Unless, of course, there's no such thing as chance; in which case Musa -for all his age and servility - was nothing less than a time-bomb, ticking softly away until his appointed time; in which case, we should either -optimistically - get up and cheer, because if everything is planned in advance, then we all have a meaning, and are spared the terror of knowing ourselves to be random2, without a why; or ebe, of course, we might - as pessimists3 - give up right here and now, understanding the futility5 of thought decision action, since nothing we think makes any difference anyway; things will be as they will. Where, then, is optimism? In fate or in chaos6? Was my father being opti- or pessimistic when my mother told him her news (after everyone in the neighbourhood had heard it), and he replied with, 'I told you so; it was only a matter of time? My mother's pregnancy7, it seems, was fated; my birth, however, owed a good deal to accident.
'It was only a matter of time,' my father said, with every appearance of pleasure; but time has been an unsteady affair, in my experience, not a thing to be relied upon. It could even be partitioned: the clocks in Pakistan would run half an hour ahead of their Indian counterparts... Mr Kemal, who wanted nothing to do with Partition, was fond of saying, 'Here's proof of the folly8 of the scheme! Those Leaguers plan to abscond9 with a whole thirty minutes! Time Without Partitions,' Mr Kemal cried, That's the ticket!' And S. P. Butt10 said, 'If they can change the time just like that, what's real any more? I ask you? What's true?'
It seems like a day for big questions. I reply across the unreliable years to S.
P. Butt, who got his throat slit11 in the Partition riots and lost interest in time: 'What's real and what's true aren't necessarily the same.' True, for me, was from my earliest days something hidden inside the stories Mary Pereira told me: Mary my ayah who was both more and less than a mother; Mary who knew everything about all of us. True was a thing concealed12 just over the horizon towards which the fisherman's finger pointed1 in the picture on my wall, while the young Raleigh listened to his tales. Now, writing this in my Anglepoised pool of light, I measure truth against those early things: Is this how Mary would have told it? I ask. Is this what that fisherman would have said? ... And by those standards it is undeniably true that, one day in January 1947, my mother heard all about me six months before I turned up, while my father came up against a demon13 king.
Amina Sinai had been waiting for a suitable moment to accept Lifafa Das's offer; but for two days after the burning of the Indiabike factory Ahmed Sinai stayed at home, never visiting his office at Connaught Place, as if he were steeling himself for some unpleasant encounter. For two days the grey moneybag lay supposedly secret in its place under his side of their bed. My father showed no desire to talk about the reasons for the grey bag's presence; so Amina said to herself, 'Let him be like that; who cares?' because she had her secret, too, waiting patiently for her by the gates of the Red Fort at the top of Chandni Chowk. Pouting14 in secret petulance15, my mother kept Lifafa Das to herself. 'Unless-and-until he tells me what he's up to, why should I tell him?'
she argued.
And then a cold January evening, on which 'I've got to go out tonight' said Ahmed Sinai; and despite her pleas of 'It's cold - you'll get sick...' he put on his business suit and coat under which the mysterious grey bag made a ridiculously obvious lump; so finally she said, 'Wrap up warm,' and sent him off wherever he was going, asking, 'Will you be late?' To which he replied, 'Yes, certainly.' Five minutes after he left, Amina Sinai set off for the Red Fort, into the heart of her adventure.
One journey began at a fort; one should have ended at a fort, and did not. One foretold16 the future; the other settled its geographical17 location. During one journey, monkeys danced entertainingly; while, in the other place, a monkey was also dancing, but with disastrous18 results. In both adventures, a part was played by vultures. And many-headed monsters lurked19 at the end of both roads.
One at a time, then ... and here is Amina Sinai beneath the high" walls of the Red Fort, where Mughals ruled, from whose heights the new nation will be proclaimed ... neither monarch20 nor herald21, my mother is nevertheless greeted with warmth (despite the weather). In the last light of the day, Lifafa Das exclaims, 'Begum Sahiba! Oh, that is excellent that you came!' Dark-skinned in a white sari, she beckons22 him towards the taxi; he reaches for the back door; but the driver snaps, 'What do you think? Who do you think you are? Come on now, get in the front seat damn smart, leave the lady to sit in the back!' So Amina shares her seat with a black peepshow on wheels, while Lifafa Das apologizes: 'Sorry, hey, Begum Sahiba? Good intents are no offence.'
But here, refusing to wait its turn, is another taxi, pausing outside another fort unloading its cargo23 of three men in business suits, each carrying a bulky grey bag under his coat... one man long as a life and thin as a lie, a second who seems to lack a spine24, and a third whose lower lip juts25, whose belly26 tends to squashiness, whose hair is thinning and greasy27 and worming over the tops of his ears, and between whose eyebrows28 is the telltale furrow29 that will, as he ages, deepen into the scar of a bitter, angry man. The taxi-driver is ebullient30 despite the cold. 'Purana Qila!' he calls out, 'Everybody out, please! Old Fort, here we are!'... There have been many, many cities of Delhi, and the Old Fort, that blackened ruin, is a Delhi so ancient that beside it our own Old City is merely a babe in arms. It is to this ruin of an impossibly antique time that Kemal, Butt and Ahmed Sinai have been brought by an anonymous31 telephone call which ordered, 'Tonight. Old Fort. Just after sunset. But no police ... or godown funtoosh!' Clutching their grey bags, they move into the ancient, crumbling32 world.
... Clutching at her handbag, my mother sits beside a peepshow, while Lifafa Das rides in front with the puzzled, irascible driver, and directs the cab into the streets on the wrong side of the General Post Office; and as she enters these causeways where poverty eats away at the tarmac like a drought, where people lead their invisible lives (because they share Lifafa Das's curse of invisibility, and not all of them have beautiful smiles), something new begins to assail33 her. Under the pressure of these streets which are growing narrower by the minute, more crowded by the inch, she has lost her 'city eyes'. When you have city eyes you cannot see the invisible people, the men with elephantiasis of the balls and the beggars in boxcars don't impinge on you, and the concrete sections of future drainpipes don't look like dormitories. My mother lost her city eyes and the newness of what she was seeing made her flush, newness like a hailstorm pricking34 her cheeks. Look, my God, those beautiful children have black teeth! Would you believe ... girl children baring their nipples! How terrible, truly! And, Allah-tobah, heaven forfend, sweeper women with - no! - how dreadful!. - collapsed36 spines37, and bunches of twigs38, and no caste marks; untouchables, sweet Allah!... and cripples everywhere, mutilated by loving parents to ensure them of a lifelong income from begging... yes, beggars in boxcars, grown men with babies' legs, in crates39 on wheels, made out of discarded roller-skates and old mango boxes; my mother cries out, 'Lifafa Das, turn back!'
... but he is smiling his beautiful smile, and says, 'We must walk from here.'
Seeing that there is no going back, she tells the taxi to wait, and the bad-tempered40 driver says, 'Yes, of course, for a great lady what is there to do but wait, and when you come I must drive my car in reverse all the way back to main-road, because here is no room to turn!'... Children tugging41 at the pallu of her sari, heads everywhere staring at my mother, who thinks, It's like being surrounded by some terrible monster, a creature with heads and heads and heads; but she corrects herself, no, of course not a monster, these poor poor people - what then? A power of some sort, a force which does not know its strength, which has perhaps decayed into impotence through never having been used ... No, these are not decayed people, despite everything. 'I'm frightened,' my mother finds herself thinking, just as a hand touches her arm. Turning, she finds herself looking into the face of - impossible! - a white man, who stretches out a raggedy hand and says in a voice like a high foreign song, 'Give something, Begum Sahiba...' and repeats and repeats like a stuck record while she looks with embarrassment42 into a white face with long eyelashes and a curved patrician43 nose - embarrassment, because he was white, and begging was not for white people.'... All the way from Calcutta, on foot,' he was saying, 'and covered in ashes, as you see, Begum Sahiba, because of my shame at having been there for the Killing44 - last August you remember, Begum Sahiba, thousands knifed in four days of screaming ...' Lifafa Das is standing4 helplessly by, not knowing how to behave with a white man, even a beggar, and '... Did you hear about the European?' the beggar asks, '... Yes, among the killers45, Begum Sahiba, walking through the town at night with blood on his shirt, a white man deranged46 by the coming futility of his kind; did you hear?'... And now a pause in that perplexing song of a voice, and then: 'He was my husband.' Only now did my mother see the stifled47 breasts beneath the rags ... 'Give something for my shame.' Tugging at her arm. Lifafa Das tugging at the other, whispering Hijra, transvestite, come away, Begum Sahiba; and Amina standing still as she is tugged48 in opposite directions wants to say Wait, white woman, just let me finish my business, I will take you home, feed you clothe you, send you back into your own world; but just then the woman shrugs49 and walks off empty-handed down the narrowing street, shrinking to a point until she vanishes - now! - into the distant meanness of the lane. And now Lifafa Das, with a curious expression on his face, says, 'They're funtoosh! All finished! Soon they will all go; and then we'll be free to kill each other.' Touching50 her belly with one light hand, she follows him into a darkened doorway51 while her face bursts into flames.
... While at the Old Fort, Ahmed Sinai waits for Ravana. My father in the sunset: standing in the darkened doorway of what was once a room in the ruined walls of the fort, lower lip protruding52 fleshily, hands clasped behind his back, head full of money worries. He was never a happy man. He smelled faintly of future failure; he mistreated servants; perhaps he wished that, instead of following his late father into the leathercloth business, he had had the strength to pursue his original ambition, the re-arrangement of the Quran in accurately53 chronological54 order. (He once told me: 'When Muhammed prophesied55, people wrote down what he said on palm leaves, which were kept any old how in a box. After he died, Abubakr and the others tried to remember the correct sequence; but they didn't have very good memories.' Another wrong turning: instead of rewriting a sacred book, my father lurked in a ruin, awaiting demons56.
It's no wonder he wasn't happy; and I would be no help. When I was born, I broke his big toe.) ... My unhappy father, I repeat, thinks bad-temperedly about cash.
About his wife, who wheedles57 rupees out of him and picks his pockets at night.
And his ex-wife (who eventually died in an accident, when she argued with a camel-cart driver and was bitten in the neck by the camel), who writes him endless begging letters, despite the divorce settlement. And his distant cousin Zohra, who needs dowry money from him, so that she can raise children to marry his and so get her hooks into even more of his cash. And then there are Major Zulfikar's promises of money (at this stage, Major Zulfy and my father got on very well). The Major had been writing letters saying, 'You must decide for Pakistan when it comes, as it surely will. It's certain to be a goldmine for men like us. Please let me introduce you to M. A. J. himself.. ? but Ahmed Sinai distrusted Muhammad Ali Jinnah, and never accepted Zulfy's offer; so when Jinnah became President of Pakistan, there would be another wrong turning to think about. And, finally, there were letters from my father's old friend, the gynaecologist Doctor Narlikar, in Bombay. 'The British are leaving in droves, Sinai bhai.. Property is dirt cheap! Sell up; come here; buy; live the rest of your life in luxury!' Verses of the Quran had no place in a head so full of cash... and, in the meantime, here he is, alongside S. P. Butt who will die in a train to Pakistan, and Mustapha Kemal who will be murdered by goondas in his grand Flagstaff Road house and have the words 'mother-sleeping hoarder58' written on his chest in his own blood ... alongside these two doomed59 men, waiting in the secret shadow of a ruin to spy on a blackmailer60 coming for his money.
'South-west corner,' the phone call said, 'Turret61. Stone staircase inside.
Climb. Topmost landing. Leave money there. Go. Understood?' Defying orders, they hide in the ruined room; somewhere above them, on the topmost landing of the turret tower, three grey bags wait in the gathering62 dark.
... In the gathering dark of an airless stairwell, Amina Sinai is climbing towards a prophecy. Lifafa Das is comforting her; because now that she has come by taxi into the narrow bottle of his mercy, he has sensed an alteration63 in her, a regret at her decision; he reassures64 her as they climb. The darkened stairwell is full of eyes, eyes glinting through shuttered doors at the spectacle of the climbing dark lady, eyes lapping her up like bright rough cats' tongues; and as Lifafa talks, soothingly65, my mother feels her will ebbing66 away, What will be, will be, her strength of mind and her hold on the world seeping67 out of her into the dark sponge of the staircase air. Sluggishly68 her feet follow his, up into the upper reaches of the huge gloomy chawl, the broken-down tenement69 building in which Lifafa Das and his cousins have a small corner, at the very top... here, near the top, she sees dark light filtering down on to the heads of queueing cripples. 'My number two cousin,' Lifafa Das says, 'is bone-setter.' She climbs past men with broken arms, women with feet twisted backwards70 at impossible angles, past fallen window-cleaners and splintered bricklayers, a doctor's daughter entering a world older then syringes and hospitals; until, at last, Lifafa Das says, 'Here we are, Begum,' and leads her through a room in which the bone-setter is fastening twigs and leaves to shattered limbs, wrapping cracked heads in palm-fronds, until his patients begin to resemble artificial trees, sprouting71 vegetation from their injuries ... then out on to a flat expanse of cemented roof. Amina, blinking in the dark at the brightness of lanterns, makes out insane shapes on the roof: monkeys dancing; mongeese leaping; snakes swaying in baskets; and on the parapet, the silhouettes72 of large birds, whose bodies are as hooked and cruel as their beaks73: vultures.
'Arre baap,' she cries, 'where are you bringing me?'
'Nothing to worry, Begum, please,' Lifafa Das says. 'These are my cousins here.
My number-three-and-four cousins. That one is monkey-dancer ...'
'Just practising, Begum!' a voice calls. 'See: monkey goes to war and dies for his country!'
'... and there, snake-and-mongoose man.'
'See mongoose jump, Sahiba! See cobra dance!'
'... But the birds? ...'
'Nothing, Madam: only there is Parsee Tower of Silence just near here; and when there are no dead ones there, the vultures come. Now they are asleep; in the days, I think, they like to watch my cousins practising.'
A small room, on the far side of the roof. Light streams through the door as Amina enters ... to find, inside, a man the same age as her husband, a heavy man with several chins, wearing white stained trousers and a red check shirt and no shoes, munching74 aniseed and drinking from a bottle of Vimto, sitting cross-legged in a room on whose walls are pictures of Vishnu in each of his avatars, and notices reading, WRITING TAUGHT, and SPITTING DURING VISIT IS QUITE A BAD HABIT. There is no furniture ... and Shri Ramram Seth is sitting cross-legged, six inches above the ground.
I must admit it: to her shame, my mother screamed ...
... While, at the Old Fort, monkeys scream among ramparts. The ruined city, having been deserted75 by people, is now the abode76 of langoors. Long-tailed and black-faced, the monkeys are possessed77 of an overriding78 sense of mission. Upupup they clamber, leaping to the topmost heights of the ruin, staking out territories, and thereafter dedicating themselves to the dismemberment, stone by stone, of the entire fortress79. Padma, it's true: you've never been there, never stood in the twilight80 watching straining, resolute81, furry82 creatures working at the stones, pulling and rocking, rocking and pulling, working the stones loose one at a time... every day the monkeys send stones rolling down the walls, bouncing off angles and outcrops, crashing down into the ditches below. One day there will be no Old Fort; in the end, nothing but a pile of rubble83 surmounted84 by monkeys screaming in triumph ... and here is one monkey, scurrying85 along the ramparts - I shall call him Hanuman, after the monkey god who helped Prince Rama defeat the original Ravana, Hanuman of the flying chariots... Watch him now as he arrives at this turret - his territory; as he hops86 chatters87 runs from corner to corner of his kingdom, rubbing his rear on the stones; and then pauses, sniffs89 something that should not be here... Hanuman races to the alcove90 here, on the topmost landing, in which the three men have left three soft grey alien things. And, while monkeys dance on a roof behind the post office, Hanuman the monkey dances with rage. Pounces91 on the grey things. Yes, they are loose enough, won't take much rocking and pulling, pulling and rocking... watch Hanuman now, dragging the soft grey stones to the edge of the long drop of the outside wall of the Fort. See him tear at them: rip! rap! 泐? ... Look how deftly92 he scoops93 paper from the insides of the grey things, sending it down like floating rain to bathe the fallen stones in the ditch! ... Paper falling with lazy, reluctant grace, sinking like a beautiful memory into the maw of the darkness; and now, kick! thump94! and again kick! the three soft grey stones go over the edge, downdown into the dark, and at last there comes a soft disconsolate95 plop.
Hanuman, his work done, loses interest, scurries96 away to some distant pinnacle97 of his kingdom, begins to rock on a stone.
... While, down below, my father has seen a grotesque98 figure emerging from the gloom. Not knowing a thing about the disaster which has taken place above, he observes the monster from the shadow of his ruined room: a ragged-pajama'd creature in the head-dress of a demon, a papier-mache devil-top which has faces grinning on every side of it ... the appointed representative of the Ravana gang. The collector. Hearts thumping99, the three businessmen watch this spectre out of a peasant's nightmare vanish into the stairwell leading to the landing; and after a moment, in the stillness of the empty night, hear the devil's perfectly100 human oaths. 'Mother-sleepers! Eunuchs from somewhere!' ...
Uncomprehending, they see their bizarre tormentor101 emerge, rush away into the darkness, vanish. His imprecations ... 'Sodomizers of asses102! Sons of pigs! Eaters of their own excrement103!'... linger on the breeze. And up they go now, confusion addling104 their spirits; Butt finds a torn fragment of grey cloth; Mustapha Kemal stoops over a crumpled105 rupee; and maybe, yes, why not, my father sees a dark flurry of monkey out of the corner of an eye... and they guess.
And now their groans106 and Mr Butt's shrill107 curses, which are echoes of the devil's oaths; and there's a battle raging, unspoken, in all their heads: money or godown or godown or money? Businessmen ponder, in mute panic, this central riddle109 - but then, even if they abandon the cash to the depredations110 of scavenging dogs and humans, how to stop the fire-raisers? - and at last, without a word having been spoken, the inexorable law of cash-in-hand wins them over; they rush down stone stairs, along grassed lawns, through ruined gates, and arrive - PELL-MELL! - at the ditch, to begin scooping111 rupees into their pockets, shovelling112 grabbing scrabbling, ignoring pools of urine and rotting fruit, trusting against all likelihood that tonight - by the grace of-just tonight for once, the gang will fail to wreak113 its promised revenge. But, of course ...
... But, of course, Ramram the seer was not really floating in midair, six inches above the ground. My mother's scream faded; her eyes focused; and she noticed the little shelf, protruding from the wall. 'Cheap trick,' she told herself, and, 'What am I doing here in this godforsaken place of sleeping vultures and monkey-dancers, waiting to be told who knows what foolishness by a guru who levitates114 by sitting on a shelf?'
What Amina Sinai did not know was that, for the second time in history, I was about to make my presence felt. (No: not that fraudulent tadpole115 in her stomach: I mean myself, in my historical role, of which prime ministers have written '...
it is, in a sense, the mirror of us all.' Great forces were working that night; and all present were about to feel their power, and be afraid.)
Cousins - one to four - gathering in the doorway through which the dark lady has passed, drawn116 like moths117 to the candle of her screech118... watching her quietly as she advanced, guided by Lifafa Das, towards the unlikely sooth-sayer, were bone-setter cobra-wallah and monkey-man. Whispers of encouragement now (and were there also giggles119 behind rough hands?): 'O such a too fine fortune he will tell, Sahiba!' and, 'Come, cousinji, lady is waiting!'... But what was this Ramram? A huckster, a two-chip palmist, a giver of cute forecasts to silly women - or the genuine article, the holder120 of the keys? And Lifafa Das: did he see, in my mother, a woman who could be satisfied by a two-rupee fake, or did he see deeper, into the underground heart of her weakness? - And when the prophecy came, were cousins astonished too? - And the frothing at the mouth? What of that? And was it true that my mother, under the dislocating influence of that hysterical121 evening, relinquished122 her hold on her habitual123 self- which she had felt slipping away from her into the absorbing sponge of the lightless air in the stairwell - and entered a state of mind in which anything might happen and be believed? And there is another, more horrible possibility, too; but before I voice my suspicion, I must describe, as nearly as possible in spite of this filmy curtain of ambiguities124, what actually happened: I must describe my mother, her palm slanted125 outwards126 towards the advancing palmist, her eyes wide and unblinking as a pomfret's - and the cousins (giggling127?), 'What a reading you are coming to get, Sahiba!' and, 'Tell, cousinji, tell!' - but the curtain descends128 again, so I cannot be sure - did he begin like a cheap circus-tent man and go through the banal129 conjugations of life-line heart-line and children who would be multi-millionaires, while cousins cheered, 'Wah wah!' and, 'Absolute master reading, yara!' - and then, did he change? - did Ramram become stiff- eyes rolling upwards130 until they were white as eggs - did he, in a voice as strange as a mirror, ask, 'You permit, Madam, that I touch the place?' - while cousins fell as silent as sleeping vultures - and did my mother, just as strangely, reply, 'Yes, I permit,' so that the seer became only the third man to touch her in her life, apart from her family members? - and was it then, at that instant, that a brief sharp jolt131 of electricity passed between pudgy fingers and maternal132 skin?
And my mother's face, rabbit-startled, watching the prophet in the check shirt as he began to circle, his eyes still egg-like in the softness of his face; and suddenly a shudder133 passing through him and again that strange high voice as the words issued through his lips (I must describe those lips, too - but later, because now ...) 'A son.'
Silent cousins - monkeys on leashes134, ceasing their chatter88 - cobras coiled in baskets - and the circling fortune-teller, finding history speaking through his lips. (Was that how?) Beginning, 'A son... such a son!' And then it comes, 'A son, Sahiba, who will never be older than his motherland - neither older nor younger.' And now, real fear amongst snake-charmer mongoose-dancer bone-setter and peepshow-wallah, because they have never heard Ramram like this, as he continues, singsong, high-pitched: 'There will be two heads - but you shall see only one - there will be knees and a nose, a nose and knees.' Nose and knees and knees and nose ... listen carefully, Padma; the fellow got nothing wrong! 'Newspaper praises him, two mothers raise him! Bicyclists love him - but, crowds will shove him! Sisters will weep; cobra will creep ...' Ramram, circling fasterfaster, while four cousins murmur136, 'What is this, baba?' and, 'Deo, Shiva, guard us!' While Ramram, 'Washing will hide him - voices will guide him! Friends mutilate him - blood will betray him!' And Amina Sinai, 'What does he mean? I don't understand - Lifafa Das - what has got into him?' But, inexorably, whirling egg-eyed around her statue-still presence, goes Ramram Seth: 'Spittoons will brain him - doctors will drain him - jungle will claim him - wizards reclaim137 him! Soldiers will try him -tyrants will fry him ...' While Amina begs for explanations and the cousins fall into a hand-flapping frenzy138 of helpless alarm because something has taken over and nobody dares touch Ramram Seth as he whirls to his climax139: 'He will have sons without having sons! He will be old before he is old! And he will die ... before he is dead.'
Is that how it was? Is that when Ramram Seth, annihilated140 by the sage141 through him of a power greater than his own, fell suddenly to the floor and frothed at the mouth? Was mongoose-man's stick inserted between his twitching142 teeth? Did Lafafa Das say, 'Begum Sahiba you must leave, please: our cousinji has become sick'?
And finally the cobra-wallah - or monkey-man, or bone-setter, or even Lifafa Das of the peepshow on wheels - saying, 'Too much prophecy, man. Our Ramram made too much damn prophecy tonight.'
Many years later, at the time of her premature143 dotage144, when all k'nds of ghosts welled out of her past to dance before her eyes, my mother saw once again the peepshow man whom she saved by announcing my coming and who repaid her by leading her to too much prophecy, and spoke108 to him evenly, without rancour. 'So you're back ' she said, 'Well, let me tell you this: I wish I'd understood what your cousinji meant - about blood, about knees and nose. Because who knows? I might have had a different son.'
Like my grandfather at the beginning, in a webbed corridor in a blind man's house, and again at the end; like Mary Pereira after she lost her Joseph, and like me, my mother was good at seeing ghosts.
But now, because there are yet more questions and ambiguities, I am obliged to voice certain suspicions. Suspicion, too, is a monster with too many heads; why, then, can't I stop myself unleashing145 it at my own mother? ... What, I ask, would be a fair description of the seer's mach? And memory - my new, all-knowing memory, which encompasses146 most of the lives of mother father grandfather grandmother and everyone else - answers: soft; squashy as cornflour pudding.
Again, reluctantly, I ask: What was the condition of his lips? And the inevitable147 response: full; overfleshed; poetic148. A third time I interrogate149 this memory of mine: what of Ms hair? The reply: thinning; dark; lank150; worming over his ears. And now my unreasonable151 suspicions ask the ultimate question ... did Amina, pure-as-pure, actually ... because of her weakness for men who resembled Nadir152 Khan, could she have... in her odd frame of mind, and moved by the seer's illness, might she not ... 'No!' Padma shouts, furiously. 'How dare you suggest?
About that good woman - your own mother? That she would? You do not know one thing and still you say it?' And, of course, she is right, as always. If she knew, she would say I was only getting my revenge, for what I certainly did see Amina doing, years through the grimy windows of the Pioneer Cafe; and maybe that's where my irrational153 notion was born, to grow illogically backwards in time, and arrive fully135 mature at this earlier - and yes, almost certainly innocent - adventure. Yes, that must be it. But the monster won't lie down...
'Ah,' it says, 'but what about the matter of her tantrum - the one she threw the day Ahmed announced they were moving to Bombay?' Now it mimics154 her: 'You - always you decide. What about me? Suppose I don't want... I've only now got this house straight and already...!' So, Padma: was that housewifely zeal155 - or a masquerade?
Yes - a doubt lingers. The monster asks, 'Why did she fail, somehow or other, to tell her husband about her visit?' Reply of the accused (voiced by our Padma in my mother's absence): 'But think how angry he'd've got, my God! Even if there hadn't been all that firebug business to worry him! Strange men; a woman on her own; he'd've gone wild! Wild, completely!'
Unworthy suspicions ... I must dismiss them; must save my strictures for later, when, in the absence of ambiguity156, without the clouding curtain, she gave me hard, clear, irrefutable proofs.
... But, of course, when my father came home late that night, with a ditchy smell on him which overpowered his customary reek157 of future failure, his eyes and cheeks were streaked158 with ashy tears; there was sulphur in his nostrils159 and the grey dust of smoked leathercloth on Ms head ... because of course they had burned the godown.
'But the night-watchmen?' - asleep, Padma, asleep. Warned in advance to take their sleeping draughts160 just in case ... Those brave lalas, warrior161 Pathans who, city-born, had never seen the Khyber, unwrapped little paper packets, poured rust-coloured powders into their bubbling cauldron of tea. They pulled their charpoys well away from my father's godown to avoid falling beams and showering sparks; and lying on their rope-beds they sipped162 their tea and entered the bittersweet declensions of the drug. At first they became raucous163, shouting the praises of their favourite whores in Pushtu; then they fell into wild giggling as the soft fluttering fingers of the drug tickled164 their ribs165... until the giggling gave way to dreams and they roamed in the frontier passes of the drug, riding the horses of the drug, and finally reached a dreamless oblivion from which nothing on earth could awaken166 them until the drug had run its course.
Ahmed, Butt and Kemal arrived by taxi - the taxi-driver, unnerved by the three men who clutched wads of crumpled banknotes which smelled worse than hell on account of the unpleasant substances they had encountered in the ditch, would not have waited, except that they refused to pay him. 'Let me go, big sirs,' he pleaded, 'I am a little man; do not keep me here ...' but by then their backs were moving away from him, towards the fire. He watched them as they ran, clutching their rupees that were stained by tomatoes and dogshit; open-mouthed he stared at the burning godown, at the clouds in the night sky, and like everyone else on the scene he was obliged to breathe air filled with leathercloth and matchsticks and burning rice. With his hands over his eyes, watching through his fingers, the little taxi-driver with his incompetent167 moustache saw Mr Kemal, thin as a demented pencil, lashing168 and lucking at the sleeping bodies of night-watchmen; and he almost gave up his fare and drove off in terror at the instant when my father shouted, 'Look out!' ... but, staying despite it all, he saw the godown as it burst apart under the force of the licking red tongues, he saw pouring out of the godown an improbable lava169 flow of molten rice lentils chick-peas waterproof170 jackets matchboxes and pickle171, he saw the hot red flowers of the fire bursting skywards as the contents of the warehouse172 spilled on to the hard yellow ground like a black charred173 hand of despair. Yes, of course the godown was burned, it fell on their heads from the sky in cinders174, it plunged175 into the open mouths of the bruised176, but still snoring, watchmen ... 'God save us,' said Mr Butt, but Mustapha Kemal, more pragmatically, answered: 'Thank God we are well insured.'
'It was right then,' Ahmed Sinai told his wife later, 'right at that moment that I decided177 to get out of the leathercloth business. Sell the office, the goodwill178, and forget everything I know about the reccine trade. Then - not before, not afterwards - I made up my mind, also, to think no more about this Pakistan claptrap of your Emerald's Zulfy. In the heat of that fire,' my father revealed - unleashing a wifely tantrum - 'I decided to go to Bombay, and enter the property business. Property is dirt cheap there now,' he told her before her protests could begin, 'Narlikar knows.'
(But in time, he would call Narlikar a traitor179.)
In my family, we always go when we're pushed - the freeze of '48 being the only exception to this rule. The boatman Tai drove my grandfather from Kashmir; Mercurochrome chased him out of Amritsar; the collapse35 of her life under the carpets led directly to my mother's departure from Agra; and many-headed monsters sent my father to Bombay, so that I could be born there. At the end of that January, history had finally, by a series of shoves, brought itself to the point at which it was almost ready for me to make my entrance. There were mysteries that could not be cleared up until I stepped on to the scene ... the mystery, for example, of Shri Ramram's most enigmatic remark: 'There will be a nose and knees: knees, and a nose.'
襤e insurance money came; January ended; and in the time it took to close down their affairs in Delhi and move to the city in which - as Dr Narlikar the gynaecologist knew - property was temporarily as cheap as dirt, my mother concentrated on her segmented scheme for learning to love her husband. She came to feel a deep affection for the question marks of his ears; for the remarkable180 depth of his navel, into which her finger could go right up to the first joint181, without even pushing; she grew to love the knobbliness of his knees; but, try as she might (and as I'm giving her the benefit of my doubts I shall offer no possible reasons here), there was one part of him which she never managed to love, although it was the one thing he possessed, in full working order, which Nadir Khan had certainly lacked; on those nights when he heaved himself up on top of her - when the baby in her womb was no bigger than a frog - it was just no good at all.
... 'No, not so quick, janum, my life, a little longer, please,' she is saying; and Ahmed, to spin things out, tries to think back to the fire, to the last thing that happened on that blazing night, when just as he was turning to go he heard a dirty screech in the sky, and, looking up, had time to register that a vulture- at night! - a vulture from the Towers of Silence was flying overhead, and that it had dropped a barely-chewed Parsee hand, a right hand, the same hand which - now! - slapped him full in the face as it fell; while Amina, beneath him in bed, ticks herself off: Why can't you enjoy, you stupid woman, from now on you must really try.
On June 4th, my ill-matched parents left for Bombay by Frontier Mail. (There were hangings, voices hanging on for dear life, fists crying out, 'Maharaj! Open, for one tick only! Ohe, from the milk of your kindness, great sir, do us favour!' And there was also - hidden beneath dowry in a green tin trunk - a forbidden, lapis-lazuli-encrusted, delicately-wrought silver spittoon.) On the same day, Earl Mountbatten of Burma held a press conference at which he announced the Partition of India, and hung his countdown calendar on the wall: seventy days to go to the transfer of power... sixty-nine ... sixty-eight ...tick, tock.
收听单词发音 |
1
pointed
|
|
| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
2
random
|
|
| adj.随机的；任意的；n.偶然的(或随便的)行动 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
3
pessimists
|
|
| n.悲观主义者( pessimist的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
4
standing
|
|
| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
5
futility
|
|
| n.无用 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
6
chaos
|
|
| n.混乱，无秩序 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
7
pregnancy
|
|
| n.怀孕，怀孕期 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
8
folly
|
|
| n.愚笨，愚蠢，蠢事，蠢行，傻话 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
9
abscond
|
|
| v.潜逃，逃亡 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
10
butt
|
|
| n.笑柄；烟蒂；枪托；臀部；v.用头撞或顶 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
11
slit
|
|
| n.狭长的切口；裂缝；vt.切开，撕裂 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
12
concealed
|
|
| a.隐藏的，隐蔽的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
13
demon
|
|
| n.魔鬼，恶魔 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
14
pouting
|
|
| v.撅（嘴）( pout的现在分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
15
petulance
|
|
| n.发脾气，生气，易怒，暴躁，性急 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
16
foretold
|
|
| v.预言，预示( foretell的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
17
geographical
|
|
| adj.地理的；地区(性)的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
18
disastrous
|
|
| adj.灾难性的，造成灾害的；极坏的，很糟的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
19
lurked
|
|
| vi.潜伏，埋伏（lurk的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
20
monarch
|
|
| n.帝王，君主，最高统治者 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
21
herald
|
|
| vt.预示...的来临，预告，宣布，欢迎 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
22
beckons
|
|
| v.（用头或手的动作）示意，召唤( beckon的第三人称单数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
23
cargo
|
|
| n.(一只船或一架飞机运载的)货物 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
24
spine
|
|
| n.脊柱，脊椎；(动植物的)刺；书脊 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
25
juts
|
|
| v.（使）突出( jut的第三人称单数 )；伸出；（从…）突出；高出 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
26
belly
|
|
| n.肚子，腹部；(像肚子一样)鼓起的部分，膛 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
27
greasy
|
|
| adj. 多脂的，油脂的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
28
eyebrows
|
|
| 眉毛( eyebrow的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
29
furrow
|
|
| n.沟；垄沟；轨迹；车辙；皱纹 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
30
ebullient
|
|
| adj.兴高采烈的，奔放的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
31
anonymous
|
|
| adj.无名的；匿名的；无特色的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
32
crumbling
|
|
| adj.摇摇欲坠的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
33
assail
|
|
| v.猛烈攻击，抨击，痛斥 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
34
pricking
|
|
| 刺，刺痕，刺痛感 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
35
collapse
|
|
| vi.累倒；昏倒；倒塌；塌陷 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
36
collapsed
|
|
| adj.倒塌的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
37
spines
|
|
| n.脊柱( spine的名词复数 )；脊椎；（动植物的）刺；书脊 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
38
twigs
|
|
| 细枝，嫩枝( twig的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
39
crates
|
|
| n. 板条箱, 篓子, 旧汽车 vt. 装进纸条箱 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
40
bad-tempered
|
|
| adj.脾气坏的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
41
tugging
|
|
| n.牵引感v.用力拉，使劲拉，猛扯( tug的现在分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
42
embarrassment
|
|
| n.尴尬；使人为难的人(事物)；障碍；窘迫 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
43
patrician
|
|
| adj.贵族的，显贵的；n.贵族；有教养的人；罗马帝国的地方官 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
44
killing
|
|
| n.巨额利润；突然赚大钱，发大财 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
45
killers
|
|
| 凶手( killer的名词复数 )； 消灭…者； 致命物； 极难的事 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
46
deranged
|
|
| adj.疯狂的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
47
stifled
|
|
| （使）窒息， （使）窒闷( stifle的过去式和过去分词 )； 镇压，遏制； 堵 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
48
tugged
|
|
| v.用力拉，使劲拉，猛扯( tug的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
49
shrugs
|
|
| n.耸肩（以表示冷淡，怀疑等）( shrug的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
50
touching
|
|
| adj.动人的，使人感伤的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
51
doorway
|
|
| n.门口，(喻)入门；门路，途径 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
52
protruding
|
|
| v.（使某物）伸出，（使某物）突出( protrude的现在分词 )；凸 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
53
accurately
|
|
| adv.准确地，精确地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
54
chronological
|
|
| adj.按年月顺序排列的，年代学的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
55
prophesied
|
|
| v.预告，预言( prophesy的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
56
demons
|
|
| n.恶人( demon的名词复数 )；恶魔；精力过人的人；邪念 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
57
wheedles
|
|
| v.骗取（某物），哄骗（某人干某事）( wheedle的第三人称单数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
|
58
hoarder
|
|
| n.囤积者，贮藏者 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
59
doomed
|
|
| 命定的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
60
blackmailer
|
|
| 敲诈者，勒索者 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
61
turret
|
|
| n.塔楼，角塔 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
62
gathering
|
|
| n.集会，聚会，聚集 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
63
alteration
|
|
| n.变更，改变；蚀变 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
64
reassures
|
|
| v.消除恐惧或疑虑，恢复信心( reassure的第三人称单数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
65
soothingly
|
|
| adv.抚慰地，安慰地；镇痛地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
66
ebbing
|
|
| （指潮水）退( ebb的现在分词 )； 落； 减少； 衰落 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
67
seeping
|
|
| v.（液体）渗( seep的现在分词 )；渗透；渗出；漏出 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
68
sluggishly
|
|
| adv.懒惰地；缓慢地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
69
tenement
|
|
| n.公寓；房屋 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
70
backwards
|
|
| adv.往回地，向原处，倒，相反，前后倒置地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
71
sprouting
|
|
| v.发芽( sprout的现在分词 )；抽芽；出现；（使）涌现出 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
72
silhouettes
|
|
| 轮廓( silhouette的名词复数 )； （人的）体形； （事物的）形状； 剪影 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
73
beaks
|
|
| n.鸟嘴( beak的名词复数 )；鹰钩嘴；尖鼻子；掌权者 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
74
munching
|
|
| v.用力咀嚼（某物），大嚼( munch的现在分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
75
deserted
|
|
| adj.荒芜的，荒废的，无人的，被遗弃的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
76
abode
|
|
| n.住处，住所 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
77
possessed
|
|
| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
78
overriding
|
|
| a.最主要的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
79
fortress
|
|
| n.堡垒，防御工事 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
80
twilight
|
|
| n.暮光，黄昏；暮年，晚期，衰落时期 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
81
resolute
|
|
| adj.坚决的，果敢的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
82
furry
|
|
| adj.毛皮的；似毛皮的；毛皮制的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
83
rubble
|
|
| n.（一堆）碎石，瓦砾 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
84
surmounted
|
|
| 战胜( surmount的过去式和过去分词 )； 克服（困难）； 居于…之上； 在…顶上 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
85
scurrying
|
|
| v.急匆匆地走( scurry的现在分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
86
hops
|
|
| 跳上[下]( hop的第三人称单数 )； 单足蹦跳； 齐足（或双足）跳行； 摘葎草花 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
87
chatters
|
|
| （人）喋喋不休( chatter的第三人称单数 )； 唠叨； （牙齿）打战； （机器）震颤 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
88
chatter
|
|
| vi.／n.喋喋不休；短促尖叫；(牙齿)打战 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
89
sniffs
|
|
| v.以鼻吸气，嗅，闻( sniff的第三人称单数 )；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： |
|
|
|
|
90
alcove
|
|
| n.凹室 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
91
pounces
|
|
| v.突然袭击( pounce的第三人称单数 )；猛扑；一眼看出；抓住机会（进行抨击） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
92
deftly
|
|
| adv.灵巧地，熟练地，敏捷地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
93
scoops
|
|
| n.小铲( scoop的名词复数 )；小勺；一勺[铲]之量；（抢先刊载、播出的）独家新闻v.抢先报道( scoop的第三人称单数 )；（敏捷地）抱起；抢先获得；用铲[勺]等挖（洞等） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
94
thump
|
|
| v.重击，砰然地响；n.重击，重击声 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
95
disconsolate
|
|
| adj.忧郁的，不快的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
96
scurries
|
|
| v.急匆匆地走( scurry的第三人称单数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
97
pinnacle
|
|
| n.尖塔，尖顶，山峰；(喻)顶峰 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
98
grotesque
|
|
| adj.怪诞的，丑陋的；n.怪诞的图案，怪人（物） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
99
thumping
|
|
| adj.重大的，巨大的；重击的；尺码大的；极好的adv.极端地；非常地v.重击(thump的现在分词)；狠打；怦怦地跳；全力支持 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
100
perfectly
|
|
| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
101
tormentor
|
|
| n. 使苦痛之人, 使苦恼之物, 侧幕 =tormenter | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
102
asses
|
|
| n. 驴，愚蠢的人，臀部 adv. (常用作后置)用于贬损或骂人 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
103
excrement
|
|
| n.排泄物，粪便 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
104
addling
|
|
| v.使糊涂( addle的现在分词 )；使混乱；使腐臭；使变质 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
|
105
crumpled
|
|
| adj. 弯扭的, 变皱的 动词crumple的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
106
groans
|
|
| n.呻吟，叹息( groan的名词复数 )；呻吟般的声音v.呻吟( groan的第三人称单数 )；发牢骚；抱怨；受苦 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
107
shrill
|
|
| adj.尖声的；刺耳的；v尖叫 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
108
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： |
|
|
|
|
109
riddle
|
|
| n.谜，谜语，粗筛；vt.解谜，给…出谜，筛，检查，鉴定，非难，充满于；vi.出谜 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
110
depredations
|
|
| n.劫掠，毁坏( depredation的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
111
scooping
|
|
| n.捞球v.抢先报道( scoop的现在分词 )；（敏捷地）抱起；抢先获得；用铲[勺]等挖（洞等） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
112
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： |
|
|
|
|
113
wreak
|
|
| v.发泄；报复 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
114
levitates
|
|
| v.（使）升空，（使）漂浮( levitate的第三人称单数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
|
115
tadpole
|
|
| n.[动]蝌蚪 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
116
drawn
|
|
| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
117
moths
|
|
| n.蛾( moth的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
118
screech
|
|
| n./v.尖叫；(发出)刺耳的声音 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
119
giggles
|
|
| n.咯咯的笑( giggle的名词复数 )；傻笑；玩笑；the giggles 止不住的格格笑v.咯咯地笑( giggle的第三人称单数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
120
holder
|
|
| n.持有者，占有者；(台，架等)支持物 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
121
hysterical
|
|
| adj.情绪异常激动的，歇斯底里般的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
122
relinquished
|
|
| 交出，让给( relinquish的过去式和过去分词 )； 放弃 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
123
habitual
|
|
| adj.习惯性的；通常的，惯常的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
124
ambiguities
|
|
| n.歧义( ambiguity的名词复数 )；意义不明确；模棱两可的意思；模棱两可的话 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
125
slanted
|
|
| 有偏见的； 倾斜的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
126
outwards
|
|
| adj.外面的，公开的，向外的；adv.向外；n.外形 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
127
giggling
|
|
| v.咯咯地笑( giggle的现在分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
128
descends
|
|
| v.下来( descend的第三人称单数 )；下去；下降；下斜 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
129
banal
|
|
| adj.陈腐的，平庸的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
130
upwards
|
|
| adv.向上，在更高处...以上 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
131
jolt
|
|
| v.（使）摇动，（使）震动，（使）颠簸 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
132
maternal
|
|
| adj.母亲的，母亲般的，母系的，母方的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
133
shudder
|
|
| v.战粟，震动，剧烈地摇晃；n.战粟，抖动 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
134
leashes
|
|
| n.拴猎狗的皮带( leash的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
135
fully
|
|
| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
136
murmur
|
|
| n.低语，低声的怨言；v.低语，低声而言 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
137
reclaim
|
|
| v.要求归还，收回；开垦 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
138
frenzy
|
|
| n.疯狂，狂热，极度的激动 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
139
climax
|
|
| n.顶点；高潮；v.(使)达到顶点 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
140
annihilated
|
|
| v.（彻底）消灭( annihilate的过去式和过去分词 )；使无效；废止；彻底击溃 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
141
sage
|
|
| n.圣人，哲人；adj.贤明的，明智的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
142
twitching
|
|
| n.颤搐 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
143
premature
|
|
| adj.比预期时间早的；不成熟的，仓促的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
144
dotage
|
|
| n.年老体衰；年老昏聩 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
145
unleashing
|
|
| v.把（感情、力量等）释放出来，发泄( unleash的现在分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
146
encompasses
|
|
| v.围绕( encompass的第三人称单数 )；包围；包含；包括 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
147
inevitable
|
|
| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
148
poetic
|
|
| adj.富有诗意的，有诗人气质的，善于抒情的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
149
interrogate
|
|
| vt.讯问，审问，盘问 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
150
lank
|
|
| adj.瘦削的；稀疏的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
151
unreasonable
|
|
| adj.不讲道理的，不合情理的，过度的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
152
nadir
|
|
| n.最低点，无底 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
153
irrational
|
|
| adj.无理性的，失去理性的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
154
mimics
|
|
| n.模仿名人言行的娱乐演员，滑稽剧演员( mimic的名词复数 )；善于模仿的人或物v.（尤指为了逗乐而）模仿( mimic的第三人称单数 )；酷似 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
155
zeal
|
|
| n.热心，热情，热忱 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
156
ambiguity
|
|
| n.模棱两可；意义不明确 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
157
reek
|
|
| v.发出臭气；n.恶臭 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
158
streaked
|
|
| adj.有条斑纹的，不安的v.快速移动( streak的过去式和过去分词 )；使布满条纹 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
159
nostrils
|
|
| 鼻孔( nostril的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
160
draughts
|
|
| n. <英>国际跳棋 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
161
warrior
|
|
| n.勇士，武士，斗士 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
162
sipped
|
|
| v.小口喝，呷，抿( sip的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
163
raucous
|
|
| adj.(声音)沙哑的，粗糙的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
164
tickled
|
|
| （使）发痒( tickle的过去式和过去分词 )； （使）愉快，逗乐 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
165
ribs
|
|
| n.肋骨( rib的名词复数 )；（船或屋顶等的）肋拱；肋骨状的东西；（织物的）凸条花纹 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
166
awaken
|
|
| vi.醒，觉醒；vt.唤醒，使觉醒，唤起，激起 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
167
incompetent
|
|
| adj.无能力的，不能胜任的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
168
lashing
|
|
| n.鞭打；痛斥；大量；许多v.鞭打( lash的现在分词 )；煽动；紧系；怒斥 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
169
lava
|
|
| n.熔岩，火山岩 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
170
waterproof
|
|
| n.防水材料；adj.防水的；v.使...能防水 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
171
pickle
|
|
| n.腌汁，泡菜；v.腌，泡 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
172
warehouse
|
|
| n.仓库；vt.存入仓库 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
173
charred
|
|
| v.把…烧成炭( char的过去式)；烧焦 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
174
cinders
|
|
| n.煤渣( cinder的名词复数 )；炭渣；煤渣路；煤渣跑道 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
175
plunged
|
|
| v.颠簸( plunge的过去式和过去分词 )；暴跌；骤降；突降 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
176
bruised
|
|
| [医]青肿的，瘀紫的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
177
decided
|
|
| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
178
goodwill
|
|
| n.善意，亲善，信誉，声誉 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
179
traitor
|
|
| n.叛徒，卖国贼 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
180
remarkable
|
|
| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
181
joint
|
|
| adj.联合的，共同的；n.关节，接合处；v.连接，贴合 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
| 欢迎访问英文小说网 |