AFTER Chief Inspector1 Heat had left him Mr Verloc moved about the parlour. From time to time he eyed his wife through the open door. `She knows all about it now,' he thought to himself with commiseration2 for her sorrow and with some satisfaction as regarded himself. Mr Verloc's soul, if lacking greatness perhaps, was capable of tender sentiments. The prospect3 of having to break the news to her had put him into a fever. Chief Inspector Heat had relieved him of the task. That was good as far as it went. It remained for him now to face her grief.
Mr Verloc had never expected to have to face it on account of death, whose catastrophic character cannot be argued away by sophisticated reasoning or persuasive4 eloquence5. Mr Verloc never meant Stevie to perish with such abrupt6 violence. He did not mean him to perish at all. Stevie dead was a much greater nuisance than ever he had been when alive. Mr Verloc had augured7 a favourable8 issue to his enterprise, basing himself not on Stevie's intelligence, which sometimes plays queer tricks with a man, but on the blind docility9 and on the blind devotion of the boy. Though not much of a psychologist, Mr Verloc had gauged10 the depth of Stevie's fanaticism11. He dared cherish the hope of Stevie walking away from the walls of the Observatory as he had been instructed to do, taking the way shown to him several times previously12, and rejoining his brother-in-law, the wise and good Mr Verloc, outside the precincts of the park. Fifteen minutes ought to have been enough for the veriest fool to deposit the engine and walk away. And the Professor had guaranteed more than fifteen minutes. But Stevie had stumbled within five minutes of being left to himself. And Mr Verloc was shaken morally to pieces. He had foreseen everything but that. He had foreseen Stevie distracted and lost - sought for - found in some police station or provincial13 workhouse in the end. He had foreseen Stevie arrested, and was not afraid, because Mr Verloc had a great opinion of Stevie's loyalty14, which had been carefully indoctrinated with the necessity of silence in the course of many walks. Like a peripatetic15 philosopher, Mr Verloc, strolling along the streets of London, had modified Stevie's view of the police by conversations full of subtle reasonings. Never had a sage16 a more attentive17 and admiring disciple18. The submission19 and worship were so apparent that Mr Verloc had come to feel something like a liking20 for the boy. In any case, he had not foreseen the swift bringing home of his connection. That his wife should hit upon the precaution of sewing the boy's address inside his overcoat was the last thing Mr Verloc would have thought of. One can't think if everything. That was what she meant when she said that he need not worry if he lost Stevie during their walks. She had assured him that the boy would turn up all right. Well, he had turned up with a vengeance21!
`Well, well,' muttered Mr Verloc in his wonder. What did she mean by it? Spare him the trouble of keeping an anxious eye on Stevie? Most likely she had meant well. Only she ought to have told him of the precaution she had taken.
Mr Verloc walked behind the counter of the shop. His intention was not to overwhelm his wife with bitter reproaches. Mr Verloc felt no bitterness. The unexpected march of events had converted him to the doctrine22 of fatalism. Nothing could be helped now. He said:
`I didn't mean any harm to come to the boy.'
Mrs Verloc shuddered24 at the sound of her husband's voice. She did not uncover her face. The trusted secret agent of the late Baron25 Stott-Wartenheim looked at her for a time with a heavy, persistent26, undiscerning glance. The torn evening paper was lying at her feet. It could not have told her much. Mr Verloc felt the need of talking to his wife.
`It's that damned Heat - eh?' he said. `He upset you. He's a brute27, blurting28 it out like this to a woman. I made myself ill thinking of how to break it to you. I sat for hours in the little parlour of the Cheshire Cheese thinking over the best way. You understand I never meant any harm to come to that boy.'
Mr Verloc, the secret agent, was speaking the truth. It was his marital29 affection that had received the greatest shock from the premature30 explosion. He added:
`I didn't feel particularly gay sitting there and thinking of you.'
He observed another slight shudder23 of his wife, which affected31 his sensibility. As she persisted in hiding her face in her hands, he thought he had better leave her alone for a while. On this delicate impulse Mr Verloc withdrew into the parlour again, where the gas-jet purred like a contented32 cat. Mrs Verloc's wifely forethought had left the cold beef on the table with carving33 knife and fork and half a loaf of bread for Mr Verloc's supper. He noticed all these things now for the first time, and cutting himself a piece of bread and meat, began to eat.
His appetite did not proceed from callousness34. Mr Verloc had not eaten any breakfast that day. He had left his home fasting. Not being an energetic man, he found his resolution in nervous excitement, which seemed to hold him mainly by the throat. He could not have swallowed anything solid. Michaelis's cottage was as destitute35 of provisions as the cell of a prisoner. The ticket-of-leave apostle lived on a little milk and crusts of stale bread. Moreover, when Mr Verloc arrived he had already gone upstairs after his frugal36 meal. Absorbed in the toil37 and delight of literary composition, he had not even answered Mr Verloc's shout up the little staircase.
`I am taking this young fellow home for a day or two.
And, in truth, Mr Verloc did not wait for an answer, but had marched out of the cottage at once, followed by the obedient Stevie.
Now that all action was over and his fate taken out of his hands with unexpected swiftness, Mr Verloc felt terribly empty physically38. He carved the meat, cut the bread, and devoured39 his supper standing40 by the table, and now and then casting a glance towards his wife. Her prolonged immobility disturbed the comfort of his reflection. He walked again into the shop, and came up very close to her. This sorrow with a veiled face made Mr Verloc uneasy. He expected, of course, his wife to be very much upset, but he wanted her to pull herself together. He needed all her assistance and all her loyalty in these new conjunctures his fatalism had already accepted.
`Can't be helped,' he said in a tone of gloomy sympathy. `Come, Winnie, we've got to think of tomorrow. You'll want all your wits about you after I am taken away.'
He paused. Mrs Verloc's breast heaved convulsively. This was not reassuring42 to Mr Verloc, in whose view the newly created situation required from the two people most concerned in it calmness, decision, and other qualities incompatible43 with the mental disorder44 of passionate45 sorrow. Mr Verloc was a humane46 man; he had come home prepared to allow every latitude47 to his wife's affection for her brother. Only he did not understand either the nature or the whole extent of that sentiment. And in this he was excusable, since it was impossible for him to understand it without ceasing to be himself. He was startled and disappointed, and his speech conveyed it by a certain roughness of tone.
`You might look at a fellow,' he observed after waiting a while.
As if forced through the hands covering Mrs Verloc's face the answer came, deadened, almost pitiful.
`I don't want to look at you as long as I live.'
`Eh? What!' Mr Verloc was merely startled by the superficial and literal meaning of this declaration. It was obviously unreasonable49, the mere48 cry of exaggerated grief. He threw over it the mantle50 of his marital indulgence. The mind of Mr Verloc lacked profundity51. Under the mistaken impression that the value of individuals consists in what they are in themselves, he could not possibly comprehend the value of Stevie in the eyes of Mrs Verloc. She was taking it confoundedly hard, he thought to himself. It was all the fault of that damned Heat. What did he want to upset the woman for? But she mustn't be allowed, for her own good, to carry on so till she got quite beside herself.
`Look here! You can't sit like this in the shop,' he said with affected severity, in which there was some real annoyance52; for urgent practical matters must be talked over if they had to sit up all night. `Somebody might come in at any minute,' he added, and waited again. No effect was produced, and the idea of the finality of death occurred to Mr Verloc during the pause. He changed his tone. `Come. This won't bring him back,' he said, gently, feeling ready to take her in his arms and press her to his breast, where impatience53 and compassion54 dwelt side by side. But except for a short shudder Mrs Verloc remained apparently55 unaffected by the force of that terrible truism. It was Mr Verloc himself who was moved. He was moved in his simplicity56 to urge moderation by asserting the claims of his own personality.
`Do be reasonable, Winnie. What would it have been if you had lost me?'
He had vaguely57 expected to hear her cry out. But she did not budge58. She leaned back a little, quieted down to a complete, unreadable stillness. Mr Verloc's heart began to beat faster with exasperation59 and something resembling alarm. He laid his hand on her shoulder, saying:
`Don't be a fool, Winnie.'
She gave no sign. It was impossible to talk to any purpose with a woman whose face one cannot see. Mr Verloc caught hold of his wife's wrists. But her hands seemed glued fast. She swayed forward bodily to his tug60, and nearly went off the chair. Startled to feel her so helplessly limp, he was trying to put her back on the chair when she stiffened61 suddenly all over, tore herself out of his hands, ran out of the shop, across the parlour and into the kitchen. This was very swift. He had just a glimpse of her face and that much of her eyes that he knew she had not looked at him.
It all had the appearance of a struggle for the possession of a chair, because Mr Verloc instantly took his wife's place in it. Mr Verloc did not cover his face with his hands, but a sombre thoughtfulness veiled his features. A term of imprisonment62 could not be avoided. He did not wish now to avoid it. A prison was a place as safe from certain unlawful vengeances as the grave, with this advantage, that in prison there is room for hope. What he saw before him was a term of imprisonment, an early release, and then life abroad somewhere, such as he had contemplated63 already, in case of failure. Well, it was a failure, if not exactly the sort of failure he had feared. It had been so near success that he could have positively64 terrified Mr Vladimir out of his ferocious65 scoffing66 with this proof of occult efficiency. So at least it seemed now to Mr Verloc. His prestige with the Embassy would have been immense if - if his wife had not had the unlucky notion of sewing on the address inside Stevie's overcoat. Mr Verloc, who was no fool, had soon perceived the extraordinary character of the influence he had over Stevie though he did not understand exactly its origin - the doctrine of his supreme67 wisdom and goodness inculcated by two anxious women. In all the eventualities he had foreseen Mr Verloc had calculated with correct insight on Stevie's instinctive68 loyalty and blind discretion69. The eventuality he had not foreseen had appalled70 him as a humane man and a fond husband. From every other point of view it was rather advantageous71. Nothing can equal the everlasting72 discretion of death. Mr Verloc, sitting perplexed73 and frightened in the small parlour of the Cheshire Cheese, could not help acknowledging that to himself, because his sensibility did not stand in the way of his judgement. Stevie's violent disintegration74, however disturbing to think about, only assured the success; for, of course, the knocking down of a wall was not the aim of Mr Vladimir's menaces, but the production of a moral effect. With much trouble and distress76 on Mr Verloc's part the effect might be said to have been produced. When, however, most unexpectedly, it came home to roost in Brett Street, Mr Verloc, who had been struggling like a man in a nightmare for the preservation77 of his position, accepted the blow in the spirit of a convinced fatalist. The position was gone through no one's fault really. A small, tiny fact had done it. It was like slipping on a bit of orange peel in the dark and breaking your leg.
Mr Verloc drew a weary breath. He nourished no resentment78 against his wife. He thought: `She will have to look after the shop while they keep me locked up.' And thinking also how cruelly she would miss Stevie at first, he felt greatly concerned about her health and spirits. How would she stand her solitude79 - absolutely alone in that house? It would not do for her to break down while he was locked up. What would become of the shop then? The shop was an asset. Though Mr Verloc's fatalism accepted his undoing80 as a secret agent, he had no mind to be utterly81 ruined, mostly, it must be owned, from regard for his wife.
Silent and out of his line of sight in the kitchen, she frightened him. If only she had her mother with her. But that silly old woman - An angry dismay possessed82 Mr Verloc. He must talk with his wife. He could tell her certainly that a man does get desperate under certain circumstances. But he did not go incontinently to impart to her that information. First of all, it was clear to him chat this evening was no time for business. He got up to close the street door and put the gas out in the shop.
Having thus assured a solitude around his hearth-stone Mr Verloc walked into the parlour, and glanced down into the kitchen. Mrs Verloc was sitting in the place where poor Stevie usually established himself of an evening with paper and pencil for the pastime of drawing those coruscations of innumerable circles suggesting chaos83 and eternity84. Her arms were folded on the table, and her head was lying on her arms. Mr Verloc contemplated her back and the arrangement of her hair for a time, then walked away from the kitchen door. Mrs Verloc's philosophical85, almost disdainful incuriosity, the foundation of their accord in domestic life, made it extremely difficult to get into contact with her, now this tragic86 necessity had arisen. Mr Verloc felt this difficulty acutely. He turned around the table in the parlour with his usual air of a large animal in a cage.
Curiosity being one of the forms of self-revelation, a systematically87 incurious person remains88 always partly mysterious. Every time he passed near the door Mr Verloc glanced at his wife uneasily. It was not that he was afraid of her. Mr Verloc imagined himself loved by that woman. But she had not accustomed him to make confidences. And the confidence he had to make was of a profound psychological order. How with his want of practice could he tell her what he himself felt but vaguely: that there are conspiracies90 of fatal destiny, that a notion grows in a mind sometimes till it acquires an outward existence, an independent power of its own, and even a suggestive voice? He could not inform her that a man may be haunted by a fat, witty, clean-shaved face till the wildest expedient91 to get rid of it appears a child of wisdom.
On this mental reference to a First Secretary of a great Embassy, Mr Verloc stopped in the doorway92, and looking down into the kitchen with an angry face and clenched93 fists, addressed his wife.
`You don't know what a brute I had to deal with.'
He started off to make another perambulation of the table, then when he had come to the door again he stopped, glaring in from the height of two steps.
`A silly, jeering94, dangerous brute, with no more sense than - After all these years! A man like me! And I have been playing my head at that game. You didn't know. Quite right, too. What was the good of telling you that I stood the risk of having a knife stuck into me any time these seven years we've been married? I am not a chap to worry a woman that's fond of me. You had no business to know.'
Mr Verloc took another turn round the parlour, fuming95.
`A venomous beast,' he began again from the doorway. `Drive me out into a ditch to starve for a joke. I could see he thought it was a damned good joke. A man like me! Look here! Some of the highest in the world got to thank me for walking on their two legs to this day. That's the man you've got married to, my girl!'
He perceived that his wife had sat up. Mrs Verloc's arms remained lying stretched on the table. Mr Verloc watched her back as if he could read there the effect of his words.
`There isn't a murdering plot for the last eleven years that I hadn't my finger in at the risk of my life. There's scores of these revolutionists I've sent off with their bombs in their blamed pockets, to get themselves caught on the frontier. The old Baron knew what I was worth to his country. And here suddenly a swine comes along - an ignorant, overbearing swine.'
Mr Verloc, stepping slowly down two steps, entered the kitchen, took a tumbler off the dresser, and holding it in his hand, approached the sink, without looking at his wife.
`It wasn't the old Baron who would have had the wicked folly96 of getting me to call on him at eleven in the morning. There are two or three in this town that, if they had seen me going in, would have made no bones about knocking me on the head sooner or later. It was a silly, murderous trick to expose for nothing a man - like me.'
Mr Verloc, turning on the tap above the sink, poured three glasses of water, one after another, down his throat to quench97 the fires of his indignation. Mr Vladimir's conduct was like a hot brand which set his internal economy in a blaze. He could not get over the disloyalty of it. This man, who would not work at the usual hard tasks which society sets to its humbler members, had exercised his secret industry with an indefatigable98 devotion. There was in Mr Verloc a fund of loyalty. He had been loyal to his employers, to the cause of social stability - and to his affections, too - as became apparent when, after standing the tumbler in the sink, he turned about, saying:
`If I hadn't thought of you I would have taken the bullying99 brute by the throat and rammed100 his head into the fireplace. I'd have been more than a match for that pink-faced, smooth- shaved-'
Mr Verloc neglected to finish the sentence, as if there could be no doubt of the terminal word. For the first time in his life he was taking that incurious woman into his confidence. The singularity of the event, the force and importance of the personal feelings aroused in the course of this confession101, drove Stevie's fate clean out of Mr Verloc's mind. The boy's stuttering existence of fears and indignations, together with the violence of his end, had passed out of Mr Verloc's mental sight for a time. For that reason, when he looked up he was startled by the inappropriate character of his wife's stare. It was not a wild stare, and it was not inattentive, but its attention was peculiar102 and not satisfactory, inasmuch that it seemed concentrated upon some point beyond Mr Verloc's person. The impression was so strong that Mr Verloc glanced over his shoulder. There was nothing behind him: there was just the whitewashed103 wall. The excellent husband of Winnie Verloc saw no writing on the wall. He turned to his wife again, repeating, with some emphasis:
`I would have taken him by the throat. As true as I stand here, if I hadn't thought of you then I would have half choked the life out of the brute before I let him get up. And don't you think he would have been anxious to call the police - either. He wouldn't have dared. You understand why - don't you?'
He blinked at his wife knowingly.
`No,' said Mrs Verloc in an unresonant voice, and without looking at him at all. `What are you talking about?'
A great discouragement, the result of fatigue104, came upon Mr Verloc. He had had a very full day, and his nerves had been tried to the utmost. After a month of maddening worry, ending in an unexpected catastrophe105, the storm-tossed spirit of Mr Verloc longed for repose106. His career as a secret agent had come to an end in a way no one could have foreseen; only, now, perhaps he could manage to get a night's sleep at last. But looking at his wife, he doubted it. She was taking it very hard - not at all like herself, he thought. He made an effort to speak.
`You'll have to pull yourself together, my girl,' he said, sympathetically. `What's done can't be undone107.'
Mrs Verloc gave a slight start, though not a muscle of her white face moved in the least. Mr Verloc, who was not looking at her, continued ponderously108:
`You go to bed now. What you want is a good cry.'
This opinion had nothing to recommend it but the general consent of mankind. It is universally understood that, as if it were nothing more substantial than vapour floating in the sky, every emotion of a woman is bound to end in a shower. And it is very probable that had Stevie died in his bed under her despairing gaze, in her protecting arms, Mrs Verloc's grief would have found relief in a flood of bitter and pure tears. Mrs Verloc, in common with other human beings, was provided with a fund of unconscious resignation sufficient to meet the normal manifestation109 of human destiny. Without `troubling her head about it', she was aware that it `did not stand looking into very much'. But the lamentable110 circumstances of Stevie's end, which to Mr Verloc's mind had only an episodic character, as part of a greater disaster, dried her tears at their very source. It was the effect of a white-hot iron drawn111 across her eyes; at the same time her heart, hardened and chilled into a lump of ice, kept her body in an inward shudder, set her features into a frozen, contemplative immobility addressed to a whitewashed wall with no writing on it. The exigencies112 of Mrs Verloc's temperament113, which, when stripped of its philosophical reserve, was maternal114 and violent, forced her to roll a series of thoughts in her motionless head. These thoughts were rather imagined than expressed. Mrs Verloc was a woman of singularly few words, either for public or private use. With the rage and dismay of a betrayed woman, she reviewed the tenor115 of her life in visions concerned mostly with Stevie's difficult existence from its earliest days. It was a life of single purpose and of a noble unity116 of inspiration, like those rare lives that have left their mark on the thoughts and feelings of mankind. But the visions of Mrs Verloc lacked nobility and magnificence. She saw herself putting the boy to bed by the light of a single candle on the deserted117 top floor of a `business house', dark under the roof and scintillating118 exceedingly with lights and cut glass atthe level of the street like a fairy palace. That meretricious119 splendour was the only one to be met in Mrs Verloc's visions. She remembered brushing the boy's hair and tying his pinafores - herself in a pinafore still; the consolations120 administered to a small and badly scared creature by another creature nearly as small but not quite so badly scared; she had the vision of the blows intercepted121 (often with her own head), of a door held desperately122 shut against a man's rage (not for very long); of a poker123 flung once (not very far), which stilled that particular storm into the dumb and awful silence which follows a thunder-clap. And all these scenes of violence came and went accompanied by the unrefined noise of deep vociferations proceeding from a man wounded in his paternal124 pride, declaring himself obviously accursed since one of his kids was a `slobbering idjut and the other a wicked she-devil'. It was of her that this had been said many years ago.
Mrs Verloc heard the words again in a ghostly fashion, and then the dreary125 shadow of the Belgravian mansion126 descended127 upon her shoulders. It was a crushing memory, an exhausting vision of countless128 breakfast trays carried up and down innumerable stairs, of endless haggling129 over pence, of the endless drudgery130 of sweeping131, dusting, cleaning, from basement to attics; while the impotent mother, staggering on swollen132 legs, cooked in a grimy kitchen, and poor Stevie, the unconscious presiding genius of all their toil, blacked the gentlemen's boots in the scullery. But this vision had a breath of a hot London summer in it, and for a central figure a young man wearing his Sunday best, with a straw hat on his dark head and a wooden pipe in his mouth. Affectionate and jolly, he was a fascinating companion for a voyage down the sparkling stream of life; only his boat was very small. There was room in it for a girl-partner at the oar133, but no accommodation for passengers. He was allowed to drift away from the threshold of the Belgravian mansion while Winnie averted134 her tearful eyes. He was not a lodger135. The lodger was Mr Verloc, indolent and keeping late hours, sleepily jocular of a morning from under his bed-clothes, but with gleams of infatuation in his heavy-lidded eyes, and always with some money in his pockets. There was no sparkle of any kind on the lazy stream of his life. It flowed through secret places. But his barque seemed a roomy craft, and his taciturn magnanimity accepted as a matter of course the presence of passengers.
Mrs Verloc pursued the visions of seven years' security for Stevie loyally paid for on her part; of security growing into confidence, into a domestic feeling, stagnant136 and deep like a placid pool, whose guarded surface hardly shuddered on the occasional passage of Comrade Ossipon, the robust137 anarchist138 with shamelessly inviting139 eyes, whose glance had a corrupt140 clearness sufficient to enlighten any woman not absolutely imbecile.
A few seconds only had elapsed since the last word had been uttered aloud in the kitchen, and Mrs Verloc was staring already at the vision of an episode not more than a fortnight old. With eyes whose pupils were extremely dilated141 she stared at the vision of her husband and poor Stevie walking up Brett Street side by side away from the shop. It was the last scene of an existence created by Mrs Verloc's genius; an existence foreign to all grace and charm, without beauty and almost without decency142, but admirable in the continuity of feeling and tenacity143 of purpose. And this last vision had such plastic relief, such nearness of form, such a fidelity144 of suggestive detail, that it wrung145 from Mrs Verloc an anguished147 and faint murmur148, reproducing the supreme illusion of her life, an appalled murmur that died out on her blanched149 lips.
`Might have been father and son.'
Mr Verloc stopped, and raised a careworn150 face. `Eh? What did you say?' he asked. Receiving no reply, he resumed his sinister151 tramping. Then with a menacing flourish of a thick, fleshy fist, he burst out:
`Yes. The Embassy people. A pretty lot, ain't they! Before a week's out I'll make some of them wish themselves twenty feet under ground. Eh? What?'
He glanced sideways, with his head down. Mrs Verloc gazed at the whitewashed wall. A blank wall - perfectly152 blank. A blankness to run at and dash your head against. Mrs Verloc remained immovably seated. She kept still as the population of half the globe would keep still in astonishment153 and despair, were the sun suddenly put out in the summer sky by the perfidy154 of a trusted providence155.
`The Embassy,' Mr Verloc began again, after a preliminary grimace156 which bared his teeth wolfishly. `I wish I could get loose in there with a cudgel for half an hour. I would keep on hitting till there wasn't a single unbroken bone left amongst the whole lot. But never mind, I'll teach them yet what it means trying to throw out a man like me to rot in the streets. I've a tongue in my head. All the world shall know what I've done for them. I am not afraid. I don't care. Everything'll come out. Every damned thing. Let them look out!'
In these terms did Mr Verloc declare his thirst for revenge. It was a very appropriate revenge. It was in harmony with the promptings of Mr Verloc's genius. It had also the advantage of being within the range of his powers and of adjusting itself easily to the practice of his life, which had consisted precisely157 in betraying the secret and unlawful proceedings158 of his fellow men. Anarchists159 or diplomats160 were all one to him. Mr Verloc was temperamentally no respecter of persons. His scorn was equally distributed over the whole field of his operations. But as a member of a revolutionary proletariat - which he undoubtedly161 was - he nourished a rather inimical sentiment against social distinction.
`Nothing on earth can stop me now,' he added, and paused, looking fixedly162 at his wife, who was looking fixedly at a blank wall.
The silence in the kitchen was prolonged, and Mr Verloc felt disappointed. He had expected his wife to say something. But Mrs Verloc's lips, composed in their usual form, preserved a statuesque immobility like the rest of her face. And Mr Verloc was disappointed. Yet the occasion did not, he recognized, demand speech from her. She was a woman of very few words. For reasons involved in the very foundation of his psychology164., Mr Verloc was inclined to put his trust in any woman who had given herself to him. Therefore he trusted his wife. Their accord was perfect, but it was not precise. It was a tacit accord, congenial to Mrs Verloc's incuriosity and to Mr Verloc's habits of mind, which were indolent and secret. They refrained from going to the bottom of facts and motives165.
This reserve, expressing, in a way, their profound confidence in each other, introduced at the same time a certain element of vagueness into their intimacy166. No system of conjugal167 relations is perfect. Mr Verloc presumed that his wife had understood him but he would have been glad to hear her say what she thought at the moment. It would have been a comfort.
There were several reasons why this comfort was denied him. There was a physical obstacle: Mrs Verloc had not sufficient command over her voice. She did not see any alternative between screaming and silence, and instinctively168 she chose the silence. Winnie Verloc was temperamentally a silent person. And there was the paralysing atrocity169 of the thought which occupied her. Her cheeks were blanched, her lips ashy, her immobility amazing. And she thought without looking at Mr Verloc: `This man took the boy away to murder him. He took the boy from his home to murder him. He took the boy away from me to murder him!'
Mrs Verloc's whole being was racked by that inconclusive and maddening thought. It was in her veins170, in her bones, in the roots of her hair. Mentally she assumed the biblical attitude of mourning - the covered face, the rent garments; the sound of wailing171 and lamentation172 filled her head. But her teeth were violently clenched, and her tearless eyes were hot with rage, because she was not a submissive creature. The protection she had extended over her brother had been in its origin of a fierce and indignant complexion173. She had to love him with a militant174 love. She had battled for him - even against herself. His loss had the bitterness of defeat, with the anguish146 of a baffled passion. It was not an ordinary stroke of death. Moreover, it was not death that took Stevie from her. It was Mr Verloc who took him away. She had seen him. She had watched him, without raising a hand, take the boy away. And she had let him go, like - like a fool - a blind fool. Then after he had murdered the boy he came home to her. Just came home like any other man would come home to his wife...
Through her set teeth Mrs Verloc muttered at the wall: `And I thought he had caught a cold.' Mr Verloc heard these words and appropriated them.
`It was nothing,' he said, moodily175. `I was upset. I was upset on your account.
Mrs Verloc, turning her head slowly, transferred her stare from the wall to her husband's person. Mr Verloc, with the tips of his fingers between his lips, was looking on the ground.
`Can't be helped,' he mumbled176, letting his hand fall. `You must pull yourself together. You'll want all your wits about you. It is you who brought the police about our ears. Never mind, I won't say anything more about it,' continued Mr Verloc, magnanimously. `You couldn't know.'
`I couldn't,' breathed out Mrs Verloc. It was as if a corpse177 had spoken. Mr Verloc took up the thread of his discourse179.
`I don't blame you. I'll make them sit up. Once under lock and key it will be safe enough for me to talk - you understand. You must reckon on me being two years away from you,' he continued, in a tone of sincere concern. `It will be easier for you than for me. You'll have something to do, while I - Look here, Winnie, what you must do is to keep this business going for two years. You know enough for that. You've a good head on you. I'll send you word when it's time to go about trying to sell. You'll have to be extra careful. The comrades will be keeping an eye on you all the time. You'll have to be as artful as you know how, and as close as the grave. No one must know what you are going to do. I have no mind to get a knock on the head or a stab in the back directly I am let out.'
Thus spoke178 Mr Verloc, applying his mind with ingenuity180 and forethought to the problems of the future. His voice was sombre, because he had a correct sentiment of the situation. Everything which he did not wish to pass had come to pass. The future had become precarious181. His judgement, perhaps, had been momentarily obscured by his dread182 of Mr Vladimir's truculent183 folly. A man somewhat over forty may be excusably thrown into considerable disorder by the prospect of losing his employment, especially if the man is a secret agent of political police, dwelling184 secure in the consciousness of his high value and in the esteem185 of high personages. He was excusable.
Now the thing had ended in a crash. Mr Verloc was cool; but he was not cheerful. A secret agent who throws his secrecy186 to the winds from desire of vengeance, and flaunts187 his achievements before the public eye, becomes the mark for desperate and bloodthirsty indignations. Without unduly188 exaggerating the danger, Mr Verloc tried to bring it clearly before his wife's mind. He repeated that he had no intention of letting the revolutionists do away with him.
He looked straight into his wife's eyes. The enlarged pupils of the woman received his stare into their unfathomable depths.
`I am too fond of you for that,' he said, with a little nervous laugh.
A faint flush coloured Mrs Verloc's ghastly and motionless face. Having done with the visions of the past, she had not only heard, but had also understood the words uttered by her husband. By their extreme disaccord with her mental condition these words produced on her a slightly suffocating189 effect. Mrs Verloc's mental condition had the merit of simplicity; but it was not sound. It was governed too much by a fixed163 idea. Every nook and cranny of her brain was filled with the thought that this man, with whom she had lived without distaste for seven years, had taken the `poor boy' away from her in order to kill him - the man to whom she had grown accustomed in body and mind; the man whom she had trusted, took the boy away to kill him! In its form, in its substance, in its effect, which was universal, altering even the aspect of inanimate things, it was a thought to sit still and marvel190 at for ever and ever. Mrs Verloc sat still. And across that thought (not across the kitchen) the form of Mr Verloc went to and fro, familiarly in hat and overcoat, stamping with his boots upon her brain. He was probably talking, too; but Mrs Verloc's thought for the most part covered the voice.
Now and then, however, the voice would make itself heard. Several connected words emerged at times. Their purport191 was generally hopeful. On each of these occasions Mrs Verloc's dilated pupils, losing their far-off fixity, followed her husband's movements with the effect of black care and impenetrable attention. Well informed upon all matters relating to his secret calling, Mr Verloc augured well for the success of his plans and combinations. He really believed that it would be upon the whole easy for him to escape the knife of infuriated revolutionists. He had exaggerated the strength of their fury and the length of their arm (for professional purposes) too often to have many illusions one way or the otter192. For to exaggerate with judgement one must bin75 by measuring with nicety. He knew also how much virtue193 and how much infamy194 is forgotten in two years - two long years. His first really confidential195 discourse to his wife was optimistic from conviction. He also thought it good policy to display all the assurance he could muster196. It would put heart into the poor woman. On his liberation, which harmonizing with the whole tenor of his life, would be secret, of course, they would vanish together without loss of time. As to covering up the tracks, he begged his wife to trust him for that. He knew how it was to be done so that the devil himself--He waved his hand. He seemed to boast. He wished only to put heart into her. It was a benevolent197 intention, but Mr Verloc had the misfortune not to be in accord with his audience.
The self-confident tone grew upon Mrs Verloc's ear which let most of the words go by; for what were words to her now? What could words do to her for good or evil in the face of her fixed idea? Her black glance followed that man who was asserting his impunity198 - the man who had taken poor Stevie from home to kill him somewhere. Mrs Verloc could not remember exactly where, but her heart began to beat very perceptibly.
Mr Verloc, in a soft and conjugal tone, was now expressing his firm belief that there were yet a good few years of quiet life before them both. He did not go into the question of means. A quiet life it must be and, as it were, nestling in the shade, concealed199 among men whose flesh is grass; modest, like the life of violets. The words used by Mr Verloc were: `Lie low for a bit.' And far from England, of course. It was not clear whether Mr Verloc had in his mind Spain or South America; but at any rate somewhere abroad.
This last word, falling into Mrs Verloc's ear, produced a definite impression. This man was talking of going abroad. The impression was completely disconnected; and such is the force of mental habit that Mrs Verloc at once and automatically asked herself: `And what of Stevie?'
It was a sort of forgetfulness; but instantly she became aware that there was no longer any occasion for anxiety on that score. There would never be any occasion any more. The poor boy had been taken out and killed. The poor boy was dead.
This shaking piece of forgetfulness stimulated200 Mrs Verloc's intelligence. She began to perceive certain consequences which would have surprised Mr Verloc. There was no need for her now to stay there, in that kitchen, in that house, with that man - since the boy was gone for ever. No need whatever. And on that Mrs Verloc rose as if raised by a spring. But neither could she see what there was to keep her in the world at all. And this inability arrested, her. Mr Verloc watched her with marital solicitude201.
`You're looking more like yourself,' he said, uneasily. Something peculiar in the blackness of his wife's eyes disturbed his optimism. At that precise moment Mrs Verloc began to look upon herself as released from all earthly ties. She had her freedom. Her contract with existence, as represented by that man standing over there, was at an end. She was a free woman. Had this view become in some way perceptible to Mr Verloc he would have been extremely shocked. In his affairs of the heart Mr Verloc had been always carelessly generous, yet always wig202 no other idea than that of being loved for himself. Upon this matter, his ethical203 notions being in agreement with his vanity, he was completely incorrigible204. That this should be so in the case of his virtuous205 and legal connection he was perfectly certain. He had grown older, fatter, heavier, in the belief that he lacked no fascination206 for being loved for his own sake. When he saw Mrs Verloc starting to walk out of the kitchen without a word he was disappointed.
`Where are you going to?' he called out rather sharply. `Upstairs?'
Mrs Verloc in the doorway turned at the voice. An instinct of prudence207 born of fear, the excessive fear of being approached and touched by that man, induced her to nod at him slightly (from the height of two steps], with a stir of the lips which the conjugal optimism of Mr Verloc took for a wan41 and uncertain smile.
`That's right,' he encouraged her gruffly. `Rest and quiet's what you want. Go on. It won't be long before I am with you.'
Mrs Verloc, the free woman who had had really no idea where she was going to, obeyed the suggestion with rigid208 steadiness.
Mr Verloc watched her. She disappeared up the stairs. He was disappointed. There was that within him which would have been more satisfied if she had been moved to throw herself upon his breast. But he was generous and indulgent. Winnie was always undemonstrative and silent. Neither was Mr Verloc himself prodigal209 of endearments210 and words as a rule. But this was not an ordinary evening. It was an occasion when a man wants to be fortified211 and strengthened by open proofs of sympathy and affection. Mr Verloc sighed, and put out the gas in the kitchen. Mr Verloc's sympathy with his wife was genuine and intense. It almost brought tears into his eyes as he stood in the parlour reflecting on the loneliness hanging over her head. In this mood Mr Verloc missed Stevie very much out of a difficult world. He thought mournfully of his end. If only that lad had not stupidly destroyed himself!
The sensation of unappeasable hunger, not unknown after the strain of a hazardous212 enterprise to adventurers of tougher fibre than Mr Verloc, overcame him again. The piece of roast beef, laid out in the likeness213 of funereal214 baked meats for Stevie's obsequies, offered itself largely to his notice. And Mr Verloc again partook. He partook ravenously215, without restraint and decency, cutting thick slices with the sharp carving knife, and swallowing them without bread. In the course of that refection it occurred to Mr Verloc that he was not hearing his wife move about in the bedroom as he should have done. The thought of finding her perhaps sitting on the bed in the dark not only cut Mr Verloc's appetite, but also took from him the inclination216 to follow her upstairs just yet. Laying down the carving knife, Mr Verloc listened with careworn attention.
He was comforted by hearing her move at last. She walked suddenly across the room, and threw the window up. After a period of stillness up there, during which he figured her to himself with her head out, he heard the sash being lowered slowly. Then she made a few steps, and sat down. Every resonance217 of this house was familiar to Mr Verloc, who was thoroughly218 domesticated219. When next he heard his wife's footsteps overhead he knew, as well as if he had seen her doing it, that she had been putting on her walking shoes. Mr Verloc wriggled220 his shoulders slightly at this ominous221 symptom, and moving away from the table, stood with his back to the fireplace, his head on one side, and gnawing222 perplexedly at the tips of his fingers. He kept track of her movements by the sound. She walked here and there violently, with abrupt stoppages, now before the chest of drawers, then in front of the wardrobe. An immense load of weariness, the harvest of a day of shocks and surprises, weighed Mr Verloc's energies to the ground.
He did not raise his eyes till he heard his wife descending223 the stairs. It was as he had guessed, she was dressed for going out.
Mrs Verloc was a free woman. She had thrown open the window of the bedroom either with the intention of screaming Murder! Help! or of throwing herself out. For she did not exactly know what use to make of her freedom. Her personality seemed to have been torn into two pieces, whose mental operations did not adjust themselves very well to each other. The street, silent and deserted from end to end, repelled224 her by taking sides with that man who was so certain of his impunity. She was afraid to shout lest no one should come. Obviously no one would come. Her instinct of self-preservation recoiled225 from the depth of the fall into that sort of slimy, deep trench226. Mrs Verloc closed the window, and dressed herself to go out into the street by another way. She was a free woman. She had dressed herself thoroughly, down to the tying of a black veil over her face. As she appeared before him in the light of the parlour, Mr Verloc observed that she had even her little handbag hanging from her left wrist... Flying off to her mother, of course.
The thought that women were wearisome creatures after all presented itself to his fatigued227 brain. But he was too generous to harbour it for more than an instant. This man, hurt cruelly in his vanity, remained magnanimous in his conduct, allowing himself no satisfaction of a bitter smile or of a contemptuous gesture. With true greatness of soul, he only glanced at the wooden clock on the wall, and said in a perfectly calm but forcible manner:
`Five and twenty minutes past eight, Winnie. There's no sense in going over there so late. You will never manage to get back tonight.'
Before his extended hand Mrs Verloc had stopped short. He added, heavily: `Your mother will be gone to bed before you get there. This is the sort of news that can wait.'
Nothing was further from Mrs Verloc's thoughts than going to her mother. She recoiled at the mere idea, and feeling a chair behind her, she obeyed the suggestion of the touch, and sat down. Her intention had been simply to get outside the door for ever. And if this feeling was correct, its mental form took an unrefined shape corresponding to her origin and station. `I would rather walk the streets all the days of my life,' she thought. But this creature, whose moral nature had been subjected to a shock of which, in the physical order, the most violent earthquake of history could only be a faint and languid rendering228, was at the mercy of mere trifles, of casual contacts. She sat down. With her hat and veil she had the air of a visitor, of having looked in on Mr Verloc for a moment. Her instant docility encouraged him, whilst her aspect of only temporary and silent acquiescence229 provoked him a little.
`Let me tell you, Winnie,' he said with authority, `that your place is here this evening. Hang it all! you brought the damned police high and low about my ears. I don't blame you - but it's your doing all the same. You'd better take this confounded hat off. I can't let you go out, old girl,' he added in a softened230 voice.
Mrs Verloc's mind got hold of that declaration with morbid231 tenacity. `The man who had taken Stevie out from under her very eyes to murder him in a locality whose name was at the moment not present to her memory would not allow her to go out. Of course he wouldn't. Now he had murdered Stevie he would never let her go. He would want to keep her for nothing. And on this characteristic reasoning, having all the force of insane logic89, Mrs Verloc's disconnected wits went to work practically. She could slip by him, open the door, run out. But he would dash out after her, seize her round the body, drag her back into the shop. She could scratch, kick, and bite - and stab, too; but for stabbing she wanted a knife. Mrs Verloc sat still under her black veil, in her own house, like a masked and mysterious visitor of impenetrable intentions.
Mr Verloc's magnanimity was not more than human. She had exasperated232 him at last.
`Can't you say something? You have your own dodges233 for vexing234 a man. Oh, yes! I know your deaf-and-dumb trick. I've seen you at it before today. But just now it won't do. And to begin with, take this damned thing off. One can't tell whether one is talking to a dummy235 or to a live woman.'
He advanced, and stretching out his hand, dragged the veil off, unmasking a still unreadable face, against which his nervous exasperation was shattered like a glass bubble Sung against a rock. `That's better,' he said, to cover his momentary236 uneasiness, and retreated back to his old station by the mantelpiece. It never entered his head that his wife could give him up. He felt a little ashamed of himself, for he was fond and generous. What could he do? Everything had been said already. He protested vehemently237.
`By heavens! You know that I hunted high and low. I ran the risk of giving myself away to find somebody for that accursed job. And I tell you again I couldn't find any one crazy enough or hung enough. What do you take me for - a murderer, or what? The boy is gone. Do you think I wanted him to blow himself up? He's gone. His troubles are over. Ours are just going to begin, I tell you, precisely because he did blow himself up. I don't blame you. But just try to understand that it was a pure accident; as much an accident as if he had been run over by a bus while crossing the street.'
His generosity238 was not infinite, because he was a human being - and not a monster, as Mrs Verloc believed him to be. He paused, and a snarl239 lifting his moustaches above a gleam of white teeth gave him the expression of a reflective beast, not very dangerous - a slow beast with a sleek240 head, gloomier than a seal, and with a husky voice.
`And when it comes to that, it's as much your doing as mine. That's so... You may glare as much as you like. I know what you can do in that way. Strike me dead if I ever would have thought of the lad for that purpose. It was you who kept on shoving him in my way when I was half distracted with the worry of keeping the lot of us out of trouble. What the devil made you? One would think you were doing it on purpose. And I am damned if I know that you didn't. There's no saying how much of what's going on you have got hold of on the sly with your infernal don't-care-a-damn way of looking nowhere in particular, and saying nothing at all... '
His husky, domestic voice ceased for a while. Mrs Verloc made no reply. Before that silence he felt ashamed of what he had said. But as often happens to peaceful men in domestic tiffs, being ashamed he pushed another point.
`You have a devilish way of holding your tongue sometimes,' he began again, without raising his voice. `Enough to make some men go mad. It's lucky for you that I am not so easily put out as some of them would be by your deaf- and-dumb sulks. I am fond of you. But don't you go too far. This isn't the time for it. We ought to be thinking of what we've got to do. And I can't let you go out tonight, galloping241 off to your mother with some crazy tale or other about me. I won't have it. Don't you make any mistake about it: if you will have it that I killed the boy, then you've killed him as much as I.'
In sincerity242 of feeling and openness of statement, these words went far beyond anything that had ever been said in this home, kept up on the wages of a secret industry eked243 out by the sale of more or less secret wares244: the poor expedients245 devised by a mediocre246 mankind for preserving an imperfect society from the dangers of moral and physical corruption247, both secret, too, of their kind. They were spoken because Mr Verloc had felt himself really outraged248; but the reticent249 decencies of this home life, nestling in a shady street behind a shop where the sun never shone, remained apparently undisturbed. Mrs Verloc heard him out with perfect propriety250, and then rose from her chair in her hat and jacket like a visitor at the end of a call. She advanced towards her husband, one arm extended as if for a silent leave-taking. Her net veil dangling251 down by one end of the left side of her face gave an air of disorderly formality to her restrained movements. But when she arrived as far as the hearthrug, Mr Verloc was no longer standing there. He had moved off in the direction of the sofa, without raising his eyes to watch the effect of his tirade252. He was tired, resigned in a truly marital spirit. But he felt hurt in the tender spot of his secret weakness. If she would go on sulking in that dreadful overcharged silence - why then she must. She was a master in that domestic art. Mr Verloc flung himself heavily upon the sofa, disregarding as usual the fate of his hat, which, as if accustomed to take care of itself, made for a safe shelter under the table.
He was tired. The last particle of his nervous force had been expended253 in the wonders and agonies of this day full of surprising failures coming at the end of a harassing254 month of scheming and insomnia255. He was tired. A man isn't made of stone. Hang everything! Mr Verloc reposed256 characteristically, clad in his outdoor garments. One side of his open overcoat was lying partly on the ground. Mr Verloc wallowed on his back. But he longed for a more perfect rest - for sleep - for a few hours of delicious forgetfulness. That would come later. Provisionally he rested. And he thought: `I wish she would give over this damned nonsense. It's exasperating257.'
There must have been something imperfect in Mrs Verloc's sentiment of regained258 freedom. Instead of taking the way of the door she leaned back, with her shoulders against the tablet of the mantelpiece, as a wayfarer259 rests against a fence. A tinge260 of wildness in her aspect was derived261 from the black veil hanging like a rag against her cheek, and from the fixity of her black gaze where the light of the room was absorbed and lost without the trace of a single gleam. This woman, capable of a bargain the mere suspicion of which would have been infinitely shocking to Mr Verloc's idea of love, remained irresolute262, as if scrupulously264 aware of something wanting on her part for the formal closing of the transaction.
On the sofa Mr Verloc wriggled his shoulders into perfect comfort, and from the fullness of his heart emitted a wish which was certainly as pious265 as anything likely to come from such a source.
`I wish to goodness,' he growled266, huskily, `I had never seen Greenwich Park or anything belonging to it.'
The veiled sound filled the small room with its moderate volume, well adapted to the modest nature of the wish. The waves of air of the proper length, propagated in accordance with correct mathematical formulas, flowed around all the inanimate things in the room, lapped against Mrs Verloc's head as if it had been a head of stone. And incredible as it may appear, the eyes of Mrs Verloc seemed to grow still larger. The audible wish of Mr Verloc's overflowing267 heart flowed into an enemy place in his wife's memory. Greenwich Park. A park! That's where the boy was killed. A park - smashed branches, torn leaves, gravel268, bits of brotherly flesh and bone, all spouting269 up together in the manner of a firework. She remembered now what she had heard, and she remembered it pictorially270. They had to gather him up with the shovel271. Trembling all over with irrepressible shudders272, she saw before her the very implement273 with its ghastly load scraped up from the ground. Mrs Verloc closed her eyes desperately, throwing upon that vision the night of her eyelids274, where after a rain-like fall of mangled275 limbs the decapitated head of Stevie lingered suspended alone, and fading out slowly like the last star of a pyrotechnic display. Mrs Verloc opened her eyes.
Her face was no longer stony276. Anybody could have noted277 the subtle change on her features, in the stare of her eyes, giving her a new and startling expression; an expression seldom observed by competent persons under the conditions of leisure and security demanded for thorough analysis, but whose meaning could not be mistaken at a glance. Mrs Verloc's doubts as to the end of the bargain no longer existed; her wits no longer disconnected, were working under the control of her will. But Mr Verloc observed nothing. He was reposing278 in that pathetic condition of optimism induced by excess of fatigue. He did not want any more trouble - with his wife, too - of all people in the world. He had been unanswerable in his vindication279. He was loved for himself. The present phase of her silence he interpreted favourably280. This was the time to make it up with her. The silence had lasted long enough. He broke it by calling to her in an undertone:
`Winnie.'
`Yes,' answered obediently Mrs Verloc the free woman. She commanded her wits now, her vocal281 organs; she felt herself to be in an almost preternaturally perfect control of every fibre of her body. It was all her own, because the bargain was at an end. She was clear sighted. She had become cunning. She chose to answer him so readily for a purpose. She did not wish that man to change his position on the sofa which was very suitable to the circumstances. She succeeded. The man did not stir. But after answering him she remained leaning negligently282 against the mantelpiece in the attitude of a resting wayfarer. She was unhurried. Her brow was smooth. The head and shoulders of Mr Verloc were hidden from her by the high side of the sofa. She kept her eyes fixed on his feet.
She remained thus mysteriously still and suddenly collected till Mr Verloc was heard with an accent of marital authority, and moving slightly to make room for her to sit on the edge of the sofa.
`Come here,' he said in a peculiar tone, which might have been the tone of brutality283, but was intimately known to Mrs Verloc as the note of wooing.
She started forward at once, as if she was still a loyal woman bound to that man by an unbroken contract. Her right had skimmed slightly the end of the table, and when she had passed on towards the sofa the carving knife had vanished without the slightest sound from the side of the dish. Mr Verloc heard the creaky plank284 in the floor, and was content. He waited. Mrs Verloc was coming. As if the homeless soul of Stevie had flown for shelter straight to the breast of his sister, guardian285 and protector, the resemblance of her face with that of her brother grew at every step, even to the droop286 of the lower lip, even to the slight divergence287 of the eyes. But Mr Verloc did not see that. He was lying on his back and staring upwards288. He saw partly on the ceiling a clenched hand holding a carving knife. It flickered289 up and down. Its movements were leisurely290. They were leisurely enough for Mr Verloc to recognize the limb and the weapon.
They were leisurely enough for him to take in the full meaning of the portent291, and to taste the flavour of death rising in his gorge292. His wife had gone raving293 mad - murdering mad. They were leisurely enough for the first paralysing effect of this discovery to pass away before a resolute263 determination to come out victorious294 from the ghastly struggle with that armed lunatic. They were leisurely enough for Mr Verloc to elaborate a plan of defence, involving a dash behind the table, and the felling of the woman to the ground with a heavy wooden chair. But they were not leisurely enough to allow Mr Verloc the time to move either hand or foot. The knife was already planted in his breast. It met no resistance on its way. Hazard has such accuracies. Into that plunging295 blow, delivered over the side of the couch, Mrs Verloc had put all the inheritance of her immemorial and obscure descent, the simple ferocity of the age of caverns296, and the unbalanced nervous fury of the age of bar-rooms. Mr Verloc, the secret agent, turning slightly on his side with the force of the blow, expired without stirring a limb, in the muttered sound of the word `Don't' by way of protest.
Mrs Verloc had let go the knife, and her extraordinary resemblance to her late brother had faded, had become very ordinary. She drew a deep breath, the first easy breath since Chief Inspector Heat had exhibited to her the labelled piece of Stevie's overcoat. She leaned forward on her folded arms over the side of the sofa. She adopted that easy attitude not in order to watch or gloat over the body of Mr Verloc, but because of the undulatory and swinging movements of the parlour, which for some time behaved as though it were at sea in a tempest. She was giddy but calm. She had become a free woman with a perfection of freedom which left her nothing to desire and absolutely nothing to do, since Stevie's urgent claim on her devotion no longer existed. Mrs Verloc, who thought in images, was not troubled now by visions, because she did not think at all. And she did not move. She was a woman enjoying her complete irresponsibility and endless leisure, almost in the manner of a corpse. She did not move, she did not think. Neither did the mortal envelope of the late Mr Verloc reposing on the sofa. Except for the fact that Mrs Verloc breathed these two would have been perfectly in accord: that accord of prudent297 reserve without superfluous298 words, and sparing of signs, which had been the foundation of their respectable home life. For it had been respectable, covering by a decent reticence299 the problems that may arise in the practice of a secret profession and the commerce of shady wares. To the last its decorum had remained undisturbed by unseemly shrieks300 and other misplaced sincerities of conduct. And after the striking of the blow, this respectability was continued in immobility and silence.
Nothing moved in the parlour till Mrs Verloc raised her head slowly and looked at the clock with inquiring mistrust. She had become aware of a ticking sound in the room. It grew upon her ear, while she remembered clearly that the clock on the wall was silent, had no audible tick. What did it mean by beginning to tick so loudly all of a sudden? Its face indicated ten minutes to nine. Mrs Verloc cared nothing for time, and the ticking went on. She concluded it could not be the clock, and her sullen301 gaze moved along the walls, wavered, and became vague, while she strained her hearing Co locate the sound. Tic, tic, tic.
After listening for some time Mr Verloc lowered her gaze deliberately302 on her husband's body. Its attitude of repose was so homelike and familiar that she could do so without feeling embarrassed by any pronounced novelty in the phenomena303 of her home life. Mr Verloc was taking his habitual304 ease. He looked comfortable.
By the position of the body the face of Mr Verloc was not visible to Mrs Verl
收听单词发音 |
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inspector
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| n.检查员，监察员，视察员 | |
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commiseration
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| n.怜悯，同情 | |
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prospect
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| n.前景，前途；景色，视野 | |
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persuasive
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| adj.有说服力的，能说得使人相信的 | |
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eloquence
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| n.雄辩；口才，修辞 | |
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abrupt
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| adj.突然的，意外的；唐突的，鲁莽的 | |
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augured
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| v.预示，预兆，预言( augur的过去式和过去分词 )；成为预兆；占卜 | |
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favourable
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| adj.赞成的，称赞的，有利的，良好的，顺利的 | |
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docility
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| n.容易教，易驾驶，驯服 | |
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gauged
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| adj.校准的；标准的；量规的；量计的v.（用仪器）测量( gauge的过去式和过去分词 )；估计；计量；划分 | |
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fanaticism
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| n.狂热，盲信 | |
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previously
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| adv.以前，先前（地） | |
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provincial
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| adj.省的，地方的；n．外省人，乡下人 | |
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loyalty
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| n.忠诚，忠心 | |
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peripatetic
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| adj.漫游的，逍遥派的，巡回的 | |
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sage
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| n.圣人，哲人；adj.贤明的，明智的 | |
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attentive
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disciple
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| n.信徒，门徒，追随者 | |
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submission
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liking
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vengeance
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doctrine
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| n.教义；主义；学说 | |
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shudder
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| v.战粟，震动，剧烈地摇晃；n.战粟，抖动 | |
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shuddered
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| v.战栗( shudder的过去式和过去分词 )；发抖；（机器、车辆等）突然震动；颤动 | |
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baron
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| n.男爵；(商业界等)巨头，大王 | |
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persistent
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| adj.坚持不懈的，执意的；持续的 | |
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brute
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28
blurting
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| v.突然说出，脱口而出( blurt的现在分词 ) | |
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29
marital
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| adj.婚姻的，夫妻的 | |
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30
premature
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| adj.比预期时间早的；不成熟的，仓促的 | |
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31
affected
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| adj.不自然的，假装的 | |
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32
contented
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| adj.满意的，安心的，知足的 | |
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33
carving
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| n.雕刻品，雕花 | |
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34
callousness
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35
destitute
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| adj.缺乏的；穷困的 | |
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36
frugal
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| adj.节俭的，节约的，少量的，微量的 | |
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37
toil
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| vi.辛劳工作，艰难地行动；n.苦工，难事 | |
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38
physically
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| adj.物质上，体格上，身体上，按自然规律 | |
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39
devoured
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|
| 吞没( devour的过去式和过去分词 )； 耗尽； 津津有味地看； 狼吞虎咽地吃光 | |
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40
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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41
wan
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| (wide area network)广域网 | |
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42
reassuring
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| a.使人消除恐惧和疑虑的，使人放心的 | |
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43
incompatible
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| adj.不相容的，不协调的，不相配的 | |
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44
disorder
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|
| n.紊乱，混乱；骚动，骚乱；疾病，失调 | |
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45
passionate
|
|
| 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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46
humane
|
|
| adj.人道的，富有同情心的 | |
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47
latitude
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|
| n.纬度，行动或言论的自由(范围)，(pl.)地区 | |
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48
mere
|
|
| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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49
unreasonable
|
|
| adj.不讲道理的，不合情理的，过度的 | |
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50
mantle
|
|
| n.斗篷，覆罩之物，罩子；v.罩住，覆盖，脸红 | |
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51
profundity
|
|
| n.渊博；深奥，深刻 | |
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52
annoyance
|
|
| n.恼怒，生气，烦恼 | |
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53
impatience
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|
| n.不耐烦，急躁 | |
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54
compassion
|
|
| n.同情，怜悯 | |
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55
apparently
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|
| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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56
simplicity
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|
| n.简单，简易；朴素；直率，单纯 | |
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57
vaguely
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|
| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
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58
budge
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|
| v.移动一点儿；改变立场 | |
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59
exasperation
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|
| n.愤慨 | |
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60
tug
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|
| v.用力拖(或拉)；苦干；n.拖；苦干；拖船 | |
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61
stiffened
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| 加强的 | |
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62
imprisonment
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|
| n.关押，监禁，坐牢 | |
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63
contemplated
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|
| adj. 预期的 动词contemplate的过去分词形式 | |
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64
positively
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|
| adv.明确地，断然，坚决地；实在，确实 | |
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65
ferocious
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|
| adj.凶猛的，残暴的，极度的，十分强烈的 | |
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66
scoffing
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|
| n. 嘲笑, 笑柄, 愚弄 v. 嘲笑, 嘲弄, 愚弄, 狼吞虎咽 | |
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67
supreme
|
|
| adj.极度的，最重要的；至高的，最高的 | |
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68
instinctive
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|
| adj.(出于)本能的；直觉的；(出于)天性的 | |
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69
discretion
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|
| n.谨慎；随意处理 | |
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70
appalled
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|
| v.使惊骇，使充满恐惧( appall的过去式和过去分词)adj.惊骇的；丧胆的 | |
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71
advantageous
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|
| adj.有利的；有帮助的 | |
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72
everlasting
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|
| adj.永恒的，持久的，无止境的 | |
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73
perplexed
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|
| adj.不知所措的 | |
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74
disintegration
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|
| n.分散，解体 | |
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75
bin
|
|
| n.箱柜；vt.放入箱内；[计算机] DOS文件名:二进制目标文件 | |
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76
distress
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|
| n.苦恼，痛苦，不舒适；不幸；vt.使悲痛 | |
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77
preservation
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|
| n.保护，维护，保存，保留，保持 | |
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78
resentment
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|
| n.怨愤，忿恨 | |
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79
solitude
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|
| n. 孤独; 独居,荒僻之地,幽静的地方 | |
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80
undoing
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|
| n.毁灭的原因，祸根；破坏，毁灭 | |
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81
utterly
|
|
| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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82
possessed
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|
| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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83
chaos
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|
| n.混乱，无秩序 | |
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84
eternity
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|
| n.不朽，来世；永恒，无穷 | |
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85
philosophical
|
|
| adj.哲学家的，哲学上的，达观的 | |
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86
tragic
|
|
| adj.悲剧的，悲剧性的，悲惨的 | |
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87
systematically
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|
| adv.有系统地 | |
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88
remains
|
|
| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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89
logic
|
|
| n.逻辑(学)；逻辑性 | |
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90
conspiracies
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|
| n.阴谋，密谋( conspiracy的名词复数 ) | |
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91
expedient
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|
| adj.有用的，有利的；n.紧急的办法，权宜之计 | |
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92
doorway
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|
| n.门口，(喻)入门；门路，途径 | |
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93
clenched
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|
| v.紧握，抓紧，咬紧( clench的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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94
jeering
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|
| adj.嘲弄的，揶揄的v.嘲笑( jeer的现在分词 ) | |
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95
fuming
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|
| 愤怒( fume的现在分词 )； 大怒； 发怒； 冒烟 | |
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96
folly
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|
| n.愚笨，愚蠢，蠢事，蠢行，傻话 | |
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97
quench
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|
| vt.熄灭，扑灭；压制 | |
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98
indefatigable
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|
| adj.不知疲倦的，不屈不挠的 | |
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99
bullying
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|
| v.恐吓，威逼( bully的现在分词 )；豪；跋扈 | |
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100
rammed
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|
| v.夯实（土等）( ram的过去式和过去分词 )；猛撞；猛压；反复灌输 | |
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101
confession
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|
| n.自白，供认，承认 | |
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102
peculiar
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|
| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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103
whitewashed
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|
| 粉饰，美化，掩饰( whitewash的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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104
fatigue
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|
| n.疲劳，劳累 | |
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105
catastrophe
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|
| n.大灾难，大祸 | |
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106
repose
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|
| v.(使)休息；n.安息 | |
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107
undone
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|
| a.未做完的，未完成的 | |
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108
ponderously
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109
manifestation
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| n.表现形式；表明；现象 | |
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110
lamentable
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|
| adj.令人惋惜的，悔恨的 | |
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111
drawn
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|
| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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112
exigencies
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| n.急切需要 | |
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113
temperament
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|
| n.气质，性格，性情 | |
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114
maternal
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|
| adj.母亲的，母亲般的，母系的，母方的 | |
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115
tenor
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|
| n.男高音（歌手），次中音（乐器），要旨，大意 | |
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116
unity
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|
| n.团结，联合，统一；和睦，协调 | |
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117
deserted
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|
| adj.荒芜的，荒废的，无人的，被遗弃的 | |
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118
scintillating
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|
| adj．才气横溢的,闪闪发光的; 闪烁的 | |
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119
meretricious
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|
| adj.华而不实的，俗艳的 | |
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120
consolations
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| n.安慰，慰问( consolation的名词复数 )；起安慰作用的人（或事物） | |
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121
intercepted
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|
| 拦截( intercept的过去式和过去分词 )； 截住； 截击； 拦阻 | |
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122
desperately
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| adv.极度渴望地，绝望地，孤注一掷地 | |
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123
poker
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| n.扑克；vt.烙制 | |
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124
paternal
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|
| adj.父亲的，像父亲的，父系的，父方的 | |
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125
dreary
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|
| adj.令人沮丧的，沉闷的，单调乏味的 | |
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126
mansion
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| n.大厦，大楼；宅第 | |
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127
descended
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| a.为...后裔的，出身于...的 | |
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128
countless
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|
| adj.无数的，多得不计其数的 | |
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129
haggling
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| v.讨价还价( haggle的现在分词 ) | |
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130
drudgery
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| n.苦工，重活，单调乏味的工作 | |
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131
sweeping
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| adj.范围广大的，一扫无遗的 | |
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132
swollen
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| adj.肿大的，水涨的；v.使变大，肿胀 | |
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133
oar
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| n.桨，橹，划手；v.划行 | |
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134
averted
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| 防止，避免( avert的过去式和过去分词 )； 转移 | |
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135
lodger
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| n.寄宿人，房客 | |
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136
stagnant
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|
| adj.不流动的，停滞的，不景气的 | |
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137
robust
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|
| adj.强壮的，强健的，粗野的，需要体力的，浓的 | |
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138
anarchist
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|
| n.无政府主义者 | |
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139
inviting
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| adj.诱人的，引人注目的 | |
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140
corrupt
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|
| v.贿赂，收买；adj.腐败的，贪污的 | |
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141
dilated
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|
| adj.加宽的，扩大的v.（使某物）扩大，膨胀，张大( dilate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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142
decency
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|
| n.体面，得体，合宜，正派，庄重 | |
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143
tenacity
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| n.坚韧 | |
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144
fidelity
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|
| n.忠诚，忠实；精确 | |
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145
wrung
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|
| 绞( wring的过去式和过去分词 )； 握紧（尤指别人的手）； 把（湿衣服）拧干； 绞掉（水） | |
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146
anguish
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|
| n.(尤指心灵上的)极度痛苦，烦恼 | |
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147
anguished
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| adj.极其痛苦的v.使极度痛苦(anguish的过去式) | |
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148
murmur
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|
| n.低语，低声的怨言；v.低语，低声而言 | |
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149
blanched
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|
| v.使变白( blanch的过去式 )；使（植物）不见阳光而变白；酸洗（金属）使有光泽；用沸水烫（杏仁等）以便去皮 | |
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150
careworn
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|
| adj.疲倦的，饱经忧患的 | |
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151
sinister
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|
| adj.不吉利的，凶恶的，左边的 | |
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152
perfectly
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|
| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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153
astonishment
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|
| n.惊奇，惊异 | |
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154
perfidy
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| n.背信弃义，不忠贞 | |
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155
providence
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|
| n.深谋远虑，天道，天意；远见；节约；上帝 | |
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156
grimace
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|
| v.做鬼脸，面部歪扭 | |
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157
precisely
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|
| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
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158
proceedings
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| n.进程，过程，议程；诉讼(程序)；公报 | |
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159
anarchists
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|
| 无政府主义者( anarchist的名词复数 ) | |
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160
diplomats
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|
| n.外交官( diplomat的名词复数 )；有手腕的人，善于交际的人 | |
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161
undoubtedly
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| adv.确实地，无疑地 | |
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162
fixedly
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| adv.固定地；不屈地，坚定不移地 | |
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163
fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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164
psychology
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| n.心理，心理学，心理状态 | |
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165
motives
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| n.动机，目的( motive的名词复数 ) | |
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166
intimacy
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| n.熟悉，亲密，密切关系，亲昵的言行 | |
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167
conjugal
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| adj.婚姻的，婚姻性的 | |
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168
instinctively
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| adv.本能地 | |
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169
atrocity
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| n.残暴，暴行 | |
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170
veins
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| n.纹理；矿脉( vein的名词复数 )；静脉；叶脉；纹理 | |
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171
wailing
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| v.哭叫，哀号( wail的现在分词 )；沱 | |
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172
lamentation
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| n.悲叹，哀悼 | |
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173
complexion
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| n.肤色；情况，局面；气质，性格 | |
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174
militant
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| adj.激进的，好斗的；n.激进分子，斗士 | |
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175
moodily
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| adv.喜怒无常地；情绪多变地；心情不稳地；易生气地 | |
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176
mumbled
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| 含糊地说某事，叽咕，咕哝( mumble的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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177
corpse
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| n.尸体，死尸 | |
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178
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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179
discourse
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| n.论文，演说；谈话；话语；vi.讲述，著述 | |
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180
ingenuity
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| n.别出心裁；善于发明创造 | |
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181
precarious
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| adj.不安定的，靠不住的；根据不足的 | |
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182
dread
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| vt.担忧，忧虑；惧怕，不敢；n.担忧，畏惧 | |
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183
truculent
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| adj.野蛮的，粗野的 | |
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184
dwelling
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| n.住宅，住所，寓所 | |
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185
esteem
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| n.尊敬，尊重；vt.尊重，敬重；把…看作 | |
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186
secrecy
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| n.秘密，保密，隐蔽 | |
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187
flaunts
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| v.炫耀，夸耀( flaunt的第三人称单数 )；有什么能耐就施展出来 | |
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188
unduly
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| adv.过度地，不适当地 | |
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189
suffocating
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| a.使人窒息的 | |
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190
marvel
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| vi.(at)惊叹vt.感到惊异；n.令人惊异的事 | |
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191
purport
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| n.意义，要旨，大要；v.意味著，做为...要旨，要领是... | |
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192
otter
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| n.水獭 | |
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193
virtue
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| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
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194
infamy
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| n.声名狼藉，出丑，恶行 | |
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195
confidential
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| adj.秘（机）密的，表示信任的，担任机密工作的 | |
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196
muster
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| v.集合，收集，鼓起，激起；n.集合，检阅，集合人员，点名册 | |
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197
benevolent
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| adj.仁慈的，乐善好施的 | |
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198
impunity
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| n.(惩罚、损失、伤害等的)免除 | |
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199
concealed
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| a.隐藏的，隐蔽的 | |
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200
stimulated
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| a.刺激的 | |
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201
solicitude
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| n.焦虑 | |
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202
wig
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| n.假发 | |
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203
ethical
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| adj.伦理的，道德的，合乎道德的 | |
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204
incorrigible
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| adj.难以纠正的，屡教不改的 | |
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205
virtuous
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| adj.有品德的，善良的，贞洁的，有效力的 | |
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206
fascination
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| n.令人着迷的事物，魅力，迷恋 | |
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207
prudence
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| n.谨慎，精明，节俭 | |
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208
rigid
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| adj.严格的，死板的；刚硬的，僵硬的 | |
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209
prodigal
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| adj.浪费的，挥霍的，放荡的 | |
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210
endearments
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| n.表示爱慕的话语，亲热的表示( endearment的名词复数 ) | |
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211
fortified
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| adj. 加强的 | |
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212
hazardous
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| adj.(有)危险的，冒险的；碰运气的 | |
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213
likeness
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| n.相像，相似（之处） | |
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214
funereal
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| adj.悲哀的；送葬的 | |
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215
ravenously
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| adv.大嚼地，饥饿地 | |
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216
inclination
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| n.倾斜；点头；弯腰；斜坡；倾度；倾向；爱好 | |
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217
resonance
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| n.洪亮；共鸣；共振 | |
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218
thoroughly
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| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
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219
domesticated
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| adj.喜欢家庭生活的；（指动物）被驯养了的v.驯化( domesticate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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220
wriggled
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| v.扭动，蠕动，蜿蜒行进( wriggle的过去式和过去分词 )；（使身体某一部位）扭动；耍滑不做，逃避（应做的事等） | |
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221
ominous
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| adj.不祥的，不吉的，预兆的，预示的 | |
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222
gnawing
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| a.痛苦的，折磨人的 | |
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223
descending
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| n. 下行 adj. 下降的 | |
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224
repelled
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| v.击退( repel的过去式和过去分词 )；使厌恶；排斥；推开 | |
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225
recoiled
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| v.畏缩( recoil的过去式和过去分词 )；退缩；报应；返回 | |
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226
trench
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| n./v.(挖)沟，(挖)战壕 | |
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227
fatigued
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| adj. 疲乏的 | |
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228
rendering
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| n.表现，描写 | |
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229
acquiescence
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| n.默许；顺从 | |
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230
softened
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| （使）变软( soften的过去式和过去分词 )； 缓解打击； 缓和； 安慰 | |
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231
morbid
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| adj.病的；致病的；病态的；可怕的 | |
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232
exasperated
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| adj.恼怒的 | |
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233
dodges
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| n.闪躲( dodge的名词复数 )；躲避；伎俩；妙计v.闪躲( dodge的第三人称单数 )；回避 | |
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234
vexing
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| adj.使人烦恼的，使人恼火的v.使烦恼( vex的现在分词 )；使苦恼；使生气；详细讨论 | |
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235
dummy
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| n.假的东西；(哄婴儿的)橡皮奶头 | |
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236
momentary
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| adj.片刻的，瞬息的；短暂的 | |
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237
vehemently
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| adv. 热烈地 | |
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238
generosity
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| n.大度，慷慨，慷慨的行为 | |
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239
snarl
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| v.吼叫，怒骂，纠缠，混乱；n.混乱，缠结，咆哮 | |
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240
sleek
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| adj.光滑的，井然有序的；v.使光滑，梳拢 | |
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241
galloping
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| adj. 飞驰的, 急性的 动词gallop的现在分词形式 | |
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242
sincerity
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| n.真诚，诚意；真实 | |
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243
eked
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| v.（靠节省用量）使…的供应持久( eke的过去式和过去分词 )；节约使用；竭力维持生计；勉强度日 | |
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244
wares
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| n. 货物, 商品 | |
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245
expedients
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| n.应急有效的，权宜之计的( expedient的名词复数 ) | |
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246
mediocre
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| adj.平常的，普通的 | |
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247
corruption
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| n.腐败，堕落，贪污 | |
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248
outraged
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| a.震惊的，义愤填膺的 | |
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249
reticent
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| adj.沉默寡言的；言不如意的 | |
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250
propriety
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| n.正当行为；正当；适当 | |
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251
dangling
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| 悬吊着( dangle的现在分词 )； 摆动不定； 用某事物诱惑…； 吊胃口 | |
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252
tirade
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| n.冗长的攻击性演说 | |
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253
expended
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| v.花费( expend的过去式和过去分词 )；使用（钱等）做某事；用光；耗尽 | |
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254
harassing
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| v.侵扰，骚扰( harass的现在分词 )；不断攻击（敌人） | |
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255
insomnia
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| n.失眠，失眠症 | |
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256
reposed
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| v.将（手臂等）靠在某人（某物）上( repose的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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257
exasperating
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| adj. 激怒的 动词exasperate的现在分词形式 | |
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258
regained
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| 复得( regain的过去式和过去分词 )； 赢回； 重回； 复至某地 | |
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259
wayfarer
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| n.旅人 | |
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260
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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261
derived
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| vi.起源；由来；衍生；导出v.得到( derive的过去式和过去分词 )；（从…中）得到获得；源于；（从…中）提取 | |
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262
irresolute
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| adj.无决断的，优柔寡断的，踌躇不定的 | |
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263
resolute
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| adj.坚决的，果敢的 | |
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264
scrupulously
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| adv.一丝不苟地；小心翼翼地，多顾虑地 | |
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265
pious
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| adj.虔诚的；道貌岸然的 | |
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266
growled
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| v.（动物）发狺狺声， （雷）作隆隆声( growl的过去式和过去分词 )；低声咆哮着说 | |
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267
overflowing
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| n. 溢出物,溢流 adj. 充沛的，充满的 动词overflow的现在分词形式 | |
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268
gravel
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| n.砂跞；砂砾层；结石 | |
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269
spouting
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| n.水落管系统v.（指液体）喷出( spout的现在分词 )；滔滔不绝地讲；喋喋不休地说；喷水 | |
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270
pictorially
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| 绘画般地 | |
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271
shovel
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| n.铁锨，铲子，一铲之量；v.铲，铲出 | |
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272
shudders
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| n.颤动，打颤，战栗( shudder的名词复数 )v.战栗( shudder的第三人称单数 )；发抖；（机器、车辆等）突然震动；颤动 | |
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273
implement
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| n.(pl.)工具，器具；vt.实行，实施，执行 | |
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274
eyelids
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| n.眼睑( eyelid的名词复数 )；眼睛也不眨一下；不露声色；面不改色 | |
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275
mangled
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| vt.乱砍（mangle的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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276
stony
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| adj.石头的，多石头的，冷酷的，无情的 | |
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277
noted
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| adj.著名的，知名的 | |
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278
reposing
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| v.将（手臂等）靠在某人（某物）上( repose的现在分词 ) | |
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279
vindication
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| n.洗冤，证实 | |
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280
favourably
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| adv. 善意地，赞成地 =favorably | |
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281
vocal
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| adj.直言不讳的；嗓音的；n.[pl.]声乐节目 | |
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282
negligently
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283
brutality
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| n.野蛮的行为，残忍，野蛮 | |
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284
plank
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| n.板条，木板，政策要点，政纲条目 | |
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285
guardian
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| n.监护人；守卫者，保护者 | |
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286
droop
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| v.低垂，下垂；凋萎，萎靡 | |
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287
divergence
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| n.分歧，岔开 | |
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288
upwards
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| adv.向上，在更高处...以上 | |
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289
flickered
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| （通常指灯光）闪烁，摇曳( flicker的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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290
leisurely
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| adj.悠闲的；从容的，慢慢的 | |
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291
portent
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| n.预兆；恶兆；怪事 | |
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292
gorge
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| n.咽喉，胃，暴食，山峡；v.塞饱，狼吞虎咽地吃 | |
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293
raving
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| adj.说胡话的；疯狂的，怒吼的；非常漂亮的；令人醉心[痴心]的v.胡言乱语(rave的现在分词)n.胡话；疯话adv.胡言乱语地；疯狂地 | |
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294
victorious
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| adj.胜利的，得胜的 | |
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295
plunging
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| adj.跳进的，突进的v.颠簸( plunge的现在分词 )；暴跌；骤降；突降 | |
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296
caverns
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| 大山洞，大洞穴( cavern的名词复数 ) | |
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297
prudent
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| adj.谨慎的，有远见的，精打细算的 | |
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298
superfluous
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| adj.过多的，过剩的，多余的 | |
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299
reticence
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| n.沉默，含蓄 | |
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300
shrieks
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| n.尖叫声( shriek的名词复数 )v.尖叫( shriek的第三人称单数 ) | |
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301
sullen
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| adj.愠怒的，闷闷不乐的，(天气等)阴沉的 | |
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302
deliberately
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| adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地 | |
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303
phenomena
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| n.现象 | |
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304
habitual
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| adj.习惯性的；通常的，惯常的 | |
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