A Good War

 Nietsche said, "You have heard that a good cause justifies¹ any war, but I say unto you that a good war justifies any cause."

 

A man was walking alone over a plain so desolate² that, if you have never seen it, the mere³ word desolation could never convey to you the melancholy⁴ surroundings that mourned about this man on his lonely walk. Far off a vista⁵ of trees followed a cheerless road all dead as mourners suddenly stricken dead in some funereal⁶ procession. By this road he had come; but when he had reached a certain point he turned from the road at once, branching away to the left, led by a line of bushes that may once have been a lane. For some while his feet had rustled⁷ through long neglected grass; sometimes he lifted them up to step over a telephone wire that lolled over old entanglements⁸ and bushes; often he came to rusty⁹ strands¹⁰ of barbed wire and walked through them where they had been cut, perhaps years ago, by huge shells; then his feet hissed¹¹ on through the grass again, dead grass that had hissed about his boots all through the afternoon.

 

Once he sat down to rest on the edge of a crater¹², weary with such walking as he had never seen before; and after he had stayed there a little while a cat that seemed to have its home in that wild place started suddenly up and leaped away over the weeds. It seemed an animal totally wild, and utterly¹³ afraid of man.

 

Grey bare hills surrounded the waste: a partridge called far off: evening was drawing in. He rose wearily, and yet with a certain fervour, as one that pursues With devotion a lamentable¹⁴ quest. Looking round him as he left his resting-place he saw a cabbage or two that after some while had come back to what was a field and had sprouted¹⁵ on the edge of a shell-hole. A yellowing convolvulus climbed up a dead weed. Weeds, grass and tumbled earth were all about him. It would be no better when he went on. Still he went on. A flower or two peeped up among the weeds. He stood up and looked at the landscape and drew no hope from that, the shattered trunk of a stricken tree leered near him, white trenches¹⁷ scarred the hillside. He followed an old trench¹⁶ through a hedge of elder, passed under more wire, by a great rusty shell that had not burst, passed by a dug-out where something grey seemed to lie down at the bottom of many steps. Black fungi¹⁸ grew near the entrance. He went on and on over shell-holes, passing round them where they were deep, stepping into or over the small ones. Little burrs clutched at him; he went rustling¹⁹ on, the only sound in the waste but the clicking of shattered iron. Now he was among nettles²⁰. He came by many small unnatural²¹ valleys. He passed more trenches only guarded by fungi. While it was light he followed little paths, marvelling²² who made them. Once he got into a trench. Dandelions leaned across it as though to bar his way, believing man to have gone and to have no right to return. Weeds thronged²³, in thousands here. It was the day of the weeds. It was only they that seemed to triumph in those fields deserted²⁴ of man. He passed on down the trench and never knew whose trench it once had been. Frightful²⁵ shells had smashed it here and there, and had twisted iron as though round gigantic fingers that had twiddled it idly a moment and let it drop to lie in the rain for ever. He passed more dug-outs and black fungi, watching them; and then he left the trench, going straight on over the open: again dead grasses hissed about his feet, sometimes small wire sang faintly He passed through a belt of nettles and thence to dead grass again. And now the light of the afternoon was beginning to dwindle²⁶ away. He had intended to reach his journey's end by daylight, for he was past the time of life when one wanders after dark, but he had not contemplated²⁷ the difficulty of walking over that road, or dreamed that lanes he knew could be so foundered²⁸ and merged²⁹, in that mournful desolate moor³⁰.

 

Evening was filling fast, still he kept on. It was the time when the cornstacks would once have begun to grow indistinct, and slowly turn grey in the greyness, and homesteads one by one would have lit their innumerable lights. But evening now came down on a dreary³¹ desolation: and a cold wind arose; and the traveller heard the mournful sound of iron flapping on broken things, and knew that this was the sound that would haunt the waste for ever.

 

And evening settled down, a huge grey canvas waiting for sombre pictures; a setting for all the dark tales of the world, haunted forever a grizzly³² place was haunted ever, in any century, in any land; but not by mere ghosts from all those thousands of graves and half-buried bodies and sepulchral³³ shell-holes; haunted by things huger and more disastrous³⁴ than that; haunted by wailing³⁵ ambitions, under the stars or moon, drifting across the rubbish that once was villages, which strews³⁶ the lonely plain; the lost ambitions of two Emperors and a Sultan wailing from wind to wind and whimpering for dominion³⁷ of the world.

 

The cold wind blew over the blasted heath and bits of broken iron flapped on and on.

 

And now the traveller hurried, for night was falling, and such a night as three witches might have brewed³⁸ in a cauldron. He went on eagerly but with infinite sadness. Over the sky-line strange rockets went up from the war, peered oddly over the earth and went down again. Very far off a few soldiers lit a little fire of their own. The night grew colder; tap, tap, went broken iron.

 

And at last the traveller stopped in the lonely night and looked round him attentively³⁹, and appeared to be satisfied that he had come within sight of his journey's end, although to ordinary eyes the spot to which he had come differed in no way from the rest of the waste.

 

He went no further, but turned round and round, peering piece by piece at that weedy and cratered⁴⁰ earth.

 

He was looking for the village where he was born.

1 justifies   

证明…有理( justify的第三人称单数 )； 为…辩护； 对…作出解释； 为…辩解（或辩护）

参考例句：

• Their frequency of use both justifies and requires the memorization. 频繁的使用需要记忆，也促进了记忆。 来自About Face 3交互设计精髓
• In my judgement the present end justifies the means. 照我的意见，只要目的正当，手段是可以不计较的。

2 desolate   

adj.荒凉的，荒芜的；孤独的，凄凉的；v.使荒芜，使孤寂

参考例句：

• The city was burned into a desolate waste.那座城市被烧成一片废墟。
• We all felt absolutely desolate when she left.她走后，我们都觉得万分孤寂。

3 mere   

adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过

参考例句：

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

4 melancholy   

n.忧郁，愁思；adj.令人感伤（沮丧）的，忧郁的

参考例句：

• All at once he fell into a state of profound melancholy.他立即陷入无尽的忧思之中。
• He felt melancholy after he failed the exam.这次考试没通过，他感到很郁闷。

5 vista   

n.远景，深景，展望，回想

参考例句：

• From my bedroom window I looked out on a crowded vista of hills and rooftops.我从卧室窗口望去，远处尽是连绵的山峦和屋顶。
• These uprisings come from desperation and a vista of a future without hope.发生这些暴动是因为人们被逼上了绝路，未来看不到一点儿希望。

6 funereal   

adj.悲哀的；送葬的

参考例句：

• He addressed the group in funereal tones.他语气沉痛地对大家讲话。
• The mood of the music was almost funereal.音乐的调子几乎像哀乐。

7 rustled   

v.发出沙沙的声音( rustle的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• He rustled his papers. 他把试卷弄得沙沙地响。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Leaves rustled gently in the breeze. 树叶迎着微风沙沙作响。 来自《简明英汉词典》

8 entanglements   

n.瓜葛( entanglement的名词复数 )；牵连；纠缠；缠住

参考例句：

• Mr. White threaded his way through the legal entanglements. 怀特先生成功地解决了这些法律纠纷。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• At dawn we broke through the barbed wire entanglements under the city wall. 拂晓我们突破了城墙的铁丝网。 来自《简明英汉词典》

9 rusty   

adj.生锈的；锈色的；荒废了的

参考例句：

• The lock on the door is rusty and won't open.门上的锁锈住了。
• I haven't practiced my French for months and it's getting rusty.几个月不用，我的法语又荒疏了。

10 strands   

n.（线、绳、金属线、毛发等的）股( strand的名词复数 )；缕；海洋、湖或河的)岸；（观点、计划、故事等的）部份v.使滞留，使搁浅( strand的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• Twist a length of rope from strands of hemp. 用几股麻搓成了一段绳子。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• She laced strands into a braid. 她把几股线编织成一根穗带。 来自《简明英汉词典》

11 hissed   

发嘶嘶声( hiss的过去式和过去分词 )； 发嘘声表示反对

参考例句：

• Have you ever been hissed at in the middle of a speech? 你在演讲中有没有被嘘过？
• The iron hissed as it pressed the wet cloth. 熨斗压在湿布上时发出了嘶嘶声。

12 crater   

n.火山口，弹坑

参考例句：

• With a telescope you can see the huge crater of Ve-suvius.用望远镜你能看到巨大的维苏威火山口。
• They came to the lip of a dead crater.他们来到了一个死火山口。

13 utterly   

adv.完全地，绝对地

参考例句：

• Utterly devoted to the people,he gave his life in saving his patients.他忠于人民，把毕生精力用于挽救患者的生命。
• I was utterly ravished by the way she smiled.她的微笑使我完全陶醉了。

14 lamentable   

adj.令人惋惜的，悔恨的

参考例句：

• This lamentable state of affairs lasted until 1947.这一令人遗憾的事态一直持续至1947年。
• His practice of inebriation was lamentable.他的酗酒常闹得别人束手无策。

15 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：

• We can't use these potatoes; they've all sprouted. 这些土豆儿不能吃了，都出芽了。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The rice seeds have sprouted. 稻种已经出芽了。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

16 trench   

n./v.(挖)沟，(挖)战壕

参考例句：

• The soldiers recaptured their trench.兵士夺回了战壕。
• The troops received orders to trench the outpost.部队接到命令在前哨周围筑壕加强防卫。

17 trenches   

深沟，地沟( trench的名词复数 )； 战壕

参考例句：

• life in the trenches 第一次世界大战期间的战壕生活
• The troops stormed the enemy's trenches and fanned out across the fields. 部队猛攻敌人的战壕，并在田野上呈扇形散开。

18 fungi   

n.真菌，霉菌

参考例句：

• Students practice to apply the study of genetics to multicellular plants and fungi.学生们练习把基因学应用到多细胞植物和真菌中。
• The lawn was covered with fungi.草地上到处都是蘑菇。

19 rustling   

n. 瑟瑟声，沙沙声 adj. 发沙沙声的

参考例句：

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

20 nettles   

n.荨麻( nettle的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• I tingle where I sat in the nettles. 我坐过在荨麻上的那个部位觉得刺痛。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• This bleak place overgrown with nettles was the churchyard. 那蔓草丛生的凄凉地方是教堂公墓。 来自辞典例句

21 unnatural   

adj.不自然的；反常的

参考例句：

• Did her behaviour seem unnatural in any way?她有任何反常表现吗？
• She has an unnatural smile on her face.她脸上挂着做作的微笑。

22 marvelling   

v.惊奇，对…感到惊奇( marvel的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• \"Yes,'said the clerk, marvelling at such ignorance of a common fact. “是的，\"那人说，很奇怪她竟会不知道这么一件普通的事情。 来自英汉文学 - 嘉莉妹妹
• Chueh-hui watched, marvelling at how easy it was for people to forget. 觉慧默默地旁观着这一切，他也忍不住笑了。 来自汉英文学 - 家（1-26） - 家（1-26）

23 thronged   

v.成群，挤满( throng的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• Mourners thronged to the funeral. 吊唁者蜂拥着前来参加葬礼。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The department store was thronged with people. 百货商店挤满了人。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》

24 deserted   

adj.荒芜的，荒废的，无人的，被遗弃的

参考例句：

• The deserted village was filled with a deathly silence.这个荒废的村庄死一般的寂静。
• The enemy chieftain was opposed and deserted by his followers.敌人头目众叛亲离。

25 frightful   

adj.可怕的；讨厌的

参考例句：

• How frightful to have a husband who snores!有一个发鼾声的丈夫多讨厌啊！
• We're having frightful weather these days.这几天天气坏极了。

26 dwindle   

v.逐渐变小（或减少）

参考例句：

• The factory's workforce has dwindled from over 4,000 to a few hundred.工厂雇员总数已经从4,000多人减少到几百人。
• He is struggling to come to terms with his dwindling authority.他正努力适应自己权力被削弱这一局面。

27 contemplated   

adj. 预期的 动词contemplate的过去分词形式

参考例句：

• The doctor contemplated the difficult operation he had to perform. 医生仔细地考虑他所要做的棘手的手术。
• The government has contemplated reforming the entire tax system. 政府打算改革整个税收体制。

28 foundered   

v.创始人( founder的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• Three ships foundered in heavy seas. 三艘船在波涛汹涌的海面上沉没了。 来自辞典例句
• The project foundered as a result of lack of finance. 该项目因缺乏资金而告吹。 来自辞典例句

29 merged   

（使）混合( merge的过去式和过去分词 )； 相融； 融入； 渐渐消失在某物中

参考例句：

• Turf wars are inevitable when two departments are merged. 两个部门合并时总免不了争争权限。
• The small shops were merged into a large market. 那些小商店合并成为一个大商场。

30 moor   

n.荒野，沼泽；vt.(使)停泊；vi.停泊

参考例句：

• I decided to moor near some tourist boats.我决定在一些观光船附近停泊。
• There were hundreds of the old huts on the moor.沼地上有成百上千的古老的石屋。

31 dreary   

adj.令人沮丧的，沉闷的，单调乏味的

参考例句：

• They live such dreary lives.他们的生活如此乏味。
• She was tired of hearing the same dreary tale of drunkenness and violence.她听够了那些关于酗酒和暴力的乏味故事。

32 grizzly   

adj.略为灰色的，呈灰色的；n.灰色大熊

参考例句：

• This grizzly liked people.这只灰熊却喜欢人。
• Grizzly bears are not generally social creatures.一般说来，灰熊不是社交型动物。

33 sepulchral   

adj.坟墓的，阴深的

参考例句：

• He made his way along the sepulchral corridors.他沿着阴森森的走廊走着。
• There was a rather sepulchral atmosphere in the room.房间里有一种颇为阴沉的气氛。

34 disastrous   

adj.灾难性的，造成灾害的；极坏的，很糟的

参考例句：

• The heavy rainstorm caused a disastrous flood.暴雨成灾。
• Her investment had disastrous consequences.She lost everything she owned.她的投资结果很惨，血本无归。

35 wailing   

v.哭叫，哀号( wail的现在分词 )；沱

参考例句：

• A police car raced past with its siren wailing. 一辆警车鸣着警报器飞驰而过。
• The little girl was wailing miserably. 那小女孩难过得号啕大哭。

36 strews   

v.撒在…上( strew的第三人称单数 )；散落于；点缀；撒满

参考例句：

• MOUSE, n. An animal which strews its path with fainting women. 这种动物通常用昏倒的女人点缀它走过的路。 来自互联网

37 dominion   

n.统治，管辖，支配权；领土，版图

参考例句：

• Alexander held dominion over a vast area.亚历山大曾统治过辽阔的地域。
• In the affluent society,the authorities are hardly forced to justify their dominion.在富裕社会里，当局几乎无需证明其统治之合理。

38 brewed   

调制( brew的过去式和过去分词 )； 酝酿； 沏（茶）； 煮（咖啡）

参考例句：

• The beer is brewed in the Czech Republic. 这种啤酒是在捷克共和国酿造的。
• The boy brewed a cup of coffee for his mother. 这男孩给他妈妈冲了一杯咖啡。 来自《简明英汉词典》

39 attentively   

adv.聚精会神地；周到地；谛；凝神

参考例句：

• She listened attentively while I poured out my problems. 我倾吐心中的烦恼时，她一直在注意听。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• She listened attentively and set down every word he said. 她专心听着，把他说的话一字不漏地记下来。 来自《简明英汉词典》

40 cratered   

adj.有坑洞的，多坑的v.火山口( crater的过去分词 )；弹坑等

参考例句：

• The surface cratered with the constant dropping of water. 表面因经常滴水而成坑。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
• Artillery cratered the roads. 炮击后大路布满了弹坑。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》