适当 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
41
improper
|
|
| adj.不适当的，不合适的，不正确的，不合礼仪的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
42
bellows
|
|
| n.风箱；发出吼叫声，咆哮（尤指因痛苦）( bellow的名词复数 )；（愤怒地）说出（某事），大叫v.发出吼叫声，咆哮（尤指因痛苦）( bellow的第三人称单数 )；（愤怒地）说出（某事），大叫 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
43
groaning
|
|
| adj. 呜咽的, 呻吟的 动词groan的现在分词形式 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
44
descended
|
|
| a.为...后裔的，出身于...的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
45
nostrils
|
|
| 鼻孔( nostril的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
46
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： |
|
|
|
|
47
lusted
|
|
| 贪求（lust的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
48
hissing
|
|
| n. 发嘶嘶声, 蔑视 动词hiss的现在分词形式 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
49
vow
|
|
| n.誓(言)，誓约；v.起誓，立誓 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
50
bog
|
|
| n.沼泽；室...陷入泥淖 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
51
apparatus
|
|
| n.装置，器械；器具，设备 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
52
jaw
|
|
| n.颚，颌，说教，流言蜚语；v.喋喋不休，教训 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
53
starched
|
|
| adj.浆硬的，硬挺的，拘泥刻板的v.把（衣服、床单等）浆一浆( starch的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
54
reeked
|
|
| v.发出浓烈的臭气( reek的过去式和过去分词 )；散发臭气；发出难闻的气味 (of sth)；明显带有（令人不快或生疑的跡象） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
55
disappearance
|
|
| n.消失，消散，失踪 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
56
hush
|
|
| int.嘘，别出声；n.沉默，静寂；v.使安静 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
57
huddled
|
|
| 挤在一起（huddle的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
58
cockroaches
|
|
| n.蟑螂( cockroach的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
59
decided
|
|
| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
60
interval
|
|
| n.间隔，间距；幕间休息，中场休息 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
61
marshy
|
|
| adj.沼泽的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
62
eldest
|
|
| adj.最年长的，最年老的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
63
incapable
|
|
| adj.无能力的，不能做某事的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
64
triumphant
|
|
| adj.胜利的，成功的；狂欢的，喜悦的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
65
entirely
|
|
| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
66
outwards
|
|
| adj.外面的，公开的，向外的；adv.向外；n.外形 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
67
fortifying
|
|
| 筑防御工事于( fortify的现在分词 )； 筑堡于； 增强； 强化（食品） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
68
descending
|
|
| n. 下行 adj. 下降的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
69
eavesdropped
|
|
| 偷听（别人的谈话）( eavesdrop的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
70
extenuating
|
|
| adj.使减轻的，情有可原的v.（用偏袒的辩解或借口）减轻( extenuate的现在分词 )；低估，藐视 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
71
permissible
|
|
| adj.可允许的，许可的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
72
fugitive
|
|
| adj.逃亡的，易逝的；n.逃犯，逃亡者 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
73
cleaving
|
|
| v.劈开，剁开，割开( cleave的现在分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
74
furtively
|
|
| adv. 偷偷地, 暗中地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
75
horrifies
|
|
| v.使震惊，使感到恐怖( horrify的第三人称单数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
76
transmuted
|
|
| v.使变形，使变质，把…变成…( transmute的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
77
murkiness
|
|
| n.阴暗；混浊；可疑；黝暗 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
78
upwards
|
|
| adv.向上，在更高处...以上 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
79
baggy
|
|
| adj.膨胀如袋的，宽松下垂的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
80
pajamas
|
|
| n.睡衣裤 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
81
modesty
|
|
| n.谦逊，虚心，端庄，稳重，羞怯，朴素 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
82
eerie
|
|
| adj.怪诞的；奇异的；可怕的；胆怯的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
83
immured
|
|
| v.禁闭，监禁( immure的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
84
reluctance
|
|
| n.厌恶，讨厌，勉强，不情愿 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
85
ailing
|
|
| v.生病 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
86
utterly
|
|
| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
87
discreet
|
|
| adj.(言行)谨慎的；慎重的；有判断力的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
88
rites
|
|
| 仪式，典礼( rite的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
89
vaults
|
|
| n.拱顶( vault的名词复数 )；地下室；撑物跳高；墓穴 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
90
chastely
|
|
| adv.贞洁地，清高地，纯正地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
|
91
mediocrely
|
|
| 普通的； 中等的； 质量中等偏下的； 碌 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
92
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： |
|
|
|
|
93
secluded
|
|
| adj.与世隔绝的；隐退的；偏僻的v.使隔开，使隐退( seclude的过去式和过去分词) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
94
seclusion
|
|
| n.隐遁，隔离 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
95
spat
|
|
| n.口角，掌击；v.发出呼噜呼噜声 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
96
sluggishly
|
|
| adv.懒惰地；缓慢地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
97
somnolently
|
|
| adv.瞌睡地；昏昏欲睡地；使人瞌睡地；催眠地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
|
98
frantic
|
|
| adj.狂乱的，错乱的，激昂的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
99
gravy
|
|
| n.肉汁；轻易得来的钱，外快 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
100
rationing
|
|
| n.定量供应 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
101
moles
|
|
| 防波堤( mole的名词复数 )； 鼹鼠； 痣； 间谍 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
102
swelling
|
|
| n.肿胀 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
103
flout
|
|
| v./n.嘲弄，愚弄，轻视 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
104
monsoons
|
|
| n.（南亚、尤指印度洋的）季风( monsoon的名词复数 )；（与季风相伴的）雨季；（南亚地区的）雨季 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
105
monsoon
|
|
| n.季雨，季风，大雨 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
106
drenched
|
|
| adj.湿透的；充满的v.使湿透( drench的过去式和过去分词 )；在某人（某物）上大量使用（某液体） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
107
wrung
|
|
| 绞( wring的过去式和过去分词 )； 握紧（尤指别人的手）； 把（湿衣服）拧干； 绞掉（水） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
108
sprouted
|
|
| v.发芽( sprout的过去式和过去分词 )；抽芽；出现；（使）涌现出 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
109
pneumonia
|
|
| n.肺炎 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
110
flannels
|
|
| 法兰绒男裤； 法兰绒( flannel的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
111
bellowed
|
|
| v.发出吼叫声，咆哮（尤指因痛苦）( bellow的过去式和过去分词 )；（愤怒地）说出（某事），大叫 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
112
virgin
|
|
| n.处女，未婚女子；adj.未经使用的；未经开发的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
113
exigencies
|
|
| n.急切需要 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
114
iniquitous
|
|
| adj.不公正的；邪恶的；高得出奇的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
115
softened
|
|
| （使）变软( soften的过去式和过去分词 )； 缓解打击； 缓和； 安慰 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
116
unnatural
|
|
| adj.不自然的；反常的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
117
judgment
|
|
| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
118
puddles
|
|
| n.水坑， （尤指道路上的）雨水坑( puddle的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
119
urchins
|
|
| n.顽童( urchin的名词复数 )；淘气鬼；猬；海胆 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
120
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： |
|
|
|
|
121
itched
|
|
| v.发痒( itch的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
122
subterranean
|
|
| adj.地下的，地表下的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
123
enamel
|
|
| n.珐琅，搪瓷，瓷釉；(牙齿的)珐琅质 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
124
syllables
|
|
| n.音节( syllable的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
125
exclamation
|
|
| n.感叹号，惊呼，惊叹词 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
126
awesome
|
|
| adj.令人惊叹的，难得吓人的，很好的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
127
hopped
|
|
| 跳上[下]( hop的过去式和过去分词 )； 单足蹦跳； 齐足（或双足）跳行； 摘葎草花 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
128
perimeter
|
|
| n.周边，周长，周界 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
129
enraged
|
|
| 使暴怒( enrage的过去式和过去分词 )； 歜； 激愤 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
130
pelted
|
|
| （连续地）投掷( pelt的过去式和过去分词 )； 连续抨击； 攻击； 剥去…的皮 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
131
almighty
|
|
| adj.全能的，万能的；很大的，很强的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
132
wrath
|
|
| n.愤怒，愤慨，暴怒 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
133
flattening
|
|
| n. 修平 动词flatten的现在分词 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
134
retrieved
|
|
| v.取回( retrieve的过去式和过去分词 )；恢复；寻回；检索（储存的信息） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
135
squealed
|
|
| v.长声尖叫，用长而尖锐的声音说( squeal的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
136
devoted
|
|
| adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
137
groom
|
|
| vt.给（马、狗等）梳毛，照料，使...整洁 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
138
bad-tempered
|
|
| adj.脾气坏的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
139
bruised
|
|
| [医]青肿的，瘀紫的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
| 欢迎访问英文小说网 |