(1931)
The newspaper reporter, from the nature of the case, has generally to deal with the commonplaces of life. He does his best to find something singular and arresting in the spectacle of the day’s doings; but, in spite of himself, he is generally forced to confess that whatever there may be beneath the surface, the surface itself is dull enough.
I must allow, however, that during my ten years or so in Fleet Street, I came across some tracks that were not devoid1 of oddity. There was that business of Campo Tosto, for example. That never got into the papers. Campo Tosto, I must explain, was a Belgian, settled for many years in England, who had left all his property to the man who looked after him.
My news editor was struck by something odd in the brief story that appeared in the morning paper, and sent me down to make inquiries2. I left the train at Reigate; and there I found that Mr. Campo Tosto had lived at a place called Burnt Green — which is a translation of his name into English — and that he shot at trespassers with a bow and arrows. I was driven to his house, and saw through a glass door some of the property which he had bequeathed to his servant: fifteenth-century triptychs, dim and rich and golden; carved statues of the saints; great spiked3 altar candlesticks; storied censers in tarnished4 silver; and much more of old church treasure. The legatee, whose name was Turk, would not let me enter; but, as a treat, he took my newspaper from my pocket and read it upside down with great accuracy and facility. I wrote this very queer story, but Fleet Street would not suffer it. I believe it struck them as too strange a thing for their sober columns.
And then there was the affair of the J.H.V.S. Syndicate, which dealt with a Cabalistic cipher5, and the phenomenon, called in the Old Testament6, “the Glory of the Lord,” and the discovery of certain objects buried under the site of the Temple at Jerusalem; that story was left half told, and I never heard the ending of it. And I never understood the affair of the hoard7 of coins that a storm disclosed on the Suffolk coast near Aldeburgh. From the talk of the longshoremen, who were on the look-out amongst the dunes8, it appeared that a great wave came in and washed away a slice of the sand cliff just beneath them. They saw glittering objects as the sea washed back, and retrieved9 what they could. I viewed the treasure — it was a collection of coins; the earliest of the twelfth century, the latest, pennies, three or four of them, of Edward VII, and a bronze medal of Charles Spurgeon. There are, of course, explanations of the puzzle; but there are difficulties in the way of accepting any one of them. It is very clear, for example, that the hoard was not gathered by a collector of coins; neither the twentieth-century pennies nor the medal of the great Baptist preacher would appeal to a numismatologist.
But perhaps the queerest story to which my newspaper connections introduced me was the affair of the Reverend Secretan Jones, the “Canonbury Clergyman,” as the headlines called him.
To begin with, it was a matter of sudden disappearance11. I believe people of all sorts disappear by dozens in the course of every year, and nobody hears of them or their vanishings. Perhaps they turn up again, or perhaps they don’t; anyhow, they never get so much as a line in the papers, and there is an end of it. Take, for example, that unknown man in the burning car, who cost the amorous12 commercial traveller his life. In a certain sense, we all heard of him; but he must have disappeared from somewhere in space, and nobody knew that he had gone from his world. So it is often; but now and then there is some circumstance that draws attention to the fact that A. or B. was in his place on Monday and missing from it on Tuesday and Wednesday; and then inquiries are made and usually the lost man is found, alive or dead, and the explanation is often simple enough.
But as to the case of Secretan Jones. This gentleman, a cleric as I have said, but seldom, it appeared, exercising his sacred office, lived retired13 in a misty14, 1830–40 square in the recesses15 of Canonbury. He was understood to be engaged in some kind of scholarly research, was a well-known figure in the Reading Room of the British Museum, and looked anything between fifty and sixty. It seems probable that if he had been content with that achievement he might have disappeared as often as he pleased, and nobody would have troubled; but one night as he sat late over his books in the stillness of that retired quarter, a motor-lorry passed along a road not far from Tollit Square, breaking the silence with a heavy rumble16 and causing a tremor17 of the ground that penetrated18 into Secretan Jones’s study. A teacup and saucer on a side-table trembled slightly, and Secretan Jones’s attention was taken from his authorities and note-books.
This was in February or March of 1907, and the motor industry was still in its early stages. If you preferred a horse-bus, there were plenty left in the streets. Motor coaches were non-existent, hansom cabs still jogged and jingled19 on their cheerful way; and there were very few heavy motor-vans in use. But to Secretan Jones, disturbed by the rattle20 of his cup and saucer, a vision of the future, highly coloured, was vouchsafed21, and he began to write to the papers. He saw the London streets almost as we know them to-day; streets where a horse-vehicle would be almost a matter to show one’s children for them to remember in their old age; streets in which a great procession of huge omnibuses carrying fifty, seventy, a hundred people was continually passing; streets in which vans and trailers loaded far beyond the capacity of any manageable team of horses would make the ground tremble without ceasing.
The retired scholar, with the happy activity which does sometimes, oddly enough, distinguish the fish out of water, went on and spared nothing. Newton saw the apple fall, and built up a mathematical universe; Jones heard the teacup rattle, and laid the universe of London in ruins. He pointed23 out that neither the roadways nor the houses beside them were constructed to withstand the weight and vibration24 of the coming traffic. He crumbled25 all the shops in Oxford26 Street and Piccadilly into dust; he cracked the dome27 of St. Paul’s, brought down Westminster Abbey, reduced the Law Courts to a fine powder. What was left was dealt with by fire, flood and pestilence28. The prophetic Jones demonstrated that the roads must collapse29, involving the various services beneath them. Here, the water-mains and the main drainage would flood the streets; there, huge volumes of gas would escape, and electric wires fuse; the earth would be rent with explosions, and the myriad30 streets of London would go up in a great flame of fire. Nobody really believed that it would happen, but it made good reading, and Secretan Jones gave interviews, started discussions, and enjoyed himself thoroughly31. Thus he became the “Canonbury Clergyman.” “Canonbury Clergyman says that Catastrophe32 is Inevitable”; “Doom of London pronounced by Canonbury Clergyman”; “Canonbury Clergyman’s Forecast: London a Carnival33 of Flood, Fire and Earthquake”— that sort of thing.
And thus Secretan Jones, though his main interests were liturgical34, was able to secure a few newspaper paragraphs when he disappeared — rather more than a year after his great campaign in the Press, which was not quite forgotten, but not very clearly remembered.
A few paragraphs, I said, and stowed away, most of them, in out-of-the-way corners of the papers. It seemed that Mrs. Sedger, the woman who shared with her husband the business of looking after Secretan Jones, brought in tea on a tray to his study at four o’clock as usual, and came, again as usual, to take it away at five. And, a good deal to her astonishment35, the study was empty. She concluded that her master had gone out for a stroll, though he never went out for strolls between tea and dinner. He didn’t come back for dinner; and Sedger, inspecting the hall, pointed out that the master’s hats and coats and sticks and umbrellas were all on their pegs36 and in their places. The Sedgers conjectured37 this, that, and the other, waited a week, and then went to the police, and the story came out and perturbed38 a few learned friends and correspondents: Prebendary Lincoln, author of The Roman Canon in the Third Century; Dr. Brightwell, wise on the Rite22 of Malabar; and Stokes, the Mozarabic man. The rest of the populace did not take very much interest in the affair, and when, at the end of six weeks, there was a line or two stating that “the Rev10. Secretan Jones, whose disappearance at the beginning of last month from his house in Tollit Square, Canonbury, caused some anxiety to his friends, returned yesterday,” there was neither enthusiasm nor curiosity. The last line of the paragraph said that the incident was supposed to be the result of a misunderstanding; and nobody even asked what that statement meant.
And there would have been the end of it — if Sedger had not gossiped to the circle in the private bar of The King of Prussia. Some mysterious and unofficial person, in touch with this circle, insinuated40 himself into the presence of my news editor and told him Sedger’s tale. Mrs. Sedger, a careful woman, had kept all the rooms tidy and well dusted. On the Tuesday afternoon she had opened the study door and saw, to her amazement41 and delight, her master sitting at his table with a great book open beside him and a pencil in his hand. She exclaimed:
“Oh, sir, I am glad to see you back again!”
“Back again?” said the clergyman. “What do you mean? I think I should like some more tea.”
“I don’t know in the least what it’s all about,” said the news editor, “but you might go and see Secretan Jones and have a chat with him. There may be a story in it.” There was a story in it, but not for my paper, or any other paper.
I got into the house in Tollit Square on some unhandsome pretext43 connected with Secretan Jones’s traffic scare of the year before. He looked at me in a dim, abstracted way at first — the “great book” of his servant’s story, and other books, and many black quarto notebooks were about him — but my introduction of the proposed design for a “mammoth carrier” clarified him, and he began to talk eagerly, and as it seemed to me lucidly44, of the grave menace of the new mechanical transport.
“But what’s the use of talking?” he ended. “I tried to wake people up to the certain dangers ahead. I seemed to succeed for a few weeks; and then they forgot all about it. You would really say that the great majority are like dreamers, like sleepwalkers. Yes; like men walking in a dream; shutting out all the actualities, all the facts of life. They know that they are, in fact, walking on the edge of a precipice46; and yet they are able to believe, it seems, that the precipice is a garden path; and they behave as if it were a garden path, as safe as that path you see down there, going to the door at the bottom of my garden.”
The study was at the back of the house, and looked on the long garden, heavily overgrown with shrubs47 run wild, mingling48 with one another, some of them flowering richly, and altogether and happily obscuring and confounding the rigid49 grey walls that doubtless separated each garden from its neighbours. Above the tall shrubs, taller elms and planes and ash trees grew unlopped and handsomely neglected; and under this deep concealment50 of green boughs51 the path went down to a green door, just visible under a cloud of white roses.
“As safe as that path you see there,” Secretan Jones repeated, and, looking at him, I thought his expression changed a little; very slightly, indeed, but to a certain questioning, one might say to a meditative52 doubt. He suggested to me a man engaged in an argument, who puts his case strongly, decisively; and then hesitates for the fraction of a second as a point occurs to him of which he had never thought before; a point as yet unweighed, unestimated; dimly present, but more as a shadow than a shape.
The newspaper reporter needs the gestures of the serpent as well as its wisdom. I forget how I glided53 from the safe topic of the traffic peril54 to the dubious55 territory which I had been sent to explore. At all events, my contortions56 were the most graceful57 that I could devise; but they were altogether vain. Secretan Jones’s kind, lean, clean-shaven face took on an expression of distress58. He looked at me as one in perplexity; he seemed to search his mind not for the answer that he should give me, but rather for some answer due to himself.
“I am extremely sorry that I cannot give you the information you want,” he said, after a considerable pause. “But I really can’t go any farther into the matter. In fact, it is quite out of the question to do so. You must tell your editor — or sub-editor; which is it?— that the whole business is due to a misunderstanding, a misconception, which I am not at liberty to explain. But I am really sorry that you have come all this way for nothing.”
There was real apology and regret, not only in his words, but in his tones and in his aspect. I could not clutch my hat and get on my way with a short word in the character of a disappointed and somewhat disgusted emissary; so we fell on general talk, and it came out that we both came from the Welsh borderland, and had long ago walked over the same hills and drunk of the same wells. Indeed, I believe we proved cousinship, in the seventh degree or so, and tea came in and before long Secretan Jones was deep in liturgical problems, of which I knew just enough to play the listener’s part. Indeed, when I had told him that the hwyl, or chanted eloquence59, of the Welsh Methodists was, in fact, the Preface Tone of the Roman Missal, he overflowed60 with grateful interest, and made a note in one of his books, and said the point was most curious and important. It was a pleasant evening, and we strolled through the french windows into the green-shadowed, blossoming garden, and went on with our talk, till it was time — and high time — for me to go. I had taken up my hat as we left the study, and as we stood by the green door in the wall at the end of the garden, I suggested that I might use it.
“I’m so sorry,” said Secretan Jones, looking, I thought, a little worried, “but I am afraid it’s jammed, or something of that kind. It has always been an awkward door, and I hardly ever use it.”
So we went through the house, and on the doorstep he pressed me to come again, and was so cordial that I agreed to his suggestion of the Saturday sennight. And so at last I got an answer to the question with which my newspaper had originally entrusted61 me; but an answer by no means for newspaper use. The tale, or the experience, or the impression, or whatever it may be called, was delivered to me by very slow degrees, with hesitations62, and in a manner of tentative suggestion that often reminded me of our first talk together. It was as if Jones were again and again questioning himself as to the matter of his utterances63, as if he doubted whether they should not rather be treated as dreams, and dismissed as trifles without consequence.
He said once to me: “People do tell their dreams, I know; but isn’t it usually felt that they are telling nothing? That’s what I am afraid of.”
I told him that I thought we might throw a great deal of light on very dark places if more dreams were told.
“But there,” I said, “is the difficulty. I doubt whether the dreams that I am thinking of can be told. There are dreams that are perfectly64 lucid45 from beginning to end, and also perfectly insignificant65. There are others which are blurred66 by a failure of memory, perhaps only on one point: you dream of a dead man as if he were alive. Then there are dreams which are prophetic: there seems, on the whole, no doubt of that. Then you may have sheer clotted67 nonsense; I once chased Julius C?sar all over London to get his recipe for curried68 eggs. But, besides these, there is a certain dream of another order: utter lucidity69 up to the moment of waking, and then perceived to be beyond the power of words to express. It is neither sense nor nonsense; it has, perhaps, a notation70 of its own, but . . . well, you can’t play Euclid on the violin.”
Secretan Jones shook his head. “I am afraid my experiences are rather like that,” he said. It was clear, indeed, that he found great difficulty in finding a verbal formula which should convey some hint of his adventures.
But that was later. To start with, things were fairly easy; but, characteristically enough, he began his story before I realised that the story was begun. I had been talking of the queer tricks a man’s memory sometimes plays him. I was saying that a few days before, I was suddenly interrupted in some work I was doing. It was necessary that I should clear my desk in a hurry. I shuffled71 a lot of loose papers together and put them away, and awaited my caller with a fresh writing-pad before me. The man came. I attended to the business with which he was concerned, and went back to my former affair when he had gone. But I could not find the sheaf of papers. I thought I had put them in a drawer. They were not in the drawer; they were not in any drawer, or in the blotting-book, or in any place where one might reasonably expect to find them. They were found next morning by the servant who dusted the room, stuffed hard down into the crevice72 between the seat and the back of an arm-chair, and carefully hidden under a cushion.
“And,” I finished, “I hadn’t the faintest recollection of doing it. My mind was blank on the matter.”
“Yes,” said Secretan Jones, “I suppose we all suffer from that sort of thing at times. About a year ago I had a very odd experience of the same kind. It troubled me a good deal at the time. It was soon after I had taken up that question of the new traffic and its probable — its certain — results. As you may have gathered, I have been absorbed for most of my life in my own special studies, which are remote enough from the activities and interests of the day. It hasn’t been at all my way to write to the papers to say there are too many dogs in London, or to denounce street musicians. But I must say that the extraordinary dangers of using our present road system for a traffic for which it was not designed did impress themselves very deeply upon me; and I dare say I allowed myself to be over-interested and over-excited.
“There is a great deal to be said for the Apostolic maxim73: ‘Study to be quiet and to mind your own business.’ I am afraid I got the whole thing on the brain, and neglected my own business, which at that particular time, if I remember, was the investigation74 of a very curious question — the validity or non-validity of the Consecration75 Formula of the Grand Saint Graal: Car chou est li sanc di ma nouviele loy, li miens meismes. Instead of attending to my proper work, I allowed myself to be drawn76 into the discussion I had started, and for a week or two I thought of very little else: even when I was looking up authorities at the British Museum, I couldn’t get the rumble of the motor-van out of my head. So, you see, I allowed myself to get harried77 and worried and distracted, and I put down what followed to all the bother and excitement I was going through. The other day, when you had to leave your work in the middle and start on something else, I dare say you felt annoyed and put out, and shoved those papers of yours away without really thinking of what you were doing, and I suppose something of the same kind happened to me. Though it was still queerer, I think.”
He paused, and seemed to meditate78 doubtfully, and then broke out with an apologetic laugh, and: “It really sounds quite crazy!” And then: “I forgot where I lived.”
“Loss of memory, in fact, through overwork and nervous excitement?”
“Yes, but not quite in the usual way. I was quite clear about my name and my identity. And I knew my address perfectly well: Thirty-nine, Tollit Square, Canonbury.”
“But you said you forgot where you lived.”
“I know; but there’s the difficulty of expression we were talking about the other day. I am looking for the notation, as you called it. But it was like this: I had been working till the morning in the Reading Room with the motor danger at the back of my mind, and as I left the Museum, feeling a sort of heaviness and confusion, I made up my mind to walk home. I thought the air might freshen me a little. I set out at a good pace. I knew every foot of the way, as I had often done the walk before, and I went ahead mechanically, with my mind wrapt up in a very important matter relating to my proper studies. As a matter of fact, I had found in a most unexpected quarter a statement that threw an entirely79 new light on the Rite of the Celtic Church, and I felt that I might be on the verge80 of an important discovery. I was lost in a maze42 of conjectures81, and when I looked up I found myself standing39 on the pavement by the Angel, Islington, totally unaware82 of where I was to go next.
“Yes, quite so: I knew the Angel when I saw it, and I knew I lived in Tollit Square; but the relation between the two had entirely vanished from my consciousness. For me, there were no longer any points of the compass; there was no such thing as direction, neither north nor south, nor left nor right, an extraordinary sensation, which I don’t feel I have made plain to you at all. I was a good deal disturbed, and felt that I must move somewhere, so I set off — and found myself at King’s Cross railway station. Then I did the only thing there was to be done: took a hansom and got home, feeling shaky enough.”
I gathered that this was the first incident of significance in a series of odd experiences that befell this learned and amiable83 clergyman. His memory became thoroughly unreliable, or so he thought at first.
He began to miss important papers from his table in the study. A series of notes, on three sheets lettered A, B, and C, were placed by him on the table under a paperweight one night, just before he went up to bed. They were missing when he went into his study the next morning. He was certain that he had put them in that particular place, under the bulbous glass weight with the pink roses embedded84 in its depths: but they were not there. Then Mrs. Sedger knocked at the door and entered with the papers in her hand. She said she had found them between the bed and the mattress85 in the master’s bedroom, and thought they might be wanted.
Secretan Jones could not make it out at all. He supposed he must have put the papers where they were found and then forgotten all about it, and he was uneasy, feeling afraid that h& was on the brink86 of a nervous breakdown87. Then there were difficulties about his books, as to which he was very precise, every book having its own place. One morning he wanted to consult the Missale de Arbuthnott, a big red quarto, which lived at the end of a bottom shelf near the window. It was not there. The unfortunate man went up to his bedroom, and felt the bed all over and looked under his shirts in the chest of drawers, and searched all the room in vain. However, determined88 to get what he wanted, he went to the Reading Room, verified his reference, and returned to Canonbury: and there was the red quarto in its place. Now here, it seemed certain, there was no room for loss of memory; and Secretan Jones began to suspect his servants of playing tricks with his possessions, and tried to find a reason for their imbecility or villainy — he did not know what to call it. But it would not do at all. Papers and books disappeared and reappeared, or now and then vanished without return. One afternoon, struggling, as he told me, against a growing sense of confusion and bewilderment, he had with considerable difficulty filled two quarto sheets of ruled paper with a number of extracts necessary to the subject he had in hand. When this was done, he felt his bewilderment thickening like a cloud about him: “It was, physically89 and mentally, as if the objects in the room became indistinct, were presented in a shimmering90 mist or darkness.” He felt afraid, and rose, and went out into the garden. The two sheets of paper he had left on his table were lying on the path by the garden door.
I remember he stopped dead at this point. To tell the truth, I was thinking that all these instances were rather matter for the ear of a mental specialist than for my hearing. There was evidence enough of a bad nervous breakdown, and it seemed to me, of delusions91. I wondered whether it was my duty to advise the man to go to the best doctor he knew, and without delay. Then Secretan Jones began again:
“I won’t tell you any more of these absurdities92. I know they are drivel, pantomime tricks and traps, children’s conjuring93; contemptible94, all of it.
“But it made me afraid. I felt like a man walking in the dark, beset95 with uncertain sounds and faint echoes of his footsteps that seem to come from a vast depth, till he begins to fear that he is treading by the edge of some awful precipice. There was something unknown about me; and I was holding on hard to what I knew, and wondering whether I should be sustained.
“One afternoon I was in a very miserable96 and distracted state. I could not attend to my work. I went out into the garden, and walked up and down trying to calm myself. I opened the garden door and looked into the narrow passage which runs at the end of all the gardens on this side of the square. There was nobody there — except three children playing some game or other. They were queer, stunted97 little creatures, and I turned back into the garden and walked into the study. I had just sat down, and had turned to my work hoping to find relief in it, when Mrs. Sedger, my servant, came into the room and cried out, in an excited sort of way, that she was glad to see me back again.
“I made up some story. I don’t know whether she believes it. I suppose she thinks I have been mixed up in something disreputable.”
“And what had happened?”
“I haven’t the remotest notion.”
We sat looking at each other for some time.
“I suppose what happened was just this,” I said at last. “Your nervous system had been in a very bad way for some time. It broke down utterly98; you lost your memory, your sense of identity — everything. You may have spent the six weeks in addressing envelopes in the City Road.”
He turned to one of the books on the table and opened it. Between the leaves there were the dimmed red and white petals99 of some flower that looked like an anemone100.
“I picked this flower,” he said, “as I was walking down the path that afternoon. It was the first of its kind to be in bloom — very early. It was still in my hand when I walked back into this room, six weeks later, as everybody declares. But it was quite fresh.”
There was nothing to be said. I kept silent for five minutes, I suppose, before I asked him whether his mind was an utter blank as to the six weeks during which no known person had set eyes on him; whether he had no sort of recollection, however vague.
“At first, nothing at all. I could not believe that more than a few seconds came between my opening the garden door and shutting it. Then in a day or two there was a vague impression that I had been somewhere where everything was absolutely right. I can’t say more than that. No fairyland joys, or bowers101 of bliss102, or anything of that kind; no sense of anything strange or unaccustomed. But there was no care there at all. Est enim magnum chaos103.”
But that means “For there is a great void,” or “A great gulf104.”
We never spoke105 of the matter again. Two months later he told me that his nerves had been troubling him, and that he was going to spend a month or six weeks at a farm near Llanthony, in the Black Mountains, a few miles from his old home. In three weeks I got a letter, addressed in Secretan Jones’s hand. Inside was a slip of paper on which he had written the words:
Est enim magnum chaos.
The day on which the letter was posted he had gone out in wild autumn weather, late one afternoon, and had never come back. No trace of him has ever been found.
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devoid
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| adj.全无的，缺乏的 | |
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inquiries
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| n.调查( inquiry的名词复数 )；疑问；探究；打听 | |
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spiked
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| adj.有穗的；成锥形的；有尖顶的 | |
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tarnished
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| （通常指金属）（使）失去光泽，（使）变灰暗( tarnish的过去式和过去分词 )； 玷污，败坏 | |
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cipher
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| n.零；无影响力的人；密码 | |
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testament
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| n.遗嘱；证明 | |
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hoard
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| n./v.窖藏，贮存，囤积 | |
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dunes
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| 沙丘( dune的名词复数 ) | |
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retrieved
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| v.取回( retrieve的过去式和过去分词 )；恢复；寻回；检索（储存的信息） | |
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rev
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| v.发动机旋转，加快速度 | |
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disappearance
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| n.消失，消散，失踪 | |
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amorous
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| adj.多情的；有关爱情的 | |
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retired
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| adj.隐退的，退休的，退役的 | |
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misty
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| adj.雾蒙蒙的，有雾的 | |
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recesses
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| n.壁凹( recess的名词复数 )；（工作或业务活动的）中止或暂停期间；学校的课间休息；某物内部的凹形空间v.把某物放在墙壁的凹处( recess的第三人称单数 )；将（墙）做成凹形，在（墙）上做壁龛；休息，休会，休庭 | |
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rumble
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| n.隆隆声；吵嚷；v.隆隆响；低沉地说 | |
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tremor
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| n.震动，颤动，战栗，兴奋，地震 | |
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penetrated
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| adj. 击穿的，鞭辟入里的 动词penetrate的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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jingled
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| 喝醉的 | |
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rattle
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| v.飞奔，碰响；激怒；n.碰撞声；拨浪鼓 | |
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vouchsafed
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| v.给予，赐予( vouchsafe的过去式和过去分词 )；允诺 | |
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rite
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| n.典礼，惯例，习俗 | |
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pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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vibration
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| n.颤动，振动；摆动 | |
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crumbled
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| （把…）弄碎， （使）碎成细屑( crumble的过去式和过去分词 )； 衰落； 坍塌； 损坏 | |
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Oxford
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| n.牛津（英国城市） | |
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dome
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| n.圆屋顶，拱顶 | |
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pestilence
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| n.瘟疫 | |
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collapse
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| vi.累倒；昏倒；倒塌；塌陷 | |
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myriad
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| adj.无数的；n.无数，极大数量 | |
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thoroughly
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| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
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catastrophe
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| n.大灾难，大祸 | |
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carnival
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| n.嘉年华会，狂欢，狂欢节，巡回表演 | |
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liturgical
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| adj.礼拜仪式的 | |
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35
astonishment
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| n.惊奇，惊异 | |
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36
pegs
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| n.衣夹( peg的名词复数 )；挂钉；系帐篷的桩；弦钮v.用夹子或钉子固定( peg的第三人称单数 )；使固定在某水平 | |
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conjectured
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| 推测，猜测，猜想( conjecture的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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perturbed
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| adj.烦燥不安的v.使（某人）烦恼，不安( perturb的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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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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insinuated
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| v.暗示( insinuate的过去式和过去分词 )；巧妙或迂回地潜入；（使）缓慢进入；慢慢伸入 | |
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amazement
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| n.惊奇，惊讶 | |
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maze
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| n.迷宫，八阵图，混乱，迷惑 | |
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pretext
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| n.借口，托词 | |
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lucidly
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| adv.清透地，透明地 | |
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lucid
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| adj.明白易懂的，清晰的，头脑清楚的 | |
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precipice
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| n.悬崖，危急的处境 | |
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shrubs
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| 灌木( shrub的名词复数 ) | |
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48
mingling
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| adj.混合的 | |
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rigid
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| adj.严格的，死板的；刚硬的，僵硬的 | |
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concealment
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| n.隐藏, 掩盖，隐瞒 | |
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boughs
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| 大树枝( bough的名词复数 ) | |
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meditative
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| adj.沉思的，冥想的 | |
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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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peril
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| n.(严重的)危险；危险的事物 | |
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dubious
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| adj.怀疑的，无把握的；有问题的，靠不住的 | |
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contortions
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| n.扭歪，弯曲；扭曲，弄歪，歪曲( contortion的名词复数 ) | |
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graceful
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| adj.优美的，优雅的；得体的 | |
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distress
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| n.苦恼，痛苦，不舒适；不幸；vt.使悲痛 | |
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eloquence
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| n.雄辩；口才，修辞 | |
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overflowed
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| 溢出的 | |
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entrusted
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| v.委托，托付( entrust的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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hesitations
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| n.犹豫( hesitation的名词复数 )；踌躇；犹豫（之事或行为）；口吃 | |
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utterances
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| n.发声( utterance的名词复数 )；说话方式；语调；言论 | |
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perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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insignificant
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| adj.无关紧要的，可忽略的，无意义的 | |
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blurred
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| v.（使）变模糊( blur的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）难以区分；模模糊糊；迷离 | |
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clotted
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| adj.凝结的v.凝固( clot的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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curried
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| adj.加了咖喱（或咖喱粉的），用咖哩粉调理的 | |
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lucidity
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| n.明朗，清晰，透明 | |
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notation
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| n.记号法，表示法，注释；[计算机]记法 | |
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shuffled
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| v.洗（纸牌）( shuffle的过去式和过去分词 )；拖着脚步走；粗心地做；摆脱尘世的烦恼 | |
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crevice
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| n.(岩石、墙等)裂缝；缺口 | |
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maxim
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| n.格言，箴言 | |
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investigation
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| n.调查，调查研究 | |
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consecration
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| n.供献，奉献，献祭仪式 | |
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76
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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harried
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| v.使苦恼( harry的过去式和过去分词 )；不断烦扰；一再袭击；侵扰 | |
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meditate
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| v.想，考虑，（尤指宗教上的）沉思，冥想 | |
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entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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80
verge
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| n.边，边缘；v.接近，濒临 | |
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81
conjectures
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| 推测，猜想( conjecture的名词复数 ) | |
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82
unaware
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| a.不知道的，未意识到的 | |
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83
amiable
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| adj.和蔼可亲的，友善的，亲切的 | |
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embedded
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| a.扎牢的 | |
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mattress
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| n.床垫，床褥 | |
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brink
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| n.(悬崖、河流等的)边缘，边沿 | |
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breakdown
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| n.垮，衰竭；损坏，故障，倒塌 | |
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determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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89
physically
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| adj.物质上，体格上，身体上，按自然规律 | |
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shimmering
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| v.闪闪发光，发微光( shimmer的现在分词 ) | |
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delusions
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| n.欺骗( delusion的名词复数 )；谬见；错觉；妄想 | |
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absurdities
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| n.极端无理性( absurdity的名词复数 )；荒谬；谬论；荒谬的行为 | |
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conjuring
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| n.魔术 | |
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contemptible
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| adj.可鄙的，可轻视的，卑劣的 | |
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beset
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| v.镶嵌；困扰，包围 | |
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miserable
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| adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的 | |
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stunted
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| adj.矮小的；发育迟缓的 | |
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utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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petals
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| n.花瓣( petal的名词复数 ) | |
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anemone
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| n.海葵 | |
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101
bowers
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| n.（女子的）卧室( bower的名词复数 )；船首锚；阴凉处；鞠躬的人 | |
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102
bliss
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| n.狂喜，福佑，天赐的福 | |
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103
chaos
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| n.混乱，无秩序 | |
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104
gulf
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| n.海湾；深渊，鸿沟；分歧，隔阂 | |
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105
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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