“I have prepared a list,” I replied, and took from my pocket a sheet of paper. I had jotted4 down the names of a number of celebrities5 whom I proposed to interview on this all-important question, and I began to read over my list. It contained two ex-government officials, a general, a Dominican father, four actresses, two café-concert singers, four actors, two financiers, two lawyers, a surgeon and a lot of literary celebrities. At some of the names my chief would nod his approval, at others he would say curtly6, with an affectation of American manners, “Bad; strike it off,” until I came to the name I had kept for the last, that of Pierre Fauchery, the famous novelist.
“Strike that off,” he said, shrugging his shoulders. “He is not on good terms with us.”
“And yet,” I suggested, “is there any one whose opinion would be of greater interest to reading men as well as to women? I had even thought of beginning with him.”
“The devil you had!” interrupted the editor-in-chief. “It is one of Fauchery’s principles not to see any reporters. I have sent him ten if I have one, and he has shown them all the door. The Boulevard does not relish7 such treatment, so we have given him some pretty hard hits.”
“Nevertheless, I will have an interview with Fauchery for the Boulevard,” was my reply. “I am sure of it.”
“If you succeed,” he replied, “I’ll raise your salary. That man makes me tired with his scorn of newspaper notoriety. He must take his share of it, like the rest. But you will not succeed. What makes you think you can?”
“Permit me to tell you my reason later. In forty-eight hours you will see whether I have succeeded or not.”
“Go and do not spare the fellow.”
Decidedly. I had made some progress as a journalist, even in my two weeks’ apprenticeship9, if I could permit Pascal to speak in this way of the man I most admired among living writers. Since that not far-distant time when, tired of being poor, I had made up my mind to cast my lot with the multitude in Paris, I had tried to lay aside my old self, as lizards10 do their skins, and I had almost succeeded. In a former time, a former time that was but yesterday, I knew—for in a drawer full of poems, dramas and half-finished tales I had proof of it—that there had once existed a certain Jules Labarthe who had come to Paris with the hope of becoming a great man. That person believed in Literature with a capital “L;” in the Ideal, another capital; in Glory, a third capital. He was now dead and buried. Would he some day, his position assured, begin to write once more from pure love of his art? Possibly, but for the moment I knew only the energetic, practical Labarthe, who had joined the procession with the idea of getting into the front rank, and of obtaining as soon as possible an income of thirty thousand francs a year. What would it matter to this second individual if that vile11 Pascal should boast of having stolen a march on the most delicate, the most powerful of the heirs of Balzac, since I, the new Labarthe, was capable of looking forward to an operation which required about as much delicacy12 as some of the performances of my editor-in-chief? I had, as a matter of fact, a sure means of obtaining the interview. It was this: When I was young and simple I had sent some verses and stories to Pierre Fauchery, the same verses and stories the refusal of which by four editors had finally made me decide to enter the field of journalism13. The great writer was traveling at this time, but he had replied to me. I had responded by a letter to which he again replied, this time with an invitation to call upon him. I went I did not find him. I went again. I did not find him that time. Then a sort of timidity prevented my returning to the charge. So I had never met him. He knew me only as the young Elia of my two epistles. This is what I counted upon to extort14 from him the favor of an interview which he certainly would refuse to a mere15 newspaper man. My plan was simple; to present myself at his house, to be received, to conceal16 my real occupation, to sketch17 vaguely18 a subject for a novel in which there should occur a discussion upon the Age for Love, to make him talk and then when he should discover his conversation in print—here I began to feel some remorse19. But I stifled20 it with the terrible phrase, “the struggle for life,” and also by the recollection of numerous examples culled21 from the firm with which I now had the honor of being connected.
The morning after I had had this very literary conversation with my honorable director, I rang at the door of the small house in the Rue22 Desbordes-Valmore where Pierre Fauchery lived, in a retired23 corner of Passy. Having taken up my pen to tell a plain unvarnished tale I do not see how I can conceal the wretched feeling of pleasure which, as I rang the bell, warmed my heart at the thought of the good joke I was about to play on the owner of this peaceful abode24.
Even after making up one’s mind to the sacrifices I had decided8 upon, there is always left a trace of envy for those who have triumphed in the melancholy25 struggle for literary supremacy26. It was a real disappointment to me when the servant replied, ill-humoredly, that M. Fauchery was not in Paris. I asked when he would return. The servant did not know. I asked for his address. The servant did not know that. Poor lion, who thought he had secured anonymity27 for his holiday! A half-hour later I had discovered that he was staying for the present at the Château de Proby, near Nemours. I had merely had to make inquiries28 of his publisher. Two hours later I bought my ticket at the Gare de Lyon for the little town chosen by Balzac as the scene for his delicious story of Ursule Mirouet. I took a traveling bag and was prepared to spend the night there. In case I failed to see the master that afternoon I had decided to make sure of him the next morning. Exactly seven hours after the servant, faithful to his trust, had declared that he did not know where his master was staying, I was standing29 in the hall of the château waiting for my card to be sent up. I had taken care to write on it a reminder30 of our conversation of the year before, and this time, after a ten-minute wait in the hall, during which I noticed with singular curiosity and malice31 two very elegant and very pretty young women going out for a walk, I was admitted to his presence. “Aha,” I said to myself, “this then is the secret of his exile; the interview promises well!”
The novelist received me in a cosy32 little room, with a window opening onto the park, already beginning to turn yellow with the advancing autumn. A wood fire burned in the fireplace and lighted up the walls which were hung with flowered cretonne and on which could be distinguished33 several colored English prints representing cross-country rides and the jumping of hedges. Here was the worldly environment with which Fauchery is so often reproached. But the books and papers that littered the table bore witness that the present occupant of this charming retreat remained a substantial man of letters. His habit of constant work was still further attested34 by his face, which I admit, gave me all at once a feeling of remorse for the trick I was about to play him. If I had found him the snobbish35 pretender whom the weekly newspapers were in the habit of ridiculing36, it would have been a delight to outwit his diplomacy37. But no! I saw, as he put down his pen to receive me, a man about fifty-seven years old, with a face that bore the marks of reflection, eyes tired from sleeplessness38, a brow heavy with thought, who said as he pointed39 to an easy chair, “You will excuse me, my dear confrère, for keeping you waiting.” I, his dear confrère! Ah! if he had known! “You see,” and he pointed to the page still wet with ink, “that man cannot be free from the slavery of furnishing copy. One has less facility at my age than at yours. Now, let us speak of yourself. How do you happen to be at Nemours? What have you been doing since the story and the verses you were kind enough to send me?”
It is vain to try to sacrifice once for all one’s youthful ideals. When a man has loved literature as I loved it at twenty, he cannot be satisfied at twenty-six to give up his early passion, even at the bidding of implacable necessity. So Pierre Fauchery remembered my poor verses! He had actually read my story! His allusion40 proved it. Could I tell him at such a moment that since the creation of those first works I had despaired of myself, and that I had changed my gun to the other shoulder? The image of the Boulevard office rose suddenly before me. I heard the voice of the editor-in-chief saying, “Interview Fauchery? You will never accomplish that;” so, faithful to my self-imposed rôle, I replied, “I have retired to Nemours to work upon a novel called The Age for Love, and it is on this subject that I wished to consult you, my dear master.”
It seemed to me—it may possibly have been an illusion—that at the announcement of the so-called title of my so-called novel, a smile and a shadow flitted over Fauchery’s eyes and mouth. A vision of the two young women I had met in the hall came back to me. Was the author of so many great masterpieces of analysis about to live a new book before writing it? I had no time to answer this question, for, with a glance at an onyx vase containing some cigarettes of Turkish tobacco, he offered me one, lighted one himself and began first to question, then to reply to me. I listened while he thought aloud and had almost forgotten my Machiavellian42 combination, so keen was my relish of the joyous43 intimacy44 of this communion with a mind I had passionately45 loved in his works. He was the first of the great writers of our day whom I had thus approached on something like terms of intimacy. As we talked I observed the strange similarity between his spoken and his written words. I admired the charming simplicity48 with which he abandoned himself to the pleasures of imagination, his superabundant intelligence, the liveliness of his impressions and his total absence of arrogance49 and of pose.
“There is no such thing as an age for love,” he said in substance, “because the man capable of loving—in the complex and modern sense of love as a sort of ideal exaltation—never ceases to love. I will go further; he never ceases to love the same person. You know the experiment that a contemporary physiologist50 tried with a series of portraits to determine in what the indefinable resemblances called family likeness51 consisted? He took photographs of twenty persons of the same blood, then he photographed these photographs on the same plate, one over the other. In this way he discovered the common features which determined52 the type. Well, I am convinced that if we could try a similar experiment and photograph one upon another the pictures of the different women whom the same man has loved or thought he had loved in the course of his life we should discover that all these women resembled one another. The most inconsistent have cherished one and the same being through five or six or even twenty different embodiments. The main point is to find out at what age they have met the woman who approaches nearest to the one whose image they have constantly borne within themselves. For them that would be the age for love.
“The age for being loved?” he continued. “The deepest of all the passions I have ever known a man to inspire was in the case of one of my masters, a poet, and he was sixty years old at the time. It is true that he still held himself as erect53 as a young man, he came and went with a step as light as yours, he conversed54 like Rivarol, he composed verses as beautiful as De Vigny’s. He was besides very poor, very lonely and very unhappy, having lost one after another, his wife and his children. You remember the words of Shakespeare’s Moor55: ‘She loved me for the dangers I had passed, and I loved her that she did pity them.’
“So it was that this great artist inspired in a beautiful, noble and wealthy young Russian woman, a devotion so passionate46 that because of him she never married. She found a way to take care of him, day and night, in spite of his family, during his last illness, and at the present time, having bought from his heirs all of the poet’s personal belongings56, she keeps the apartment where he lived just as it was at the time of his death. That was years ago. In her case she found in a man three times her own age the person who corresponded to a certain ideal which she carried in her heart. Look at Goethe, at Lamartine and at many others! To depict58 feelings on this high plane, you must give up the process of minute and insignificant59 observation which is the bane of the artists of to-day. In order that a sixty-year-old lover should appear neither ridiculous nor odious60 you must apply to him what the elder Corneille so proudly said of himself in his lines to the marquise:
“‘Cependant, j’ai quelques charmes
Qui sont assez eclatants
Pour n’avoir pas trop d’alarmes
“Have the courage to analyze62 great emotions to create characters who shall be lofty and true. The whole art of the analytical63 novel lies there.”
As he spoke47 the master had such a light of intellectual certainty in his eyes that to me he seemed the embodiment of one of those great characters he had been urging me to describe. It made me feel that the theory of this man, himself almost a sexagenarian, that at any age one may inspire love, was not unreasonable64! The contrast between the world of ideas in which he moved and the atmosphere of the literary shop in which for the last few months I had been stifling65 was too strong. The dreams of my youth were realized in this man whose gifts remained unimpaired after the production of thirty volumes and whose face, growing old, was a living illustration of the beautiful saying: “Since we must wear out, let us wear out nobly.” His slender figure bespoke66 the austerity of long hours of work; his firm mouth showed his decision of character; his brow, with its deep furrows67, had the paleness of the paper over which he so often bent68; and yet, the refinement69 of his hands, so well cared for, the sober elegance70 of his dress and an aristocratic air that was natural to him showed that the finer professional virtues71 had been cultivated in the midst of a life of frivolous72 temptations. These temptations had been no more of a disturbance73 to his ethical74 and spiritual nature than the academic honors, the financial successes, the numerous editions that had been his. Withal he was an awfully75 good fellow, for, after having talked at great length with me, he ended by saying, “Since you are staying in Nemours I hope to see you often, and to-day I cannot let you go without presenting you to my hostess.”
What could I say? This was the way in which a mere reporter on the Boulevard found himself installed at a five-o’clock tea-table in the salon76 of a château, where surely no newspaper man had ever before set foot and was presented as a young poet and novelist of the future to the old Marquise de Proby, whose guest the master was. This amiable77 white-haired dowager questioned me upon my alleged78 work and I replied equivocally, with blushes, which the good lady must have attributed to bashful timidity. Then, as though some evil genius had conspired79 to multiply the witnesses of my bad conduct, the two young women whom I had seen going out, returned in the midst of my unlooked-for visit. Ah, my interview with this student of femininity upon the Age for Love was about to have a living commentary! How it would illumine his words to hear him conversing80 with these new arrivals! One was a young girl of possibly twenty—a Russian if I rightly understood the name. She was rather tall, with a long face lighted up by two very gentle black eyes, singular in their fire and intensity81. She bore a striking resemblance to the portrait attributed to Froncia in the Salon Carré of the Louvre which goes by the name of the “Man in Black,” because the color of his clothes and his mantle82. About her mouth and nostrils83 was that same subdued84 nervousness, that same restrained feverishness85 which gives to the portrait its striking qualities. I had not been there a quarter of an hour before I had guessed from the way she watched and listened to Fauchery what a passionate interest the old master inspired in her. When he spoke she paid rapt attention. When she spoke to him, I felt her voice shiver, if I may use the word, and he, he glorious writer, surfeited86 with triumphs, exhausted87 by his labors88, seemed, as soon as he felt the radiance of her glance of ingenuous89 idolatry, to recover that vivacity90, that elasticity91 of impression, which is the sovereign grace of youthful lovers.
“I understand now why he cited Goethe and the young girl of Marienbad,” said I to myself with a laugh, as my hired carriage sped on toward Nemours. “He was thinking of himself. He is in love with that child, and she is in love with him. We shall hear of his marrying her. There’s a wedding that will call forth92 copy, and when Pascal hears that I witnessed the courtship—but just now I must think of my interview. Won’t Fauchery be surprised to read it day after to-morrow in his paper? But does he read the papers? It may not be right but what harm will it do him? Besides, it’s a part of the struggle for life.” It was by such reasoning, I remember, the reasoning of a man determined to arrive that I tried to lull93 to sleep the inward voice that cried, “You have no right to put on paper, to give to the public what this noble writer said to you, supposing that he was receiving a poet, not a reporter.” But I heard also the voice of my chief saying, “You will never succeed.” And this second voice, I am ashamed to confess, triumphed over the other with all the more ease because I was obliged to do something to kill time. I reached Nemours too late for the train which would have brought me back to Paris about dinner time. At the old inn they gave me a room which was clean and quiet, a good place to write, so I spent the evening until bedtime composing the first of the articles which were to form my inquiry. I scribbled94 away under the vivid impressions of the afternoon, my powers as well as my nerves spurred by a touch of remorse. Yes, I scribbled four pages which would have been no disgrace to the Journal des Goncourts, that exquisite95 manual of the perfect reporter. It was all there, my journey, my arrival at the chateau96, a sketch of the quaint97 eighteenth century building, with its fringe of trees and its well-kept walks, the master’s room, the master himself and his conversation; the tea at the end and the smile of the old novelist in the midst of a circle of admirers, old and young. It lacked only a few closing lines. “I will add these in the morning,” I thought, and went to bed with a feeling of duty performed, such is the nature of a writer. Under the form of an interview I had done, and I knew it, the best work of my life.
What happens while we sleep? Is there, unknown to us, a secret and irresistible98 ferment99 of ideas while our senses are closed to the impressions of the outside world? Certain it is that on awakening100 I am apt to find myself in a state of mind very different from that in which I went to sleep. I had not been awake ten minutes before the image of Pierre Fauchery came up before me, and at the same time the thought that I had taken a base advantage of the kindness of his reception of me became quite unbearable101. I felt a passionate longing57 to see him again, to ask his pardon for my deception102. I wished to tell him who I was, with what purpose I had gone to him and that I regretted it. But there was no need of a confession103. It would be enough to destroy the pages I had written the night before. With this idea I arose. Before tearing them up, I reread them. And then—any writer will understand me—and then they seemed to me so brilliant that I did not tear them up. Fauchery is so intelligent, so generous, was the thought that crossed my mind. What is there in this interview, after all, to offend him? Nothing, absolutely nothing. Even if I should go to him again this very morning, tell him my story and that upon the success of my little inquiry my whole future as a journalist might depend? When he found that I had had five years of poverty and hard work without accomplishing anything, and that I had had to go onto a paper in order to earn the very bread I ate, he would pardon me, he would pity me and he would say, “Publish your interview.” Yes, but what if he should forbid my publishing it? But no, he would not do that.
I passed the morning in considering my latest plan. A certain shyness made it very painful to me. But it might at the same time conciliate my delicate scruples104, my “amour-propre” as an ambitious chronicler, and the interests of my pocket-book. I knew that Pascal had the name of being very generous with an interview article if it pleased him. And besides, had he not promised me a reward if I succeeded with Fauchery? In short, I had decided to try my experiment, when, after a hasty breakfast, I saw, on stepping into the carriage I had had the night before, a victoria with coat-of-arms drive rapidly past and was stunned105 at recognizing Fauchery himself, apparently106 lost in a gloomy revery that was in singular contrast to his high spirits of the night before. A small trunk on the coachman’s seat was a sufficient indication that he was going to the station. The train for Paris left in twelve minutes, time enough for me to pack my things pell-mell into my valise and hurriedly to pay my bill. The same carriage which was to have taken me to the Château de Proby carried me to the station at full speed, and when the train left I was seated in an empty compartment107 opposite the famous writer, who was saying to me, “You, too, deserting Nemours? Like me, you work best in Paris.”
The conversation begun in this way, might easily have led to the confession I had resolved to make. But in the presence of my unexpected companion I was seized with an unconquerable shyness, moreover he inspired me with a curiosity which was quite equal to my shyness. Any number of circumstances, from a telegram from a sick relative to the most commonplace matter of business, might have explained his sudden departure from the château where I had left him so comfortably installed the night before. But that the expression of his face should have changed as it had, that in eighteen hours he should have become the careworn108, discouraged being he now seemed, when I had left him so pleased with life, so happy, so assiduous in his attentions to that pretty girl. Mademoiselle de Russaie, who loved him and whom he seemed to love, was a mystery which took complete possession of me, this time without any underlying109 professional motive110. He was to give me the key before we reached Paris. At any rate I shall always believe that part of his conversation was in an indirect way a confidence. He was still unstrung by the unexpected incident which had caused both his hasty departure and the sudden metamorphosis in what he himself, if he had been writing, would have called his “intimate heaven.” The story he told me was “per sfogarsi,” as Bayle loved to say; his idea was that I would not discover the real hero. I shall always believe that it was his own story under another name, and I love to believe it because it was so exactly his way of looking at things. It was apropos111 of the supposed subject of my novel—oh, irony112!—apropos of the real subject of my interview that he began.
“I have been thinking about our conversation and about your book, and I am afraid that I expressed myself badly yesterday. When I said that one may love and be loved at any age I ought to have added that sometimes this love comes too late. It comes when one no longer has the right to prove to the loved one how much she is loved, except by love’s sacrifice. I should like to share with you a human document, as they say to-day, which is in itself a drama with a dénouement. But I must ask you not to use it, for the secret is not my own.” With the assurance of my discretion113 he went on: “I had a friend, a companion of my own age, who, when he was twenty, had loved a young girl. He was poor, she was rich. Her family separated them. The girl married some one else and almost immediately afterward114 she died. My friend lived. Some day you will know for yourself that it is almost as true to say that one recovers from all things as that there is nothing which does not leave its scar. I had been the confidant of his serious passion, and I became the confidant of the various affairs that followed that first ineffaceable disappointment. He felt, he inspired, other loves. He tasted other joys. He endured other sorrows, and yet when we were alone and when we touched upon those confidences that come from the heart’s depths, the girl who was the ideal of his twentieth year reappeared in his words. How many times he has said to me, ‘In others I have always looked for her and as I have never found her, I have never truly loved any one but her.’”
“And had she loved him?” I interrupted.
“He did not think so,” replied Fauchery. “At least she had never told him so. Well, you must now imagine my friend at my age or almost there. You must picture him growing gray, tired of life and convinced that he had at last discovered the secret of peace. At this time he met, while visiting some relatives in a country house, a mere girl of twenty, who was the image, the haunting image of her whom he had hoped to marry thirty years before. It was one of those strange resemblances which extend from the color of the eyes to the ‘timbre’ of the voice, from the smile to the thought, from the gestures to the finest feelings of the heart. I could not, in a few disjointed phrases describe to you the strange emotions of my friend. It would take pages and pages to make you understand the tenderness, both present and at the same time retrospective, for the dead through the living; the hypnotic condition of the soul which does not know where dreams and memories end and present feeling begins; the daily commingling115 of the most unreal thing in the world, the phantom116 of a lost love, with the freshest, the most actual, the most irresistibly117 naïve and spontaneous thing in it, a young girl. She comes, she goes, she laughs, she sings, you go about with her in the intimacy of country life, and at her side walks one long dead. After two weeks of almost careless abandon to the dangerous delights of this inward agitation118 imagine my friend entering by chance one morning one of the less frequented rooms of the house, a gallery, where, among other pictures, hung a portrait of himself, painted when he was twenty-five. He approaches the portrait abstractedly. There had been a fire in the room, so that a slight moisture dimmed the glass which protected the pastel, and on this glass, because of this moisture, he sees distinctly the trace of two lips which had been placed upon the eyes of the portrait, two small delicate lips, the sight of which makes his heart beat. He leaves the gallery, questions a servant, who tells him that no one but the young woman he has in mind has been in the room that morning.”
“What then?” I asked, as he paused.
“My friend returned to the gallery, looked once more at the adorable imprint119 of the most innocent, the most passionate of caresses120. A mirror hung near by, where he could compare his present with his former face, the man he was with the man he had been. He never told me and I never asked what his feelings were at that moment. Did he feel that he was too culpable121 to have inspired a passion in a young girl whom he would have been a fool, almost a criminal, to marry? Did he comprehend that through his age which was so apparent, it was his youth which this child loved? Did he remember, with a keenness that was all too sad, that other, who had never given him a kiss like that at a time when he might have returned it? I only know that he left the same day, determined never again to see one whom he could no longer love as he had loved the other, with the hope, the purity, the soul of a man of twenty.”
A few hours after this conversation, I found myself once more in the office of the Boulevard, seated in Pascal’s den41, and he was saying, “Already? Have you accomplished122 your interview with Pierre Fauchery?”
“He would not even receive me,” I replied, boldly.
“What did I tell you?” he sneered123, shrugging his big shoulders. “We’ll get even with him on his next volume. But you know, Labarthe, as long as you continue to have that innocent look about you, you can’t expect to succeed in newspaper work.”
I bore with the ill-humor of my chief. What would he have said if he had known that I had in my pocket an interview and in my head an anecdote124 which were material for a most successful story? And he has never had either the interview or the story. Since then I have made my way in the line where he said I should fail. I have lost my innocent look and I earn my thirty thousand francs a year, and more. I have never had the same pleasure in the printing of the most profitable, the most brilliant article that I had in consigning125 to oblivion the sheets relating my visit to Nemours. I often think that I have not served the cause of letters as I wanted to, since, with all my laborious126 work I have never written a book. And yet when I recall the irresistible impulse of respect which prevented me from committing toward a dearly loved master a most profitable but infamous127 indiscretion, I say to myself, “If you have not served the cause of letters, you have not betrayed it.” And this is the reason, now that Fauchery is no longer of this world, that it seems to me that the time has come for me to relate my first interview. There is none of which I am more proud.
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inquiry
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| n.打听，询问，调查，查问 | |
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insolent
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| adj.傲慢的，无理的 | |
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wont
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| adj.习惯于；v.习惯；n.习惯 | |
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jotted
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| v.匆忙记下( jot的过去式和过去分词 )；草草记下，匆匆记下 | |
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celebrities
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curtly
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relish
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decided
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apprenticeship
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lizards
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vile
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delicacy
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| n.精致，细微，微妙，精良；美味，佳肴 | |
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journalism
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extort
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mere
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conceal
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sketch
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vaguely
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remorse
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stifled
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| （使）窒息， （使）窒闷( stifle的过去式和过去分词 )； 镇压，遏制； 堵 | |
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culled
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| v.挑选，剔除( cull的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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rue
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| n.懊悔，芸香，后悔；v.后悔，悲伤，懊悔 | |
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23
retired
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| adj.隐退的，退休的，退役的 | |
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24
abode
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| n.住处，住所 | |
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melancholy
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| n.忧郁，愁思；adj.令人感伤（沮丧）的，忧郁的 | |
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supremacy
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| n.至上；至高权力 | |
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27
anonymity
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| n.the condition of being anonymous | |
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28
inquiries
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| n.调查( inquiry的名词复数 )；疑问；探究；打听 | |
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29
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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30
reminder
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| n.提醒物，纪念品；暗示，提示 | |
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31
malice
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| n.恶意，怨恨，蓄意；[律]预谋 | |
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32
cosy
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| adj.温暖而舒适的，安逸的 | |
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33
distinguished
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| adj.卓越的，杰出的，著名的 | |
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34
attested
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| adj.经检验证明无病的，经检验证明无菌的v.证明( attest的过去式和过去分词 )；证实；声称…属实；使宣誓 | |
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35
snobbish
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| adj.势利的，谄上欺下的 | |
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36
ridiculing
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| v.嘲笑，嘲弄，奚落( ridicule的现在分词 ) | |
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37
diplomacy
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| n.外交；外交手腕，交际手腕 | |
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38
sleeplessness
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| n.失眠，警觉 | |
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39
pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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40
allusion
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| n.暗示，间接提示 | |
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41
den
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| n.兽穴；秘密地方；安静的小房间，私室 | |
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42
machiavellian
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| adj.权谋的，狡诈的 | |
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43
joyous
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| adj.充满快乐的；令人高兴的 | |
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44
intimacy
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| n.熟悉，亲密，密切关系，亲昵的言行 | |
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passionately
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| ad.热烈地，激烈地 | |
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passionate
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| adj.热情的，热烈的，激昂的，易动情的，易怒的，性情暴躁的 | |
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47
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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48
simplicity
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| n.简单，简易；朴素；直率，单纯 | |
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49
arrogance
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| n.傲慢，自大 | |
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50
physiologist
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| n.生理学家 | |
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51
likeness
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| n.相像，相似（之处） | |
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52
determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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53
erect
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| n./v.树立，建立，使竖立；adj.直立的，垂直的 | |
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54
conversed
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| v.交谈，谈话( converse的过去式 ) | |
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55
moor
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| n.荒野，沼泽；vt.(使)停泊；vi.停泊 | |
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56
belongings
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| n.私人物品，私人财物 | |
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57
longing
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| n.（for）渴望 | |
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58
depict
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| vt.描画，描绘；描写，描述 | |
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59
insignificant
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| adj.无关紧要的，可忽略的，无意义的 | |
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60
odious
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| adj.可憎的，讨厌的 | |
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61
ravages
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| 劫掠后的残迹，破坏的结果，毁坏后的残迹 | |
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62
analyze
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| vt.分析，解析 (=analyse) | |
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63
analytical
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| adj.分析的；用分析法的 | |
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64
unreasonable
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| adj.不讲道理的，不合情理的，过度的 | |
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65
stifling
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| a.令人窒息的 | |
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66
bespoke
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| adj.（产品）订做的；专做订货的v.预定( bespeak的过去式 )；订（货）；证明；预先请求 | |
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67
furrows
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| n.犁沟( furrow的名词复数 )；（脸上的）皱纹v.犁田，开沟( furrow的第三人称单数 ) | |
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68
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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refinement
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| n.文雅；高尚；精美；精制；精炼 | |
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elegance
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| n.优雅；优美，雅致；精致，巧妙 | |
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71
virtues
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| 美德( virtue的名词复数 )； 德行； 优点； 长处 | |
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72
frivolous
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| adj.轻薄的；轻率的 | |
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73
disturbance
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| n.动乱，骚动；打扰，干扰；(身心)失调 | |
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74
ethical
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| adj.伦理的，道德的，合乎道德的 | |
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75
awfully
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| adv.可怕地，非常地，极端地 | |
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76
salon
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| n.[法]沙龙；客厅；营业性的高级服务室 | |
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77
amiable
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| adj.和蔼可亲的，友善的，亲切的 | |
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78
alleged
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| a.被指控的，嫌疑的 | |
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79
conspired
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| 密谋( conspire的过去式和过去分词 )； 搞阴谋； （事件等）巧合； 共同导致 | |
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80
conversing
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| v.交谈，谈话( converse的现在分词 ) | |
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81
intensity
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| n.强烈，剧烈；强度；烈度 | |
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82
mantle
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| n.斗篷，覆罩之物，罩子；v.罩住，覆盖，脸红 | |
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83
nostrils
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| 鼻孔( nostril的名词复数 ) | |
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84
subdued
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| adj. 屈服的，柔和的，减弱的 动词subdue的过去式和过去分词 | |
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85
feverishness
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86
surfeited
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| v.吃得过多( surfeit的过去式和过去分词 )；由于过量而厌腻 | |
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87
exhausted
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| adj.极其疲惫的，精疲力尽的 | |
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88
labors
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| v.努力争取(for)( labor的第三人称单数 )；苦干；详细分析；（指引擎）缓慢而困难地运转 | |
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89
ingenuous
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| adj.纯朴的，单纯的；天真的；坦率的 | |
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90
vivacity
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| n.快活，活泼，精神充沛 | |
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91
elasticity
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| n.弹性，伸缩力 | |
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92
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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93
lull
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| v.使安静，使入睡，缓和，哄骗；n.暂停，间歇 | |
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94
scribbled
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| v.潦草的书写( scribble的过去式和过去分词 )；乱画；草草地写；匆匆记下 | |
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95
exquisite
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| adj.精美的；敏锐的；剧烈的，感觉强烈的 | |
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96
chateau
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| n.城堡，别墅 | |
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97
quaint
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| adj.古雅的，离奇有趣的，奇怪的 | |
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98
irresistible
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| adj.非常诱人的，无法拒绝的，无法抗拒的 | |
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99
ferment
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| vt.使发酵；n./vt.（使）激动，（使）动乱 | |
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100
awakening
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| n.觉醒，醒悟 adj.觉醒中的；唤醒的 | |
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101
unbearable
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| adj.不能容忍的；忍受不住的 | |
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102
deception
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| n.欺骗，欺诈；骗局，诡计 | |
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103
confession
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| n.自白，供认，承认 | |
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104
scruples
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| n.良心上的不安( scruple的名词复数 )；顾虑，顾忌v.感到于心不安，有顾忌( scruple的第三人称单数 ) | |
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105
stunned
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| adj. 震惊的，惊讶的 动词stun的过去式和过去分词 | |
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106
apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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107
compartment
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| n.卧车包房，隔间；分隔的空间 | |
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108
careworn
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| adj.疲倦的，饱经忧患的 | |
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109
underlying
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| adj.在下面的，含蓄的，潜在的 | |
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110
motive
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| n.动机，目的；adv.发动的，运动的 | |
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111
apropos
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| adv.恰好地；adj.恰当的；关于 | |
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112
irony
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| n.反语，冷嘲；具有讽刺意味的事，嘲弄 | |
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113
discretion
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| n.谨慎；随意处理 | |
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114
afterward
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| adv.后来；以后 | |
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115
commingling
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| v.混合，掺和，合并( commingle的现在分词 ) | |
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116
phantom
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| n.幻影，虚位，幽灵；adj.错觉的，幻影的，幽灵的 | |
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117
irresistibly
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| adv.无法抵抗地，不能自持地；极为诱惑人地 | |
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118
agitation
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| n.搅动；搅拌；鼓动，煽动 | |
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119
imprint
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| n.印痕，痕迹；深刻的印象；vt.压印，牢记 | |
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120
caresses
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| 爱抚，抚摸( caress的名词复数 ) | |
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121
culpable
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| adj.有罪的，该受谴责的 | |
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122
accomplished
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| adj.有才艺的；有造诣的；达到了的 | |
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123
sneered
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| 讥笑，冷笑( sneer的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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124
anecdote
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| n.轶事，趣闻，短故事 | |
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125
consigning
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| v.把…置于（令人不快的境地）( consign的现在分词 )；把…托付给；把…托人代售；丟弃 | |
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126
laborious
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| adj.吃力的，努力的，不流畅 | |
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127
infamous
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| adj.声名狼藉的，臭名昭著的，邪恶的 | |
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