Ethan Frome
I had the story, bit by bit, from various people, and, as generally happens in such cases, each time it was a different story.
If you know Starkfield, Massachusetts, you know the post-office. If you know the post-office you must have seen Ethan Frome drive up to it, drop the reins2 on his hollow-backed bay and drag himself across the brick pavement to the white colonnade3: and you must have asked who he was.
It was there that, several years ago, I saw him for the first time; and the sight pulled me up sharp. Even then he was the most striking figure in Starkfield, though he was but the ruin of a man. It was not so much his great height that marked him, for the “natives” were easily singled out by their lank4 longitude5 from the stockier foreign breed: it was the careless powerful look he had, in spite of a lameness6 checking each step like the jerk of a chain. There was something bleak8 and unapproachable in his face, and he was so stiffened9 and grizzled that I took him for an old man and was surprised to hear that he was not more than fifty-two. I had this from Harmon Gow, who had driven the stage from Bettsbridge to Starkfield in pre-trolley11 days and knew the chronicle of all the families on his line.
“He’s looked that way ever since he had his smash-up; and that’s twenty-four years ago come next February,” Harmon threw out between reminiscent pauses.
The “smash-up” it was — I gathered from the same informant — which, besides drawing the red gash12 across Ethan Frome’s forehead, had so shortened and warped13 his right side that it cost him a visible effort to take the few steps from his buggy to the post-office window. He used to drive in from his farm every day at about noon, and as that was my own hour for fetching my mail I often passed him in the porch or stood beside him while we waited on the motions of the distributing hand behind the grating. I noticed that, though he came so punctually, he seldom received anything but a copy of the Bettsbridge Eagle, which he put without a glance into his sagging14 pocket. At intervals16, however, the post-master would hand him an envelope addressed to Mrs. Zenobia — or Mrs. Zeena–Frome, and usually bearing conspicuously17 in the upper left-hand corner the address of some manufacturer of patent medicine and the name of his specific. These documents my neighbour would also pocket without a glance, as if too much used to them to wonder at their number and variety, and would then turn away with a silent nod to the post-master.
Every one in Starkfield knew him and gave him a greeting tempered to his own grave mien18; but his taciturnity was respected and it was only on rare occasions that one of the older men of the place detained him for a word. When this happened he would listen quietly, his blue eyes on the speaker’s face, and answer in so low a tone that his words never reached me; then he would climb stiffly into his buggy, gather up the reins in his left hand and drive slowly away in the direction of his farm.
“It was a pretty bad smash-up?” I questioned Harmon, looking after Frome’s retreating figure, and thinking how gallantly19 his lean brown head, with its shock of light hair, must have sat on his strong shoulders before they were bent20 out of shape.
“Wust kind,” my informant assented21. “More’n enough to kill most men. But the Fromes are tough. Ethan’ll likely touch a hundred.”
“Good God!” I exclaimed. At the moment Ethan Frome, after climbing to his seat, had leaned over to assure himself of the security of a wooden box — also with a druggist’s label on it — which he had placed in the back of the buggy, and I saw his face as it probably looked when he thought himself alone. “That man touch a hundred? He looks as if he was dead and in hell now!”
Harmon drew a slab22 of tobacco from his pocket, cut off a wedge and pressed it into the leather pouch23 of his cheek. “Guess he’s been in Starkfield too many winters. Most of the smart ones get away.”
“Why didn’t he?”
“Somebody had to stay and care for the folks. There warn’t ever anybody but Ethan. Fust his father — then his mother — then his wife.”
“And then the smash-up?”
Harmon chuckled24 sardonically25. “That’s so. He had to stay then.”
“I see. And since then they’ve had to care for him?”
Harmon thoughtfully passed his tobacco to the other cheek. “Oh, as to that: I guess it’s always Ethan done the caring.”
Though Harmon Gow developed the tale as far as his mental and moral reach permitted there were perceptible gaps between his facts, and I had the sense that the deeper meaning of the story was in the gaps. But one phrase stuck in my memory and served as the nucleus26 about which I grouped my subsequent inferences: “Guess he’s been in Starkfield too many winters.”
Before my own time there was up I had learned to know what that meant. Yet I had come in the degenerate27 day of trolley, bicycle and rural delivery, when communication was easy between the scattered28 mountain villages, and the bigger towns in the valleys, such as Bettsbridge and Shadd’s Falls, had libraries, theatres and Y. M. C. A. halls to which the youth of the hills could descend29 for recreation. But when winter shut down on Starkfield and the village lay under a sheet of snow perpetually renewed from the pale skies, I began to see what life there — or rather its negation30 — must have been in Ethan Frome’s young manhood.
I had been sent up by my employers on a job connected with the big power-house at Corbury Junction31, and a long-drawn carpenters’ strike had so delayed the work that I found myself anchored at Starkfield — the nearest habitable spot — for the best part of the winter. I chafed32 at first, and then, under the hypnotising effect of routine, gradually began to find a grim satisfaction in the life. During the early part of my stay I had been struck by the contrast between the vitality33 of the climate and the deadness of the community. Day by day, after the December snows were over, a blazing blue sky poured down torrents34 of light and air on the white landscape, which gave them back in an intenser glitter. One would have supposed that such an atmosphere must quicken the emotions as well as the blood; but it seemed to produce no change except that of retarding35 still more the sluggish36 pulse of Starkfield. When I had been there a little longer, and had seen this phase of crystal clearness followed by long stretches of sunless cold; when the storms of February had pitched their white tents about the devoted37 village and the wild cavalry38 of March winds had charged down to their support; I began to understand why Starkfield emerged from its six months’ siege like a starved garrison39 capitulating without quarter. Twenty years earlier the means of resistance must have been far fewer, and the enemy in command of almost all the lines of access between the beleaguered40 villages; and, considering these things, I felt the sinister41 force of Harmon’s phrase: “Most of the smart ones get away.” But if that were the case, how could any combination of obstacles have hindered the flight of a man like Ethan Frome?
During my stay at Starkfield I lodged42 with a middle-aged43 widow colloquially44 known as Mrs. Ned Hale. Mrs. Hale’s father had been the village lawyer of the previous generation, and “lawyer Varnum’s house,” where my landlady45 still lived with her mother, was the most considerable mansion46 in the village. It stood at one end of the main street, its classic portico47 and small-paned windows looking down a flagged path between Norway spruces to the slim white steeple of the Congregational church. It was clear that the Varnum fortunes were at the ebb48, but the two women did what they could to preserve a decent dignity; and Mrs. Hale, in particular, had a certain wan49 refinement50 not out of keeping with her pale old-fashioned house.
In the “best parlour,” with its black horse-hair and mahogany weakly illuminated51 by a gurgling Carcel lamp, I listened every evening to another and more delicately shaded version of the Starkfield chronicle. It was not that Mrs. Ned Hale felt, or affected52, any social superiority to the people about her; it was only that the accident of a finer sensibility and a little more education had put just enough distance between herself and her neighbours to enable her to judge them with detachment. She was not unwilling53 to exercise this faculty54, and I had great hopes of getting from her the missing facts of Ethan Frome’s story, or rather such a key to his character as should co-ordinate the facts I knew. Her mind was a store-house of innocuous anecdote55 and any question about her acquaintances brought forth56 a volume of detail; but on the subject of Ethan Frome I found her unexpectedly reticent57. There was no hint of disapproval58 in her reserve; I merely felt in her an insurmountable reluctance60 to speak of him or his affairs, a low “Yes, I knew them both . . . it was awful . . . ” seeming to be the utmost concession61 that her distress62 could make to my curiosity.
So marked was the change in her manner, such depths of sad initiation63 did it imply, that, with some doubts as to my delicacy64, I put the case anew to my village oracle65, Harmon Gow; but got for my pains only an uncomprehending grunt66.
“Ruth Varnum was always as nervous as a rat; and, come to think of it, she was the first one to see ’em after they was picked up. It happened right below lawyer Varnum’s, down at the bend of the Corbury road, just round about the time that Ruth got engaged to Ned Hale. The young folks was all friends, and I guess she just can’t bear to talk about it. She’s had troubles enough of her own.”
All the dwellers67 in Starkfield, as in more notable communities, had had troubles enough of their own to make them comparatively indifferent to those of their neighbours; and though all conceded that Ethan Frome’s had been beyond the common measure, no one gave me an explanation of the look in his face which, as I persisted in thinking, neither poverty nor physical suffering could have put there. Nevertheless, I might have contented68 myself with the story pieced together from these hints had it not been for the provocation69 of Mrs. Hale’s silence, and — a little later — for the accident of personal contact with the man.
On my arrival at Starkfield, Denis Eady, the rich Irish grocer, who was the proprietor70 of Starkfield’s nearest approach to a livery stable, had entered into an agreement to send me over daily to Corbury Flats, where I had to pick up my train for the Junction. But about the middle of the winter Eady’s horses fell ill of a local epidemic71. The illness spread to the other Starkfield stables and for a day or two I was put to it to find a means of transport. Then Harmon Gow suggested that Ethan Frome’s bay was still on his legs and that his owner might be glad to drive me over.
I stared at the suggestion. “Ethan Frome? But I’ve never even spoken to him. Why on earth should he put himself out for me?”
Harmon’s answer surprised me still more. “I don’t know as he would; but I know he wouldn’t be sorry to earn a dollar.”
I had been told that Frome was poor, and that the saw-mill and the arid73 acres of his farm yielded scarcely enough to keep his household through the winter; but I had not supposed him to be in such want as Harmon’s words implied, and I expressed my wonder.
“Well, matters ain’t gone any too well with him,” Harmon said. “When a man’s been setting round like a hulk for twenty years or more, seeing things that want doing, it eats inter15 him, and he loses his grit74. That Frome farm was always ‘bout as bare’s a milkpan when the cat’s been round; and you know what one of them old water-mills is wuth nowadays. When Ethan could sweat over ’em both from sunup to dark he kinder choked a living out of ’em; but his folks ate up most everything, even then, and I don’t see how he makes out now. Fust his father got a kick, out haying, and went soft in the brain, and gave away money like Bible texts afore he died. Then his mother got queer and dragged along for years as weak as a baby; and his wife Zeena, she’s always been the greatest hand at doctoring in the county. Sickness and trouble: that’s what Ethan’s had his plate full up with, ever since the very first helping75.”
The next morning, when I looked out, I saw the hollow-backed bay between the Varnum spruces, and Ethan Frome, throwing back his worn bearskin, made room for me in the sleigh at his side. After that, for a week, he drove me over every morning to Corbury Flats, and on my return in the afternoon met me again and carried me back through the icy night to Starkfield. The distance each way was barely three miles, but the old bay’s pace was slow, and even with firm snow under the runners we were nearly an hour on the way. Ethan Frome drove in silence, the reins loosely held in his left hand, his brown seamed profile, under the helmet-like peak of the cap, relieved against the banks of snow like the bronze image of a hero. He never turned his face to mine, or answered, except in monosyllables, the questions I put, or such slight pleasantries as I ventured. He seemed a part of the mute melancholy76 landscape, an incarnation of its frozen woe77, with all that was warm and sentient78 in him fast bound below the surface; but there was nothing unfriendly in his silence. I simply felt that he lived in a depth of moral isolation79 too remote for casual access, and I had the sense that his loneliness was not merely the result of his personal plight80, tragic81 as I guessed that to be, but had in it, as Harmon Gow had hinted, the profound accumulated cold of many Starkfield winters.
Only once or twice was the distance between us bridged for a moment; and the glimpses thus gained confirmed my desire to know more. Once I happened to speak of an engineering job I had been on the previous year in Florida, and of the contrast between the winter landscape about us and that in which I had found myself the year before; and to my surprise Frome said suddenly: “Yes: I was down there once, and for a good while afterward82 I could call up the sight of it in winter. But now it’s all snowed under.”
He said no more, and I had to guess the rest from the inflection of his voice and his sharp relapse into silence.
Another day, on getting into my train at the Flats, I missed a volume of popular science — I think it was on some recent discoveries in bio-chemistry — which I had carried with me to read on the way. I thought no more about it till I got into the sleigh again that evening, and saw the book in Frome’s hand.
“I found it after you were gone,” he said.
I put the volume into my pocket and we dropped back into our usual silence; but as we began to crawl up the long hill from Corbury Flats to the Starkfield ridge10 I became aware in the dusk that he had turned his face to mine.
“There are things in that book that I didn’t know the first word about,” he said.
I wondered less at his words than at the queer note of resentment83 in his voice. He was evidently surprised and slightly aggrieved84 at his own ignorance.
“Does that sort of thing interest you?” I asked.
“It used to.”
“There are one or two rather new things in the book: there have been some big strides lately in that particular line of research.” I waited a moment for an answer that did not come; then I said: “If you’d like to look the book through I’d be glad to leave it with you.”
He hesitated, and I had the impression that he felt himself about to yield to a stealing tide of inertia85; then, “Thank you — I’ll take it,” he answered shortly.
I hoped that this incident might set up some more direct communication between us. Frome was so simple and straightforward86 that I was sure his curiosity about the book was based on a genuine interest in its subject. Such tastes and acquirements in a man of his condition made the contrast more poignant87 between his outer situation and his inner needs, and I hoped that the chance of giving expression to the latter might at least unseal his lips. But something in his past history, or in his present way of living, had apparently88 driven him too deeply into himself for any casual impulse to draw him back to his kind. At our next meeting he made no allusion89 to the book, and our intercourse90 seemed fated to remain as negative and one-sided as if there had been no break in his reserve.
Frome had been driving me over to the Flats for about a week when one morning I looked out of my window into a thick snow-fall. The height of the white waves massed against the garden-fence and along the wall of the church showed that the storm must have been going on all night, and that the drifts were likely to be heavy in the open. I thought it probable that my train would be delayed; but I had to be at the power-house for an hour or two that afternoon, and I decided91, if Frome turned up, to push through to the Flats and wait there till my train came in. I don’t know why I put it in the conditional92, however, for I never doubted that Frome would appear. He was not the kind of man to be turned from his business by any commotion93 of the elements; and at the appointed hour his sleigh glided94 up through the snow like a stage-apparition behind thickening veils of gauze.
I was getting to know him too well to express either wonder or gratitude95 at his keeping his appointment; but I exclaimed in surprise as I saw him turn his horse in a direction opposite to that of the Corbury road.
“The railroad’s blocked by a freight-train that got stuck in a drift below the Flats,” he explained, as we jogged off into the stinging whiteness.
“But look here — where are you taking me, then?”
“Straight to the Junction, by the shortest way,” he answered, pointing up School House Hill with his whip.
“To the Junction — in this storm? Why, it’s a good ten miles!”
“The bay’ll do it if you give him time. You said you had some business there this afternoon. I’ll see you get there.”
He said it so quietly that I could only answer: “You’re doing me the biggest kind of a favour.”
“That’s all right,” he rejoined.
Abreast96 of the schoolhouse the road forked, and we dipped down a lane to the left, between hemlock97 boughs98 bent inward to their trunks by the weight of the snow. I had often walked that way on Sundays, and knew that the solitary99 roof showing through bare branches near the bottom of the hill was that of Frome’s saw-mill. It looked exanimate enough, with its idle wheel looming100 above the black stream dashed with yellow-white spume, and its cluster of sheds sagging under their white load. Frome did not even turn his head as we drove by, and still in silence we began to mount the next slope. About a mile farther, on a road I had never travelled, we came to an orchard101 of starved apple-trees writhing102 over a hillside among outcroppings of slate103 that nuzzled up through the snow like animals pushing out their noses to breathe. Beyond the orchard lay a field or two, their boundaries lost under drifts; and above the fields, huddled104 against the white immensities of land and sky, one of those lonely New England farm-houses that make the landscape lonelier.
“That’s my place,” said Frome, with a sideway jerk of his lame7 elbow; and in the distress and oppression of the scene I did not know what to answer. The snow had ceased, and a flash of watery105 sunlight exposed the house on the slope above us in all its plaintive106 ugliness. The black wraith107 of a deciduous108 creeper flapped from the porch, and the thin wooden walls, under their worn coat of paint, seemed to shiver in the wind that had risen with the ceasing of the snow.
“The house was bigger in my father’s time: I had to take down the ‘L,’ a while back,” Frome continued, checking with a twitch109 of the left rein1 the bay’s evident intention of turning in through the broken-down gate.
I saw then that the unusually forlorn and stunted110 look of the house was partly due to the loss of what is known in New England as the “L”: that long deep-roofed adjunct usually built at right angles to the main house, and connecting it, by way of storerooms and tool-house, with the wood-shed and cow-barn. Whether because of its symbolic111 sense, the image it presents of a life linked with the soil, and enclosing in itself the chief sources of warmth and nourishment112, or whether merely because of the consolatory113 thought that it enables the dwellers in that harsh climate to get to their morning’s work without facing the weather, it is certain that the “L” rather than the house itself seems to be the centre, the actual hearth-stone of the New England farm. Perhaps this connection of ideas, which had often occurred to me in my rambles114 about Starkfield, caused me to hear a wistful note in Frome’s words, and to see in the diminished dwelling115 the image of his own shrunken body.
“We’re kinder side-tracked here now,” he added, “but there was considerable passing before the railroad was carried through to the Flats.” He roused the lagging bay with another twitch; then, as if the mere59 sight of the house had let me too deeply into his confidence for any farther pretence116 of reserve, he went on slowly: “I’ve always set down the worst of mother’s trouble to that. When she got the rheumatism117 so bad she couldn’t move around she used to sit up there and watch the road by the hour; and one year, when they was six months mending the Bettsbridge pike after the floods, and Harmon Gow had to bring his stage round this way, she picked up so that she used to get down to the gate most days to see him. But after the trains begun running nobody ever come by here to speak of, and mother never could get it through her head what had happened, and it preyed118 on her right along till she died.”
As we turned into the Corbury road the snow began to fall again, cutting off our last glimpse of the house; and Frome’s silence fell with it, letting down between us the old veil of reticence119. This time the wind did not cease with the return of the snow. Instead, it sprang up to a gale120 which now and then, from a tattered121 sky, flung pale sweeps of sunlight over a landscape chaotically122 tossed. But the bay was as good as Frome’s word, and we pushed on to the Junction through the wild white scene.
In the afternoon the storm held off, and the clearness in the west seemed to my inexperienced eye the pledge of a fair evening. I finished my business as quickly as possible, and we set out for Starkfield with a good chance of getting there for supper. But at sunset the clouds gathered again, bringing an earlier night, and the snow began to fall straight and steadily123 from a sky without wind, in a soft universal diffusion124 more confusing than the gusts125 and eddies126 of the morning. It seemed to be a part of the thickening darkness, to be the winter night itself descending127 on us layer by layer.
The small ray of Frome’s lantern was soon lost in this smothering128 medium, in which even his sense of direction, and the bay’s homing instinct, finally ceased to serve us. Two or three times some ghostly landmark129 sprang up to warn us that we were astray, and then was sucked back into the mist; and when we finally regained130 our road the old horse began to show signs of exhaustion131. I felt myself to blame for having accepted Frome’s offer, and after a short discussion I persuaded him to let me get out of the sleigh and walk along through the snow at the bay’s side. In this way we struggled on for another mile or two, and at last reached a point where Frome, peering into what seemed to me formless night, said: “That’s my gate down yonder.”
The last stretch had been the hardest part of the way. The bitter cold and the heavy going had nearly knocked the wind out of me, and I could feel the horse’s side ticking like a clock under my hand.
“Look here, Frome,” I began, “there’s no earthly use in your going any farther — ” but he interrupted me: “Nor you neither. There’s been about enough of this for anybody.”
I understood that he was offering me a night’s shelter at the farm, and without answering I turned into the gate at his side, and followed him to the barn, where I helped him to unharness and bed down the tired horse. When this was done he unhooked the lantern from the sleigh, stepped out again into the night, and called to me over his shoulder: “This way.”
Far off above us a square of light trembled through the screen of snow. Staggering along in Frome’s wake I floundered toward it, and in the darkness almost fell into one of the deep drifts against the front of the house. Frome scrambled132 up the slippery steps of the porch, digging a way through the snow with his heavily booted foot. Then he lifted his lantern, found the latch133, and led the way into the house. I went after him into a low unlit passage, at the back of which a ladder-like staircase rose into obscurity. On our right a line of light marked the door of the room which had sent its ray across the night; and behind the door I heard a woman’s voice droning querulously.
Frome stamped on the worn oil-cloth to shake the snow from his boots, and set down his lantern on a kitchen chair which was the only piece of furniture in the hall. Then he opened the door.
“Come in,” he said; and as he spoke72 the droning voice grew still . . .
It was that night that I found the clue to Ethan Frome, and began to put together this vision of his story.
收听单词发音 |
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rein
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| n.疆绳，统治，支配；vt.以僵绳控制，统治 | |
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reins
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| 感情，激情； 缰( rein的名词复数 )； 控制手段； 掌管； （成人带着幼儿走路以防其走失时用的）保护带 | |
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colonnade
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| n.柱廊 | |
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lank
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| adj.瘦削的；稀疏的 | |
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longitude
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| n.经线，经度 | |
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lameness
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| n. 跛, 瘸, 残废 | |
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lame
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| adj.跛的，(辩解、论据等)无说服力的 | |
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bleak
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| adj.(天气)阴冷的；凄凉的；暗淡的 | |
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stiffened
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| 加强的 | |
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ridge
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| n.山脊；鼻梁；分水岭 | |
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trolley
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| n.手推车，台车；无轨电车；有轨电车 | |
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gash
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| v.深切，划开；n.(深长的)切(伤)口；裂缝 | |
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warped
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| adj.反常的；乖戾的；（变）弯曲的；变形的v.弄弯，变歪( warp的过去式和过去分词 )；使（行为等）不合情理，使乖戾， | |
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sagging
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| 下垂[沉，陷]，松垂，垂度 | |
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inter
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| v.埋葬 | |
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intervals
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| n.[军事]间隔( interval的名词复数 )；间隔时间；[数学]区间；（戏剧、电影或音乐会的）幕间休息 | |
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conspicuously
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| ad.明显地，惹人注目地 | |
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mien
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| n.风采；态度 | |
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gallantly
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| adv. 漂亮地，勇敢地，献殷勤地 | |
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bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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assented
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| 同意，赞成( assent的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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slab
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| n.平板，厚的切片；v.切成厚板，以平板盖上 | |
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pouch
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| n.小袋，小包，囊状袋；vt.装...入袋中，用袋运输；vi.用袋送信件 | |
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chuckled
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| 轻声地笑( chuckle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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sardonically
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| adv.讽刺地，冷嘲地 | |
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nucleus
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| n.核，核心，原子核 | |
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degenerate
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| v.退步，堕落；adj.退步的，堕落的；n.堕落者 | |
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scattered
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| adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的 | |
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descend
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| vt./vi.传下来，下来，下降 | |
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negation
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| n.否定；否认 | |
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junction
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| n.连接，接合；交叉点，接合处，枢纽站 | |
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chafed
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| v.擦热（尤指皮肤）( chafe的过去式 )；擦痛；发怒；惹怒 | |
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33
vitality
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| n.活力，生命力，效力 | |
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34
torrents
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| n.倾注；奔流( torrent的名词复数 )；急流；爆发；连续不断 | |
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35
retarding
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| 使减速( retard的现在分词 )； 妨碍； 阻止； 推迟 | |
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36
sluggish
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| adj.懒惰的，迟钝的，无精打采的 | |
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37
devoted
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| adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的 | |
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38
cavalry
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| n.骑兵；轻装甲部队 | |
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39
garrison
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| n.卫戍部队；驻地，卫戍区；vt.派(兵)驻防 | |
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40
beleaguered
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| adj.受到围困[围攻]的；包围的v.围攻( beleaguer的过去式和过去分词)；困扰；骚扰 | |
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41
sinister
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| adj.不吉利的，凶恶的，左边的 | |
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42
lodged
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| v.存放( lodge的过去式和过去分词 )；暂住；埋入；（权利、权威等）归属 | |
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43
middle-aged
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| adj.中年的 | |
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44
colloquially
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| adv.用白话，用通俗语 | |
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45
landlady
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| n.女房东，女地主 | |
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46
mansion
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| n.大厦，大楼；宅第 | |
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47
portico
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| n.柱廊，门廊 | |
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48
ebb
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| vi.衰退，减退；n.处于低潮，处于衰退状态 | |
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49
wan
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| (wide area network)广域网 | |
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50
refinement
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| n.文雅；高尚；精美；精制；精炼 | |
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51
illuminated
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| adj.被照明的；受启迪的 | |
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52
affected
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| adj.不自然的，假装的 | |
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53
unwilling
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| adj.不情愿的 | |
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54
faculty
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| n.才能；学院，系；(学院或系的)全体教学人员 | |
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55
anecdote
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| n.轶事，趣闻，短故事 | |
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56
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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57
reticent
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| adj.沉默寡言的；言不如意的 | |
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58
disapproval
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| n.反对，不赞成 | |
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59
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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60
reluctance
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| n.厌恶，讨厌，勉强，不情愿 | |
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61
concession
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| n.让步，妥协；特许(权) | |
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62
distress
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| n.苦恼，痛苦，不舒适；不幸；vt.使悲痛 | |
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63
initiation
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| n.开始 | |
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64
delicacy
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| n.精致，细微，微妙，精良；美味，佳肴 | |
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oracle
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| n.神谕，神谕处，预言 | |
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66
grunt
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| v.嘟哝；作呼噜声；n.呼噜声，嘟哝 | |
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67
dwellers
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| n.居民，居住者( dweller的名词复数 ) | |
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68
contented
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| adj.满意的，安心的，知足的 | |
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69
provocation
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| n.激怒，刺激，挑拨，挑衅的事物，激怒的原因 | |
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70
proprietor
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| n.所有人；业主；经营者 | |
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71
epidemic
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| n.流行病；盛行；adj.流行性的，流传极广的 | |
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72
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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73
arid
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| adj.干旱的；(土地)贫瘠的 | |
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74
grit
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| n.沙粒，决心，勇气；v.下定决心，咬紧牙关 | |
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75
helping
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| n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的 | |
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76
melancholy
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| n.忧郁，愁思；adj.令人感伤（沮丧）的，忧郁的 | |
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woe
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| n.悲哀，苦痛，不幸，困难；int.用来表达悲伤或惊慌 | |
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78
sentient
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| adj.有知觉的，知悉的；adv.有感觉能力地 | |
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79
isolation
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| n.隔离，孤立，分解，分离 | |
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plight
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| n.困境，境况，誓约，艰难；vt.宣誓，保证，约定 | |
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81
tragic
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| adj.悲剧的，悲剧性的，悲惨的 | |
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82
afterward
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| adv.后来；以后 | |
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83
resentment
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| n.怨愤，忿恨 | |
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84
aggrieved
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| adj.愤愤不平的，受委屈的；悲痛的；（在合法权利方面）受侵害的v.令委屈，令苦恼，侵害( aggrieve的过去式)；令委屈，令苦恼，侵害( aggrieve的过去式和过去分词) | |
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85
inertia
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| adj.惰性，惯性，懒惰，迟钝 | |
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86
straightforward
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| adj.正直的，坦率的；易懂的，简单的 | |
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87
poignant
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| adj.令人痛苦的，辛酸的，惨痛的 | |
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88
apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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89
allusion
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| n.暗示，间接提示 | |
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90
intercourse
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| n.性交；交流，交往，交际 | |
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91
decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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92
conditional
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| adj.条件的，带有条件的 | |
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93
commotion
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| n.骚动，动乱 | |
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94
glided
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| v.滑动( glide的过去式和过去分词 )；掠过；（鸟或飞机 ） 滑翔 | |
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95
gratitude
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| adj.感激，感谢 | |
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96
abreast
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| adv.并排地；跟上(时代)的步伐，与…并进地 | |
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97
hemlock
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| n.毒胡萝卜，铁杉 | |
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98
boughs
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| 大树枝( bough的名词复数 ) | |
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99
solitary
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| adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士 | |
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100
looming
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| n.上现蜃景（光通过低层大气发生异常折射形成的一种海市蜃楼）v.隐约出现，阴森地逼近( loom的现在分词 )；隐约出现，阴森地逼近 | |
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101
orchard
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| n.果园，果园里的全部果树，(美俚)棒球场 | |
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102
writhing
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| （因极度痛苦而）扭动或翻滚( writhe的现在分词 ) | |
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103
slate
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| n.板岩，石板，石片，石板色，候选人名单；adj.暗蓝灰色的，含板岩的；vt.用石板覆盖，痛打，提名，预订 | |
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104
huddled
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| 挤在一起（huddle的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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105
watery
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| adj.有水的，水汪汪的；湿的，湿润的 | |
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106
plaintive
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| adj.可怜的，伤心的 | |
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107
wraith
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| n.幽灵；骨瘦如柴的人 | |
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108
deciduous
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| adj.非永久的；短暂的；脱落的；落叶的 | |
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109
twitch
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| v.急拉，抽动，痉挛，抽搐；n.扯，阵痛，痉挛 | |
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110
stunted
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| adj.矮小的；发育迟缓的 | |
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111
symbolic
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| adj.象征性的，符号的，象征主义的 | |
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112
nourishment
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| n.食物，营养品；营养情况 | |
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113
consolatory
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| adj.慰问的，可藉慰的 | |
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114
rambles
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| （无目的地）漫游( ramble的第三人称单数 )； （喻）漫谈； 扯淡； 长篇大论 | |
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115
dwelling
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| n.住宅，住所，寓所 | |
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116
pretence
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| n.假装，作假；借口，口实；虚伪；虚饰 | |
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117
rheumatism
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| n.风湿病 | |
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118
preyed
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| v.掠食( prey的过去式和过去分词 )；掠食；折磨；（人）靠欺诈为生 | |
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119
reticence
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| n.沉默，含蓄 | |
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120
gale
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| n.大风，强风，一阵闹声（尤指笑声等） | |
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121
tattered
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| adj.破旧的，衣衫破的 | |
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122
chaotically
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123
steadily
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| adv.稳定地；不变地；持续地 | |
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124
diffusion
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| n.流布；普及；散漫 | |
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125
gusts
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| 一阵强风( gust的名词复数 )； （怒、笑等的）爆发； （感情的）迸发； 发作 | |
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126
eddies
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| （水、烟等的）漩涡，涡流( eddy的名词复数 ) | |
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127
descending
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| n. 下行 adj. 下降的 | |
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128
smothering
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| （使）窒息， （使）透不过气( smother的现在分词 )； 覆盖； 忍住； 抑制 | |
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129
landmark
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| n.陆标，划时代的事，地界标 | |
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130
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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131
exhaustion
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| n.耗尽枯竭，疲惫，筋疲力尽，竭尽，详尽无遗的论述 | |
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132
scrambled
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| v.快速爬行( scramble的过去式和过去分词 )；攀登；争夺；（军事飞机）紧急起飞 | |
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133
latch
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| n.门闩，窗闩；弹簧锁 | |
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