The harsh emphasis, the pitiless black and white of scenery had altogether disappeared. The glare of the sun had taken upon itself a faint tinge1 of amber2; the shadows upon the cliff of the crater3 wall were deeply purple. To the eastward4 a dark bank of fog still crouched5 and sheltered from the sunrise, but to the westward6 the sky was blue and clear. I began to realise the length of my insensibility.
We were no longer in a void. An atmosphere had arisen about us. The outline of things had gained in character, had grown acute and varied7; save for a shadowed space of white substance here and there, white substance that was no longer air but snow, the arctic appearance had gone altogether. Everywhere broad rusty8 brown spaces of bare and tumbled earth spread to the blaze of the sun. Here and there at the edge of the snowdrifts were transient little pools and eddies9 of water, the only things stirring in that expanse of barrenness. The sunlight inundated10 the upper two blinds of our sphere and turned our climate to high summer, but our feet were still in shadow, and the sphere was lying upon a drift of snow.
And scattered11 here and there upon the slope, and emphasised by little white threads of unthawed snow upon their shady sides, were shapes like sticks, dry twisted sticks of the same rusty hue12 as the rock upon which they lay. That caught one's thoughts sharply. Sticks! On a lifeless world? Then as my eye grew more accustomed to the texture13 of their substance, I perceived that almost all this surface had a fibrous texture, like the carpet of brown needles one finds beneath the shade of pine trees.
"Cavor!" I said.
"Yes."
"It may be a dead world now--but once--"
Something arrested my attention. I had discovered among these needles a number of little round objects. And it seemed to me that one of these had moved. "Cavor," I whispered.
"What?"
But I did not answer at once. I stared incredulous. For an instant I could not believe my eyes. I gave an inarticulate cry. I gripped his arm. I pointed14. "Look!" I cried, finding my tongue. "There! Yes! And there!"
His eyes followed my pointing finger. "Eh?" he said.
How can I describe the thing I saw? It is so petty a thing to state, and yet it seemed so wonderful, so pregnant with emotion. I have said that amidst the stick-like litter were these rounded bodies, these little oval bodies that might have passed as very small pebbles15. And now first one and then another had stirred, had rolled over and cracked, and down the crack of each of them showed a minute line of yellowish green, thrusting outward to meet the hot encouragement of the newly-risen sun. For a moment that was all, and then there stirred, and burst a third!
"It is a seed," said Cavor. And then I heard him whisper very softly, "Life!"
"Life!" And immediately it poured upon us that our vast journey had not been made in vain, that we had come to no arid16 waste of minerals, but to a world that lived and moved! We watched intensely. I remember I kept rubbing the glass before me with my sleeve, jealous of the faintest suspicion of mist.
The picture was clear and vivid only in the middle of the field. All about that centre the dead fibres and seeds were magnified and distorted by the curvature of the glass. But we could see enough! One after another all down the sunlit slope these miraculous17 little brown bodies burst and gaped18 apart, like seed-pods, like the husks of fruits; opened eager mouths. that drank in the heat and light pouring in a cascade19 from the newly-risen sun.
Every moment more of these seed coats ruptured20, and even as they did so the swelling21 pioneers overflowed23 their rent-distended24 seed-cases, and passed into the second stage of growth. With a steady assurance, a swift deliberation, these amazing seeds thrust a rootlet downward to the earth and a queer little bundle-like bud into the air. In a little while the whole slope was dotted with minute plantlets standing25 at attention in the blaze of the sun.
They did not stand for long. The bundle-like buds swelled26 and strained and opened with a jerk, thrusting out a coronet of little sharp tips, spreading a whorl of tiny, spiky27, brownish leaves, that lengthened28 rapidly, lengthened visibly even as we watched. The movement was slower than any animal's, swifter than any plant's I have ever seen before. How can I suggest it to you--the way that growth went on? The leaf tips grew so that they moved onward29 even while we looked at them. The brown seed-case shrivelled and was absorbed with an equal rapidity. Have you ever on a cold day taken a thermometer into your warm hand and watched the little thread of mercury creep up the tube? These moon plants grew like that.
In a few minutes, as it seemed, the buds of the more forward of these plants had lengthened into a stem and were even putting forth30 a second whorl of leaves, and all the slope that had seemed so recently a lifeless stretch of litter was now dark with the stunted31 olive-green herbage of bristling32 spikes33 that swayed with the vigour34 of their growing.
I turned about, and behold35! along the upper edge of a rock to the eastward a similar fringe in a scarcely less forward condition swayed and bent36, dark against the blinding glare of the sun. And beyond this fringe was the silhouette37 of a plant mass, branching clumsily like a cactus38, and swelling visibly, swelling like a bladder that fills with air.
Then to the westward also I discovered that another such distended form was rising over the scrub. But here the light fell upon its sleek39 sides, and I could see that its colour was a vivid orange hue. It rose as one watched it; if one looked away from it for a minute and then back, its outline had changed; it thrust out blunt congested branches until in a little time it rose a coralline shape of many feet in height. Compared with such a growth the terrestrial puff-ball, which will sometimes swell22 a foot in diameter in a single night, would be a hopeless laggard40. But then the puff-ball grows against a gravitational pull six times that of the moon. Beyond, out of gullies and flats that had been hidden from us, but not from the quickening sun, over reefs and banks of shining rock, a bristling beard of spiky and fleshy vegetation was straining into view, hurrying tumultuously to take advantage of the brief day in which it must flower and fruit and seed again and die. It was like a miracle, that growth. So, one must imagine, the trees and plants arose at the Creation and covered the desolation of the new-made earth.
Imagine it! Imagine that dawn! The resurrection of the frozen air, the stirring and quickening of the soil, and then this silent uprising of vegetation, this unearthly ascent41 of fleshiness and spikes. Conceive it all lit by a blaze that would make the intensest sunlight of earth seem watery42 and weak. And still around this stirring jungle, wherever there was shadow, lingered banks of bluish snow. And to have the picture of our impression complete, you must bear in mind that we saw it all through a thick bent glass, distorting it as things are distorted by a lens, acute only in the centre of the picture, and very bright there, and towards the edges magnified and unreal.
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1
tinge
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| vt.(较淡)着色于，染色；使带有…气息；n.淡淡色彩，些微的气息 | |
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2
amber
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| n.琥珀；琥珀色；adj.琥珀制的 | |
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crater
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| n.火山口，弹坑 | |
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eastward
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| adv.向东；adj.向东的；n.东方，东部 | |
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crouched
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| v.屈膝，蹲伏( crouch的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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westward
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| n.西方，西部；adj.西方的，向西的；adv.向西 | |
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varied
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| adj.多样的，多变化的 | |
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rusty
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| adj.生锈的；锈色的；荒废了的 | |
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eddies
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| （水、烟等的）漩涡，涡流( eddy的名词复数 ) | |
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inundated
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| v.淹没( inundate的过去式和过去分词 )；（洪水般地）涌来；充满；给予或交予（太多事物）使难以应付 | |
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scattered
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| adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的 | |
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hue
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| n.色度；色调；样子 | |
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texture
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| n.(织物)质地；(材料)构造；结构；肌理 | |
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pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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pebbles
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| [复数]鹅卵石； 沙砾； 卵石，小圆石( pebble的名词复数 ) | |
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arid
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| adj.干旱的；(土地)贫瘠的 | |
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miraculous
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| adj.像奇迹一样的，不可思议的 | |
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gaped
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| v.目瞪口呆地凝视( gape的过去式和过去分词 )；张开，张大 | |
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cascade
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| n.小瀑布，喷流；层叠；vi.成瀑布落下 | |
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20
ruptured
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| v.（使）破裂( rupture的过去式和过去分词 )；（使体内组织等）断裂；使（友好关系）破裂；使绝交 | |
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swelling
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| n.肿胀 | |
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swell
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| vi.膨胀，肿胀；增长，增强 | |
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overflowed
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| 溢出的 | |
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distended
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| v.（使）膨胀，肿胀( distend的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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25
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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26
swelled
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| 增强( swell的过去式和过去分词 )； 肿胀； （使）凸出； 充满（激情） | |
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27
spiky
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| adj.长而尖的，大钉似的 | |
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28
lengthened
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| （时间或空间）延长，伸长( lengthen的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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onward
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| adj.向前的，前进的；adv.向前，前进，在先 | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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31
stunted
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| adj.矮小的；发育迟缓的 | |
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bristling
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| a.竖立的 | |
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33
spikes
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| n.穗( spike的名词复数 )；跑鞋；（防滑）鞋钉；尖状物v.加烈酒于( spike的第三人称单数 )；偷偷地给某人的饮料加入（更多）酒精（ 或药物）；把尖状物钉入；打乱某人的计划 | |
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vigour
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| （=vigor）n.智力，体力，精力 | |
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behold
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| v.看，注视，看到 | |
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bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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37
silhouette
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| n.黑色半身侧面影，影子，轮廓；v.描绘成侧面影，照出影子来，仅仅显出轮廓 | |
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38
cactus
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| n.仙人掌 | |
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39
sleek
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| adj.光滑的，井然有序的；v.使光滑，梳拢 | |
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40
laggard
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| n.落后者；adj.缓慢的，落后的 | |
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41
ascent
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| n.(声望或地位)提高；上升，升高；登高 | |
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42
watery
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| adj.有水的，水汪汪的；湿的，湿润的 | |
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