The sword-thrust which had so nearly cost Paul Astier his life made peace for the time between his parents. In the emotion produced by such a shock to his natural feelings, the father forgave all; and as for three weeks Madame Astier remained with her patient, coming home only on flying visits to fetch linen1 or change her dress, there was no risk of the covert2 allusions3 and indirect reproaches, which will revive, even after forgiveness and reconciliation4, the disagreement of husband and wife. And when Paul got well and went, at the urgent invitation of the Duchess, to Mousseaux, the return of this truly academic household, if not to warm affection, at least to the equable temperature of the ‘cold bed,’ was finally secured by its establishment in the Institute, in the official lodgings6 vacated by Loisillon, whose widow, having been appointed manager of the school of Ecouen, removed so quickly, that the new secretary began to move in within a very few days of his election.
It was not a long process to settle in rooms which they had surveyed for years with the minute exactness of envy and hope, till they knew the very utmost that could be made of every corner. The pieces of furniture from the Rue7 de Beaune fell into the new arrangement so smartly, that it looked as if they were merely returning after a sojourn9 in the country, and finding their fixed10 habitat and natural place of adhesion by the marks of their own forms upon the floors or panels. The redecoration was limited to cleaning the room in which Loisillon died, and papering what had been the reception-room of Villemain and was now taken by Astier for his study, because there was a good light from the quiet court and a lofty bright little room, immediately adjoining, for his MSS., which were transferred there in three journeys of a cab, with the help of Fage the bookbinder.
Every morning, with a fresh delight, he enjoyed the convenience of a ‘library’ scarcely inferior to the Foreign Office, which he could enter without stooping or climbing a ladder. Of his kennel12 in the Rue de Beaune he could not now think without anger and disgust. It is the nature of man to regard places in which he has felt pain with an obstinate13 and unforgiving dislike. We can reconcile ourselves to living creatures, which are capable of alteration14 and differences of aspect, but not to the stony15 unchange-ableness of things. Amid the pleasures of getting in, Astier-Réhu could forget his indignation at the offence of his wife, and even his grievances16 against Teyssèdre, who received orders to come every Wednesday morning as before. But at the mere8 remembrance of the slope-roofed den17, into which he was lately banished18 for one day in each week, the historian ground his teeth, and the jaw19 of ‘Crocodilus’ reappeared.
Teyssèdre, incredible as it may be, was very little excited or impressed by the honour of polishing the monumental floors of the Palais Mazarin, and still shoved about the table, papers, and numberless refaits of the Permanent Secretary with the calm superiority of a citizen of Riom over a common fellow from ‘Chauvagnat.’ Astier-Réhu, secretly uncomfortable under this crushing contempt, sometimes tried to make the savage20 feel the dignity of the place upon which his wax-cake was operating. ‘Teyssèdre,’ said he to him, one morning, ‘this was the reception-room of the great Villemain. Pray treat it accordingly;’ but he instantly offered satisfaction to the Arvernian’s pride by saying weakly to Corentine, ‘Give the good man a glass of wine.’ The astonished Corentine brought it, and the polisher, leaning on his stick, emptied it at a draught21, his pupils dilating22 with pleasure. Then he wiped his mouth with his sleeve and, setting down the glass with the mark of his greedy lips upon it, said, ‘Look you, Meuchieu Astier, a glass of good wine is the only real good in life.’ There was such a ring of truth in his voice, such a sparkle of contentment in his eyes, that the Permanent Secretary, going back into his library, shut the door a little sharply.
It was scarcely worth while to have scrambled23 from his low beginning to his present glory as head of literature, historian of the ‘House of Orleans,’ and keystone of the Académie Fran?aise, if a glass of good wine could give to a boor24 a happiness worth it all. But the next minute, hearing the polisher say with a sneer25 to Corentine that ‘mooch ‘e cared for the ‘ception-room of the great Villemain,’ Léonard Astier shrugged26 his shoulders, and at the thought of such ignorance his half-felt envy gave way to a deep and benign27 compassion28.
Meanwhile Madame Astier, who had been brought up in the building, and recognised with remembrances of her childhood every stone in the court and every step in the dusty and venerable Staircase B, felt as if she had at last got back to her home. She had, moreover, a sense far keener than her husband’s of the material advantages of the place. Nothing to pay for rent, for lighting29, for fires, a great saving upon the parties of the winter season, to say nothing of the increase of income and the influential30 connection, so particularly valuable in procuring31 orders for her beloved Paul. Madame Loisillon in her time, when sounding the praises of her apartments at the Institute, never failed to add with emphasis, ‘I have entertained there even Sovereigns.’ ‘Yes, in the little room,’ good Adelaide would answer tartly32, drawing up her long neck. It was the fact that not unfrequently, after the prolonged fatigue33 of a Special Session, some great lady, a Royal Highness on her travels, or a leader influential in politics, would go upstairs to pay a little particular visit to the wife of the Permanent Secretary. To this sort of hospitality Madame Loisillon was indebted for her present appointment as school-manager, and Madame Astier would certainly not be less clever than her predecessor34 in utilising the convenience. The only drawback to her triumph was her quarrel with the Duchess, which made it impossible for her to follow Paul to Mousseaux. But an invitation, opportunely35 arriving at this moment, enabled her to get as near to him as the house at Clos Jallanges; and she had hopes of recovering in time the favour of the fair Antonia, towards whom, when she saw her so kind to Paul she began again to feel quite affectionate.
Léonard could not leave Paris, having to work off the arrears36 of business left by Loisillon. He let his wife go however, and promised to come down to their friends for a few hours now and then, though in truth he was resolved not to separate himself from his beloved Institute. It was so comfortable and quiet! He had to attend two meetings in the week, just on the other side of the court—summer meetings, where a friendly party of five or six ‘tallymen’ dozed37 at ease under the warm glass. The rest of the week he was entirely38 free, and the old man employed it industriously39 in correcting the proofs of his ‘Galileo,’ which, finished at last, was to come out at the opening of the season, as well as a second edition of ‘The House of Orleans,’ improved to twice its value by the addition of new and unpublished documents. As the world grows old, history, which being but a collective memory of the race is liable to all the lapses40, losses, and weaknesses of memory in the individual, finds it ever more necessary to be fortified41 with authentic42 texts, and if it would escape the errors of senility, must refresh itself at the original springs. With what pride, therefore, with what enjoyment43 did Astier-Réhu, during those hot August days, revise the fresh and trustworthy information displayed in his beloved pages, as a preparation for returning them to his publisher, with the heading on which, for the first time, appeared beneath his name the words ‘Secretaire perpétuel de l’Académie Fran?aise.’ His eyes were not yet accustomed to the title, which dazzled him on each occasion, like the sun upon the white courtyard beneath his windows. It was the vast Second Court of the Institute, private and majestic45, silent, but for sparrows or swallows passing rarely overhead, and consecrated46 by a bronze bust47 of Minerva with ten termini in a row against the back wall, over which rose the huge chimney of the adjoining Mint.
Towards four o’clock, when the helmeted shadow of the bust was beginning to lengthen48, the stiff mechanical step of old Jean Réhu woould be heard upon the flags. He lived over the Astiers, and went out regularly every day for a long walk, watched from a respectful distance by a servant, whose arm he persistently49 refused. Within the barrier of his increasing deafness his faculties50, under the great heat of this summer, had begun to give way, and especially his memory, no longer effectually guided by the reminding pins upon the lappets of his coat. He mixed his stories, and lost himself, like old Livingstone in the marshes51 of Central Africa, among his recollections, where he scrambled and floundered till some one assisted him. Such a humiliation52 irritated his spleen, and he now therefore seldom spoke53 to anyone, but talked to himself as he went along, marking with a sudden stop and a shake of the head the end of an anecdote54 and the inevitable55 phrase, ‘That’s a thing that I have seen.’ But he still carried himself upright, and was as fond of a hoax56 as in the days of the Directory. It was his amusement to impose abstinence from wine, abstinence from meat, and every ridiculous variety of regimen upon cits enamoured of life, crowds of whom wrote to him daily, asking by what diet he had so miraculously57 extended his. He would prescribe sometimes vegetables, milk, or cider, sometimes shell-fish exclusively, and meanwhile ate and drank without restriction58, taking after each meal a siesta59, and every evening a good turn up and down the floor, audible to Leonard Astier in the room below.
Two months, August and September, had now elapsed since the Permanent Secretary came in—two clear months of fruitful, delightful60 peace; such a pause in the climb of ambition as perhaps in all his life he had never enjoyed before. Madame Astier, still at Clos Jallanges, talked of returning soon; the sky of Paris showed the grey of the first fogs; the Academicians began to come home; the meetings were becoming less sociable61; and Astier, during his working hours in the reception-room of the great Villemain, found it no longer necessary to screen himself with blinds from the blazing reflection of the court. He was at his table one afternoon, writing to the worthy44 De Freydet a letter of good news about his candidature, when the old cracked door-bell was violently rung. Corentine had just gone out, so he went to the door, where, to his astonishment62, he was confronted by Baron63 Huchenard and Bos the dealer64 in manuscripts. Bos dashed into the study wildly waving his arms, while breathless ejaculations flew out of his red tangle65 of beard and hair: ‘Forged! The documents are forged! I can prove it! I can prove it!’
Astier-Réhu, not understanding at first, looked at the Baron, who looked at the ceiling. But when he had picked up the meaning of the dealer’s outcry—that the three autograph letters of Charles V., sold by Madame Astier to Bos and by him transferred to Huchenard, were asserted not to be genuine—he said with a disdainful smile, that he would readily repurchase them, as he regarded them with a confidence not to be affected66 by any means whatsoever67.
‘Allow me, Mr. Secretary, allow me. I would ask you,’ said Baron Huchenard, slowly unbuttoning his macintosh as he spoke, and drawing the three documents out of a large envelope, ‘to observe this.’ The parchments were so changed as scarcely to seem the same; their smoky brown was bleached68 to a perfect whiteness; and upon each, clear and legible in the middle of the page, below the signature of Charles V., was this mark,
BB.
Angoulême 1836.
‘It was Delpech, the Professor of Chemistry, our learned colleague of the Académie des Sciences, who—’ but of the Baron’s explanation nothing but a confused murmur69 reached poor Léonard. There was no colour in his face, nor a drop of blood left at the tips of the big heavy fingers, in whose hold the three autographs shook.
‘The 800L. shall be at your house this evening, M. Bos,’ he managed to say at last with what moisture was left in his mouth.
Bos protested and appealed. The Baron had given him 900L.
‘900L., then,’ said Astier-Réhu, making a great effort to show them out. But in the dimly-lighted hall he kept back his colleague, and begged him humbly70, as a Member of the Académie des Inscriptions71, and for the honour of the whole Institute, to say nothing of this unlucky affair.
‘Certainly, my dear sir, certainly, on one condition.’
‘Name it, name it.’
‘You will shortly receive notice that I am a candidate for Loisillon’s chair.’ The Secretary’s answer was a firm clasp of hand in hand, which pledged the assistance of himself and his friends.
Once alone, the unhappy man sank down before the table with its load of proofs, on which lay outspread the three forged letters to Rabelais. He gazed at them blankly, and mechanically read: ’Ma?tre Rabelais, vous qu’avez l’esprit fin5 et subtil!‘ The characters seemed to go round and round in a mixture of ink, dissolved into broad blots72 of sulphate of iron, which to his imagination went on spreading, till they reached his whole collection of originals, ten or twelve thousand, all unhappily got from the same quarter. Since these three were forged, what of his ‘Galileo’?—what of his ‘House of Orleans’?—the letter of Catherine II. which he had presented to the Grand Duke?—the letter of Rotrou, which he had solemnly bestowed73 upon the Académie? What? What? A spasm74 of energy brought him to his legs. Fage! He must at once see Fage!
His dealings with the bookbinder had begun some years before, when the little man had come one day to the Library of the Foreign Office to request the opinion of its learned and illustrious Keeper respecting a letter from Marie de Médicis to Pope Urban VIII. in favour of Galileo. It happened that Petit-Séquard had just announced as forthcoming, among a series of short light volumes on history, entitled ‘Holiday Studies,’ a ‘Galileo’ by Astier-Réhu of the Académie Fran?aise. When therefore the librarian’s trained judgment75 had assured him that the MS. was genuine, and he was told that Fage possessed76 also the letter of the Pope in reply, a letter of thanks from Galileo to the Queen, and others, he conceived instantaneously the idea of writing, instead of the ‘slight trifle,’ a great historical work. But his probity77 suggesting at the same moment a doubt as to the source of these documents, he looked the dwarf78 steadily79 in the face, and after examining, as he would have examined an original, the long pallid80 visage and the reddened, blinking eye-lids, said, with an inquisitorial snap of the jaw, ‘Are these manuscripts your own, M. Fage?’
‘Oh no, sir,’ said Fage. He was merely acting81 on behalf of a third person, an old maiden82 lady of good birth, who was obliged to part gradually with a very fine collection, which had belonged to the family ever since Louis XVI. Nor had he been willing to act, till he had taken the opinion of a scholar of the highest learning and character. Now, relying upon so competent a judgment, he should go to rich collectors, such as Baron Huchenard, for instance—but Astier-Réhu stopped him, saying, ‘Do not trouble yourself. Bring me all you have relating to Galileo. I can dispose of it.’ People were coming in and taking their places at the little tables, the sort of people who prowl and hunt in libraries, colourless and taciturn as diggers from the mines, with an air as if they had themselves been dug up out of somewhere close and damp. ‘Come to my private room, upstairs, not here,’ whispered the librarian in the big ear of the humpback as he moved away, displaying his gloves, oiled hair, and middle parting with the self-sufficiency often observable in his species.
The collection of Mademoiselle du Mesnil-Case, a name disclosed by Albin Fage only under solemn promise of secrecy83, proved to be an inexhaustible treasure of papers relating to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, which threw all sorts of interesting lights upon the past, and sometimes, by a word or a date, overturned completely the established opinions about facts or persons. Whatever the price, Léonard Astier took and kept every one of the documents, which almost always fitted in with his commenced or projected works. Without a shadow of doubt he accepted the little man’s account of the masses of originals that were still accumulating dust in the attic84 of an ancient mansion85 at Ménilmontant. If, after some venomous criticism from ‘the first collector’ in France, his trust was slightly disturbed the suspicion could not but vanish when the book-binder, seated at his table or watering his vegetables in the quiet grass-grown yard, met it with perfect composure, and offered in particular a quite natural explanation of certain marks of erasure86 and restoration, visible on some of the pages, as due to the submergence of the collection in sea-water, when it was sent to England during the emigration. After this fresh assurance Astier-Réhu would go back to the gate with a lively step, carrying off each time a purchase for which he had given, according to its historical value, a cheque for twenty, forty, or even as much as eighty pounds.
These extravagances, unsuspected as yet by those around him, were prompted, whatever he might say to quiet his conscience, not so much by the motives87 of the historian as by those of the collector. This, even in a place so ill-adapted for seeing and hearing as the attic in the Rue de Beaune, where the bargains were usually struck, would have been patent to any observer. The tone of pretended indifference88, the ‘Let me see’ muttered with dry lips, the quivering of the covetous89 fingers, marked the progress from passion to mania90, the growth of the hard and selfish cyst, which was feeding its monstrous91 size upon the ruin of the whole organism. Astier was becoming the intractable Harpagon of the stage, pitiless to others as to himself, bewailing his poverty and riding in the omnibus, while in two years nearly 6500L. of his savings92 dropped secretly into the pocket of the humpback. To account to Madame Astier, Corentine, and Teyssèdre for the frequent visits of the little man, he received from the Academician pamphlets to bind11, which he took away and brought back ostentatiously. They corresponded by a sort of private code. Fage would write on a post-card, ‘I have some new tooling to show you, sixteenth century, in good condition and rare.’ Astier would temporise: ‘Not wanted, thanks. Perhaps later.’ Then would come ‘My dear Sir, Do not think of it. I will try elsewhere,’ and to this the Academician invariably answered ‘Early to-morrow morning. Bring the tooling.’ Here was the torment93 of the collector’s pleasure. He must buy and buy, or else let pass to Bos, Huchenard, or some other rival the treasures of Ménilmontant. Sometimes the thought of the time when money must fail would put him into a grim rage, and infuriated by the calm, self-satisfied countenance94 of the dwarf, he would exclaim ‘More than 6400L. in two years! And still you say, the lady is in want of money! How on earth does she get rid of it? ‘At such moments he longed for the death of the old maid, the annihilation of the bookbinder, even a war, revolution, or general catastrophe95, which might swallow up both the treasure and the relentless96 speculators who worked it.
And now the catastrophe was indeed near, not the catastrophe desired, for destiny never finds to her hand precisely97 the thing we asked for, but a turn of things so sudden and appalling98 as to threaten his work, his honour, fortune, and fame, all that he was and all that he had. As he strode away towards the Cour des Comptes, deadly pale and talking to himself, the booksellers and print-dealers along the quay99 scarcely recognised the Astier-Réhu who, instead of looking right into the shop for a bow, now passed them without recognition. To him neither person nor thing was visible. In imagination he was grasping the humpback by the throat, shaking him by his pin-bespangled scarf, and thrusting under his nose the autographs dishonoured100 by the chemistry of Delpech, with the question, ‘Now then, what is your answer to that?’
When he reached the Rue de Lille, he dashed through the door of rough planks101 in the fence which surrounds the ruins, went up the steps, and rang the bell once and again. He was struck by the gloomy look of the building, now that no flowers or greenery covered the nakedness of the gaping102, crumbling103 masonry104 and the confusion of the twisted iron-work and leafless creepers. The sound of pattens came slowly across the chilly105 court, and the caretaker appeared, a solid woman, who, broom in hand and without opening the gate, said, ‘You want the bookbinder; but he isn’t here now.’ Not here! Yes, Fage had gone, and left no address. In fact, she was just cleaning up the cottage for the man who was to have the appointment to the Cour des Comptes, which Fage had resigned.
Astier-Réhu, for appearance’ sake, stammered106 out a word or two, but his voice was lost in the harsh and mournful cries of a great flight of black birds, which made the arches echo as they descended107 upon the court. ‘Why, here are the Duchess’s rooks!’ said the woman, with a respectful wave of the hand towards the bare plane-trees of the H?tel Padovani, visible over the roof opposite. ‘They are come before the Duchess this year, and that means an early winter!’
He went away, with horror in his heart.
收听单词发音 |
1
linen
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| n.亚麻布，亚麻线，亚麻制品；adj.亚麻布制的，亚麻的 | |
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covert
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| adj.隐藏的；暗地里的 | |
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allusions
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| 暗指，间接提到( allusion的名词复数 ) | |
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reconciliation
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| n.和解，和谐，一致 | |
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fin
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| n.鳍；(飞机的)安定翼 | |
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lodgings
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| n. 出租的房舍, 寄宿舍 | |
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rue
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| n.懊悔，芸香，后悔；v.后悔，悲伤，懊悔 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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sojourn
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| v./n.旅居，寄居；逗留 | |
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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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bind
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| vt.捆，包扎；装订；约束；使凝固；vi.变硬 | |
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kennel
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| n.狗舍，狗窝 | |
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obstinate
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| adj.顽固的，倔强的，不易屈服的，较难治愈的 | |
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alteration
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| n.变更，改变；蚀变 | |
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stony
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| adj.石头的，多石头的，冷酷的，无情的 | |
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grievances
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| n.委屈( grievance的名词复数 )；苦衷；不满；牢骚 | |
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den
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| n.兽穴；秘密地方；安静的小房间，私室 | |
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banished
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| v.放逐，驱逐( banish的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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jaw
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| n.颚，颌，说教，流言蜚语；v.喋喋不休，教训 | |
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savage
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| adj.野蛮的；凶恶的，残暴的；n.未开化的人 | |
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draught
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| n.拉，牵引，拖；一网（饮，吸，阵)；顿服药量，通风；v.起草，设计 | |
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dilating
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| v.（使某物）扩大，膨胀，张大( dilate的现在分词 ) | |
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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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boor
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| n.举止粗野的人；乡下佬 | |
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sneer
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| v.轻蔑；嘲笑；n.嘲笑，讥讽的言语 | |
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shrugged
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| vt.耸肩（shrug的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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benign
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| adj.善良的，慈祥的；良性的，无危险的 | |
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compassion
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| n.同情，怜悯 | |
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lighting
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| n.照明，光线的明暗，舞台灯光 | |
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influential
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| adj.有影响的，有权势的 | |
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procuring
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| v.（努力）取得， （设法）获得( procure的现在分词 )；拉皮条 | |
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tartly
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| adv.辛辣地，刻薄地 | |
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fatigue
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| n.疲劳，劳累 | |
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predecessor
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| n.前辈，前任 | |
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opportunely
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| adv.恰好地，适时地 | |
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arrears
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| n.到期未付之债，拖欠的款项；待做的工作 | |
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dozed
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| v.打盹儿，打瞌睡( doze的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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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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industriously
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40
lapses
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| n.失误，过失( lapse的名词复数 )；小毛病；行为失检；偏离正道v.退步( lapse的第三人称单数 )；陷入；倒退；丧失 | |
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41
fortified
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| adj. 加强的 | |
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42
authentic
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| a.真的，真正的；可靠的，可信的，有根据的 | |
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43
enjoyment
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| n.乐趣；享有；享用 | |
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44
worthy
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| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
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45
majestic
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| adj.雄伟的，壮丽的，庄严的，威严的，崇高的 | |
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46
consecrated
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| adj.神圣的，被视为神圣的v.把…奉为神圣，给…祝圣( consecrate的过去式和过去分词 )；奉献 | |
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47
bust
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| vt.打破；vi.爆裂；n.半身像；胸部 | |
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48
lengthen
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| vt.使伸长，延长 | |
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49
persistently
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| ad.坚持地；固执地 | |
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50
faculties
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| n.能力( faculty的名词复数 )；全体教职员；技巧；院 | |
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marshes
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| n.沼泽，湿地( marsh的名词复数 ) | |
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humiliation
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| n.羞辱 | |
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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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anecdote
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| n.轶事，趣闻，短故事 | |
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inevitable
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| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
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hoax
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| v.欺骗，哄骗，愚弄；n.愚弄人，恶作剧 | |
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miraculously
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| ad.奇迹般地 | |
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58
restriction
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| n.限制，约束 | |
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59
siesta
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| n.午睡 | |
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delightful
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| adj.令人高兴的，使人快乐的 | |
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sociable
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| adj.好交际的，友好的，合群的 | |
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astonishment
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| n.惊奇，惊异 | |
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63
baron
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| n.男爵；(商业界等)巨头，大王 | |
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dealer
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| n.商人，贩子 | |
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tangle
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| n.纠缠；缠结；混乱；v.(使)缠绕；变乱 | |
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affected
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| adj.不自然的，假装的 | |
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whatsoever
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| adv.（用于否定句中以加强语气）任何；pron.无论什么 | |
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bleached
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| 漂白的，晒白的，颜色变浅的 | |
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murmur
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| n.低语，低声的怨言；v.低语，低声而言 | |
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humbly
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| adv. 恭顺地，谦卑地 | |
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inscriptions
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| （作者）题词( inscription的名词复数 )； 献词； 碑文； 证劵持有人的登记 | |
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blots
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| 污渍( blot的名词复数 )； 墨水渍； 错事； 污点 | |
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bestowed
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| 赠给，授予( bestow的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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spasm
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| n.痉挛，抽搐；一阵发作 | |
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judgment
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| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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probity
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| n.刚直；廉洁，正直 | |
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dwarf
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| n.矮子，侏儒，矮小的动植物；vt.使…矮小 | |
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steadily
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| adv.稳定地；不变地；持续地 | |
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pallid
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| adj.苍白的，呆板的 | |
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acting
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| n.演戏，行为，假装；adj.代理的，临时的，演出用的 | |
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maiden
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| n.少女，处女；adj.未婚的，纯洁的，无经验的 | |
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secrecy
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| n.秘密，保密，隐蔽 | |
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attic
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| n.顶楼，屋顶室 | |
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mansion
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| n.大厦，大楼；宅第 | |
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erasure
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| n.擦掉，删去；删掉的词；消音；抹音 | |
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motives
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| n.动机，目的( motive的名词复数 ) | |
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indifference
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| n.不感兴趣，不关心，冷淡，不在乎 | |
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covetous
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| adj.贪婪的，贪心的 | |
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mania
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| n.疯狂；躁狂症，狂热，癖好 | |
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monstrous
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| adj.巨大的；恐怖的；可耻的，丢脸的 | |
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savings
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| n.存款，储蓄 | |
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torment
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| n.折磨；令人痛苦的东西(人)；vt.折磨；纠缠 | |
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countenance
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| n.脸色，面容；面部表情；vt.支持，赞同 | |
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95
catastrophe
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| n.大灾难，大祸 | |
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relentless
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| adj.残酷的，不留情的，无怜悯心的 | |
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precisely
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| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
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appalling
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| adj.骇人听闻的，令人震惊的，可怕的 | |
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99
quay
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| n.码头，靠岸处 | |
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100
dishonoured
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| a.不光彩的，不名誉的 | |
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101
planks
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| （厚）木板( plank的名词复数 )； 政纲条目，政策要点 | |
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102
gaping
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| adj.口的；张口的；敞口的；多洞穴的v.目瞪口呆地凝视( gape的现在分词 )；张开，张大 | |
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103
crumbling
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| adj.摇摇欲坠的 | |
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104
masonry
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| n.砖土建筑；砖石 | |
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105
chilly
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| adj.凉快的，寒冷的 | |
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106
stammered
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| v.结巴地说出( stammer的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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107
descended
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| a.为...后裔的，出身于...的 | |
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