Gordon, on the pavement below, affected1 to have forgotten the poem Ravelston was speaking about; he remembered it intimately, of course, as he remembered all his poems.
‘Which poem?’ he said.
‘The one about the dying prostitute. We thought it was rather successful.’ Gordon laughed a laugh of gratified conceit2, and managed to pass it off as a laugh of sardonic4 amusement.
‘Aha! A dying prostitute! That’s rather what you might call one of my subjects. I’ll do you one about an aspidistra next time.’
Ravelston’s over-sensitive, boyish face, framed by nice dark-brown hair, drew back a little from the window.
‘It’s intolerably cold,’ he said. ‘You’d better come up and have some food, or something.’
‘No, you come down. I’ve had dinner. Let’s go to a pub and have some beer.’
‘All right then. Half a minute while I get my shoes on.’
They had been talking for some minutes, Gordon on the pavement, Ravelston leaning out of the window above. Gordon had announced his arrival not by knocking at the door but by throwing a pebble5 against the window pane6. He never, if he could help it, set foot inside Ravelston’s flat. There was something in the atmosphere of the flat that upset him and made him feel mean, dirty, and out of place. It was so overwhelmingly, though unconsciously, upper-class. Only in the street or in a pub could he feel himself approximately Ravelston’s equal. It would have astonished Ravelston to learn that his four-roomed flat, which he thought of as a poky little place, had this effect upon Gordon. To Ravelston, living in the wilds of Regent’s Park was practically the same thing as living in the slums; he had chosen to live there, en bon socialiste, precisely8 as your social snob9 will live in a mews in Mayfair for the sake of the ‘WI’ on his notepaper. It was part of a lifelong attempt to escape from his own class and become, as it were, an honorary member of the proletariat. Like all such attempts, it was foredoomed to failure. No rich man ever succeeds in disguising himself as a poor man; for money, like murder, will out.
On the street door there was a brass10 plate inscribed11:
P. W. H. RAVELSTON
ANTICHRIST
Ravelston lived on the first floor, and the editorial offices of Antichrist were downstairs. Antichrist was a middle — to high-brow monthly, Socialist7 in a vehement12 but ill-defined way. In general, it gave the impression of being edited by an ardent13 Nonconformist who had transferred his allegiance from God to Marx, and in doing so had got mixed up with a gang of vers libre poets. This was not really Ravelston’s character; merely he was softer-hearted than an editor ought to be, and consequently was at the mercy of his contributors. Practically anything got printed in Antichrist if Ravelston suspected that its author was starving.
Ravelston appeared a moment later, hatless and pulling on a pair of gauntlet gloves. You could tell him at a glance for a rich young man. He wore the uniform of the moneyed intelligentsia; an old tweed coat — but it was one of those coats which have been made by a good tailor and grow more aristocratic as they grow older — very loose grey flannel15 bags, a grey pullover, much-worn brown shoes. He made a point of going everywhere, even to fashionable houses and expensive restaurants, in these clothes, just to show his contempt for upper-class conventions; he did not fully16 realize that it is only the upper classes who can do these things. Though he was a year older than Gordon he looked much younger. He was very tall, with a lean, wide-shouldered body and the typical lounging grace of the upper-class youth. But there was something curiously17 apologetic in his movements and in the expression of his face. He seemed always in the act of stepping out of somebody else’s way. When expressing an opinion he would rub his nose with the back of his left forefinger18. The truth was that in every moment of his life he was apologizing, tacitly, for the largeness of his income. You could make him uncomfortable as easily by reminding him that he was rich as you could make Gordon by reminding him that he was poor.
‘You’ve had dinner, I gather?’ said Ravelston, in his rather Bloomsbury voice.
‘Yes, ages ago. Haven’t you?’
‘Oh, yes, certainly. Oh, quite!’
It was twenty past eight and Gordon had had no food since midday. Neither had Ravelston. Gordon did not know that Ravelston was hungry, but Ravelston knew that Gordon was hungry, and Gordon knew that Ravelston knew it. Nevertheless, each saw good reason for pretending not to be hungry. They seldom or never had meals together. Gordon would not let Ravelston buy his meals for him, and for himself he could not afford to go to restaurants, not even to a Lyons or an A.B.C. This was Monday and he had five and ninepence left. He might afford a couple of pints20 at a pub, but not a proper meal. When he and Ravelston met it was always agreed, with silent manoeuvrings, that they should do nothing that involved spending money, beyond the shilling or so one spends in a pub. In this way the fiction was kept up that there was no serious difference in their incomes.
Gordon sidled closer to Ravelston as they started down the pavement. He would have taken his arm, only of course one can’t do that kind of thing. Beside Ravelston’s taller, comelier21 figure he looked frail22, fretful, and miserably23 shabby. He adored Ravelston and was never quite at ease in his presence. Ravelston had not merely a charm of manner, but also a kind of fundamental decency24, a graceful25 attitude to life, which Gordon scarcely encountered elsewhere. Undoubtedly26 it was bound up with the fact that Ravelston was rich. For money buys all virtues27. Money suffereth long and is kind, is not puffed28 up, doth not behave unseemly, seeketh not her own. But in some ways Ravelston was not even like a moneyed person. The fatty degeneration of the spirit which goes with wealth had missed him, or he had escaped it by a conscious effort. Indeed his whole life was a struggle to escape it. It was for this reason that he gave up his time and a large part of his income to editing an unpopular Socialist monthly. And apart from Antichrist, money flowed from him in all directions. A tribe of cadgers ranging from poets to pavement-artists browsed30 upon him unceasingly. For himself he lived upon eight hundred a year or thereabouts. Even of this income he was acutely ashamed. It was not, he realized, exactly a proletarian income; but he had never learned to get along on less. Eight hundred a year was a minimum living wage to him, as two pounds a week was to Gordon.
‘How is your work getting on?’ said Ravelston presently.
‘Oh, as usual. It’s a drowsy31 kind of job. Swapping32 back-chat with old hens about Hugh Walpole. I don’t object to it.’
‘I meant your own work — your writing. Is London Pleasures getting on all right?’
‘Oh, Christ! Don’t speak of it. It’s turning my hair grey.’
‘Isn’t it going forward at all?’
‘My books don’t go forward. They go backward.’
Ravelston sighed. As editor of Antichrist, he was used to encouraging despondent33 poets that it had become a second nature to him. He did not need telling why Gordon ‘couldn’t’ write, and why all poets nowadays ‘can’t’ write, and why when they do write it is something as arid34 as the rattling35 of a pea inside a big drum. He said with sympathetic gloom:
‘Of course I admit this isn’t a hopeful age to write poetry in.’
‘You bet it isn’t.’
Gordon kicked his heel against the pavement. He wished that London Pleasures had not been mentioned. It brought back to him the memory of his mean, cold bedroom and the grimy papers littered under the aspidistra. He said abruptly36:
‘This writing business! What b — s it all is! Sitting in a corner torturing a nerve which won’t even respond any longer. And who wants poetry nowadays? Training performing fleas37 would be more useful by comparison.’
‘Still, you oughtn’t to let yourself be discouraged. After all, you do produce something, which is more than one can say for a lot of poets nowadays. There was Mice, for instance.’
‘Oh, Mice! It makes me spew to think of it.’
He thought with loathing38 of that sneaky little foolscap octavo. Those forty or fifty drab, dead little poems, each like a little abortion39 in its labelled jar. ‘Exceptional promise’, The Times Lit. Supp. had said. A hundred and fifty-three copies sold and the rest remaindered. He had one of those movements of contempt and even horror which every artist has at times when he thinks of his own work.
‘It’s dead,’ he said. ‘Dead as a blasted foetus in a bottle.’
‘Oh, well, I suppose that happens to most books. You can’t expect an enormous sale for poetry nowadays. There’s too much competition.’
‘I didn’t mean that. I meant the poems themselves are dead. There’s no life in them. Everything I write is like that. Lifeless, gutless. Not necessarily ugly or vulgar; but dead — just dead.’ The word ‘dead’ re-echoed in his mind, setting up its own train of thought. He added: ‘My poems are dead because I’m dead. You’re dead. We’re all dead. Dead people in a dead world.’
Ravelston murmured agreement, with a curious air of guilt40. And now they were off upon their favourite subject — Gordon’s favourite subject, anyway; the futility41, the bloodiness42, the deathliness of modern life. They never met without talking for at least half an hour in this vein43. But it always made Ravelston feel rather uncomfortable. In a way, of course, he knew — it was precisely this that Antichrist existed to point out — that life under a decaying capitalism44 is deathly and meaningless. But this knowledge was only theoretical. You can’t really feel that kind of thing when your income is eight hundred a year. Most of the time, when he wasn’t thinking of coal-miners, Chinese junk-coolies, and the unemployed45 in Middlesbrough, he felt that life was pretty good fun. Moreover, he had the naive46 belief that in a little while Socialism is going to put things right. Gordon always seemed to him to exaggerate. So there was subtle disagreement between them, which Ravelston was too good-mannered to press home.
But with Gordon it was different. Gordon’s income was two pounds a week. Therefore the hatred47 of modern life, the desire to see our money-civilization blown to hell by bombs, was a thing he genuinely felt. They were walking southward, down a darkish, meanly decent residential48 street with a few shuttered shops. From a hoarding49 on the blank end of a house the yard-wide face of Corner Table simpered, pallid51 in the lamplight. Gordon caught a glimpse of a withering52 aspidistra in a lower window. London! Mile after mile of mean lonely houses, let off in flats and single rooms; not homes, not communities, just clusters of meaningless lives drifting in a sort of drowsy chaos53 to the grave! He saw men as corpses54 walking. The thought that he was merely objectifying his own inner misery55 hardly troubled him. His mind went back to Wednesday afternoon, when he had desired to hear the enemy aeroplanes zooming56 over London. He caught Ravelston’s arm and paused to gesticulate at the Corner Table poster.
‘Look at that bloody57 thing up there! Look at it, just look at it! Doesn’t it make you spew?’
‘It’s aesthetically58 offensive, I grant. But I don’t see that it matters very greatly.’
‘Of course it matters — having the town plastered with things like that.’
‘Oh, well, it’s merely a temporary phenomenon. Capitalism in its last phase. I doubt whether it’s worth worrying about.’
‘But there’s more in it than that. Just look at that fellow’s face gaping59 down at us! You can see our whole civilization written there. The imbecility, the emptiness, the desolation! You can’t look at it without thinking of French letters and machine guns. Do you know that the other day I was actually wishing war would break out? I was longing60 for it — praying for it, almost.’
‘Of course, the trouble is, you see, that about half the young men in Europe are wishing the same thing.’
‘Let’s hope they are. Then perhaps it’ll happen.’
‘My dear old chap, no! Once is enough, surely.’
Gordon walked on, fretfully. ‘This life we live nowadays! It’s not life, it’s stagnation61, death-in-life. Look at all these bloody houses, and the meaningless people inside them! Sometimes I think we’re all corpses. Just rotting upright.’
‘But where you make your mistake, don’t you see, is in talking as if all this was incurable62. This is only something that’s got to happen before the proletariat take over.’
‘Oh, Socialism! Don’t talk to me about Socialism.’
‘You ought to read Marx, Gordon, you really ought. Then you’d realize that this is only a phase. It can’t go on for ever.’
‘Can’t it? It FEELS as if it was going on for ever.’
‘It’s merely that we’re at a bad moment. We’ve got to die before we can be reborn, if you take my meaning.’
‘We’re dying right enough. I don’t see much signs of our being reborn.’
Ravelston rubbed his nose. ‘Oh, well, we must have faith, I suppose. And hope.’
‘We must have money you mean,’ said Gordon gloomily.
‘Money?’
‘It’s the price of optimism. Give me five quid a week and I’D be a Socialist, I dare say.’
Ravelston looked away, discomforted. This money-business! Everywhere it came up against you! Gordon wished he had not said it. Money is the one thing you must never mention when you are with people richer than yourself. Or if you do, then it must be money in the abstract, money with a big ‘M’, not the actual concrete money that’s in your pocket and isn’t in mine. But the accursed subject drew him like a magnet. Sooner or later, especially when he had a few drinks inside him, he invariably began talking with self-pitiful detail about the bloodiness of life on two quid a week. Sometimes, from sheer nervous impulse to say the wrong thing, he would come out with some squalid confession63 — as, for instance, that he had been without tobacco for two days, or that his underclothes were in holes and his overcoat up the spout64. But nothing of that sort should happen tonight, he resolved. They veered65 swiftly away from the subject of money and began talking in a more general way about Socialism. Ravelston had been trying for years to convert Gordon to Socialism, without even succeeding in interesting him in it. Presently they passed a low-looking pub on a corner in a side-street. A sour cloud of beer seemed to hang about it. The smell revolted Ravelston. He would have quickened his pace to get away from it. But Gordon paused, his nostrils66 tickled67.
‘Christ! I could do with a drink,’ he said.
‘So could I,’ said Ravelston gallantly68.
Gordon shoved open the door of the public bar, Ravelston following. Ravelston persuaded himself that he was fond of pubs, especially low-class pubs. Pubs are genuinely proletarian. In a pub you can meet the working class on equal terms — or that’s the theory, anyway. But in practice Ravelston never went into a pub unless he was with somebody like Gordon, and he always felt like a fish out of water when he got there. A foul69 yet coldish air enveloped70 them. It was a filthy71, smoky room, low-ceilinged, with a sawdusted floor and plain deal tables ringed by generations of beer-pots. In one corner four monstrous73 women with breasts the size of melons were sitting drinking porter and talking with bitter intensity74 about someone called Mrs Croop. The landlady75, a tall grim woman with a black fringe, looking like the madame of a brothel, stood behind the bar, her powerful forearms folded, watching a game of darts76 which was going on between four labourers and a postman. You had to duck under the darts as you crossed the room, there was a moment’s hush77 and people glanced inquisitively78 at Ravelston. He was so obviously a gentleman. They didn’t see his type very often in the public bar.
Ravelston pretended not to notice that they were staring at him. He lounged towards the bar, pulling off a glove to feel for the money in his pocket. ‘What’s yours?’ he said casually79.
But Gordon had already shoved his way ahead and was tapping a shilling on the bar. Always pay for the first round of drinks! It was his point of honour. Ravelston made for the only vacant table. A navvy leaning on the bar turned on his elbow and gave him a long, insolent80 stare ‘A—— toff!’ he was thinking. Gordon came back balancing two pint19 glasses of the dark common ale. They were thick cheap glasses, thick as jam jars almost, and dim and greasy81. A thin yellow froth was subsiding82 on the beer. The air was thick with gunpowdery tobacco-smoke. Ravelston caught sight of a well-filled spittoon near the bar and averted83 his eyes. It crossed his mind that this beer had been sucked up from some beetle-ridden cellar through yards of slimy tube, and that the glasses had never been washed in their lives, only rinsed84 in beery water. Gordon was very hungry. He could have done with some bread and cheese, but to order any would have been to betray the fact that he had had no dinner. He took a deep pull at his beer and lighted a cigarette, which made him forget his hunger a little. Ravelston also swallowed a mouthful or so and set his glass gingerly down. It was typical London beer, sickly and yet leaving a chemical after-taste. Ravelston thought of the wines of Burgundy. They went on arguing about Socialism.
‘You know, Gordon, it’s really time you started reading Marx,’ said Ravelston, less apologetically than usual, because the vile85 taste of the beer had annoyed him.
‘I’d sooner read Mrs Humphry Ward,’ said Gordon.
‘But don’t you see, your attitude is so unreasonable86. You’re always tirading against Capitalism, and yet you won’t accept the only possible alternative. One can’t put things right in a hole-and-corner way. One’s got to accept either Capitalism or Socialism. There’s no way out of it.’
‘I tell you I can’t be bothered with Socialism. The very thought of it makes me yawn.’
‘But what’s your objection to Socialism, anyway?’
‘There’s only one objection to Socialism, and that is that nobody wants it.’
‘Oh, surely it’s rather absurd to say that!’
‘That’s to say, nobody who could see what Socialism would really mean.’
‘But what WOULD Socialism mean, according to your idea of it?’
‘Oh! Some kind of Aldous Huxley Brave New World: only not so amusing. Four hours a day in a model factory, tightening87 up bolt number 6003. Rations72 served out in grease-proof paper at the communal88 kitchen. Community-hikes from Marx Hostel89 to Lenin Hostel and back. Free abortion-clinics on all the corners. All very well in its way, of course. Only we don’ t want it.’
Ravelston sighed. Once a month, in Antichrist, he repudiated90 this version of Socialism. ‘Well, what DO we want, then?’
‘God knows. All we know is what we don’t want. That’s what’s wrong with us nowadays. We’re stuck, like Buridan’s donkey. Only there are three alternatives instead of two, and all three of them make us spew. Socialism’s only one of them.’
‘And what are the other two?’
‘Oh, I suppose suicide and the Catholic Church.’
Ravelston smiled, anticlerically shocked. ‘The Catholic Church! Do you consider that an alternative?’
‘Well, it’s a standing91 temptation to the intelligentsia, isn’t it?’
‘Not what I should call the intelligentsia. Though there was Eliot, of course,’ Ravelston admitted.
‘And there’ll be plenty more, you bet. I dare say it’s fairly cosy92 under Mother Church’s wing. A bit insanitary, of course — but you’d feel safe there, anyway.’
Ravelston rubbed his nose reflectively. ‘It seems to me that’s only another form of suicide.’
‘In a way. But so’s Socialism. At least it’s a counsel of despair. But I couldn’t commit suicide, real suicide. It’s too meek93 and mild. I’m not going to give up my share of earth to anyone else. I’d want to do in a few of my enemies first.’
Ravelston smiled again. ‘And who are your enemies?’
‘Oh, anyone with over five hundred a year.’
A momentary94 uncomfortable silence fell. Ravelston’s income, after payment of income tax, was probably two thousand a year. This was the kind of thing Gordon was always saying. To cover the awkwardness of the moment, Ravelston took up his glass, steeled himself against the nauseous taste, and swallowed about two-thirds of his beer — enough at any rate, to give the impression that he had finished it.
‘Drink up!’ he said with would-be heartiness95. ‘It’s time we had the other half of that.’
Gordon emptied his glass and let Ravelston take it. He did not mind letting Ravelston pay for the drinks now. He had paid the first round and honour was satisfied. Ravelston walked self-consciously to the bar. People began staring at him again as soon as he stood up. The navvy, still leaning against the bar over his untouched pot of beer, gazed at him with quiet insolence96. Ravelston resolved that he would drink no more of this filthy common ale.
‘Two double whiskies, would you, please?’ he said apologetically.
The grim landlady stared. ‘What?’ she said.
‘Two double whiskies, please.’
‘No whisky ‘ere. We don’t sell spirits. Beer ‘ouse, we are.’
The navvy smiled flickering97 under his moustache. ‘—— ignorant toff!’ he was thinking. ‘Asking for a whisky in a —— beer ‘ouse!’ Ravelston’s pale face flushed slightly. He had not known till this moment that some of the poorer pubs cannot afford a spirit licence.
‘Bass98, then, would you? Two pint bottles of Bass.’
There were no pint bottles, they had to have four half pints. It was a very poor house. Gordon took a deep, satisfying swallow of Bass. More alcoholic99 than the draught100 beer, it fizzed and prickled in his throat, and because he was hungry it went a little to his head. He felt at once more philosophic101 and more self-pitiful. He had made up his mind not to begin belly-aching about his poverty; but now he was going to begin after all. He said abruptly:
‘This is all b — s that we’ve been talking.’
‘What’s all b — s?’
‘All this about Socialism and Capitalism and the state of the modern world and God knows what. I don’t give a —— for the state of the modern world. If the whole of England was starving except myself and the people I care about, I wouldn’t give a damn.’
‘Don’t you exaggerate just a little?’
‘No. All this talk we make — we’re only objectifying our own feelings. It’s all dictated102 by what we’ve got in our pockets. I go up and down London saying it’s a city of the dead, and our civilization’s dying, and I wish war would break out, and God knows what; and all it means is that my wages are two quid a week and I wish they were five.’
Ravelston, once again reminded obliquely103 of his income, stroked his nose slowly with the knuckle104 of his left forefinger.
‘Of course, I’m with you up to a point. After all, it’s only what Marx said. Every ideology105 is a reflection of economic circumstances.’
‘Ah, but you only understand it out of Marx! You don’t know what it means to have to crawl along on two quid a week. It isn’t a question of hardship — it’s nothing so decent as hardship. It’s the bloody, sneaking106, squalid meaness of it. Living alone for weeks on end because when you’ve no money you’ve no friends. Calling yourself a writer and never even producing anything because you’re always too washed out to write. It’s a sort of filthy sub-world one lives in. A sort of spiritual sewer107.’
He had started now. They were never together long without Gordon beginning to talk in this strain. It was the vilest108 manners. It embarrassed Ravelston horribly. And yet somehow Gordon could not help it. He had got to retail109 his troubles to somebody, and Ravelston was the only person who understood. Poverty, like every other dirty wound, has got to be exposed occasionally. He began to talk in obscene detail of his life in Willowbed Road. He dilated110 on the smell of slops and cabbage, the clotted111 sauce-bottles in the dining-room, the vile food, the aspidistras. He described his furtive112 cups of tea and his trick of throwing used tea-leaves down the W.C. Ravelston, guilty and miserable113, sat staring at his glass and revolving114 it slowly between his hands. Against his right breast he could feel, a square accusing shape, the pocket-book in which, as he knew, eight pound notes and two ten-bob notes nestled against his fat green cheque-book. How awful these details of poverty are! Not that what Gordon was describing was real poverty. It was at worst the fringe of poverty. But what of the real poor? What of the unemployed in Middlesbrough, seven in a room on twenty-five bob a week? When there are people living like that, how dare one walk the world with pound notes and cheque-books in one’s pocket?
‘It’s bloody,’ he murmured several times, impotently. In his heart he wondered — it was his invariable reaction — whether Gordon would accept a tenner if you offered to lend it to him.
They had another drink, which Ravelston again paid for, and went out into the street. It was almost time to part. Gordon never spent more than an hour or two with Ravelston. One’s contacts with rich people, like one’s visits to high altitudes, must always be brief. It was a moonless, starless night, with a damp wind blowing. The night air, the beer, and the watery115 radiance of the lamps induced in Gordon a sort of dismal116 clarity. He perceived that it is quite impossible to explain to any rich person, even to anyone so decent as Ravelston, the essential bloodiness of poverty. For this reason it became all the more important to explain it. He said suddenly:
‘Have you read Chaucer’s Man of Lawe’s Tale?’
‘The Man of Lawe’s Tale? Not that I remember. What’s it about?’
‘I forget. I was thinking of the first six stanzas117. Where he talks about poverty. The way it gives everyone the right to stamp on you! The way everyone WANTS to stamp on you! It makes people HATE you, to know that you’ve no money. They insult you just for the pleasure of insulting you and knowing that you can’t hit back.’
Ravelston was pained. ‘Oh, no, surely not! People aren’t so bad as all that.’
‘Ah, but you don’t know the things that happen!’
Gordon did not want to be told that ‘people aren’t so bad’. He clung with a sort of painful joy to the notion that because he was poor everyone must WANT to insult him. It fitted in with his philosophy of life. And suddenly, with the feeling that he could not stop himself, he was talking of the thing that had been rankling118 in his mind for two days past — the snub he had had from the Dorings on Thursday. He poured the whole story out quite shamelessly. Ravelston was amazed. He could not understand what Gordon was making such a fuss about. To be disappointed at missing a beastly literary tea-party seemed to him absurd. He would not have gone to a literary tea-party if you had paid him. Like all rich people, he spent far more time in avoiding human society than in seeking it. He interrupted Gordon:
‘Really, you know, you ought not to take offence so easily. After all, a thing like that doesn’t really matter.’
‘It isn’t the thing itself that matters, it’s the spirit behind it. The way they snub you as a matter of course, just because you’ve got no money.’
‘But quite possibly it was all a mistake, or something. Why should anyone want to snub you?’
‘“If thou be poure, thy brother hateth thee,”’ quoted Gordon perversely119.
Ravelston, deferential121 even to the opinions of the dead, rubbed his nose. ‘Does Chaucer say that? Then I’m afraid I disagree with Chaucer. People don’t hate you, exactly.’
‘They do. And they’re quite right to hate you. You ARE hateful. It’s like those ads for Listerine. “Why is he always alone? Halitosis is ruining his career.” Poverty is spiritual halitosis.’
Ravelston sighed. Undoubtedly Gordon was perverse120. They walked on, arguing, Gordon vehemently122, Ravelston deprecatingly. Ravelston was helpless against Gordon in an argument of this kind. He felt that Gordon exaggerated, and yet he never liked to contradict him. How could he? He was rich and Gordon was poor. And how can you argue about poverty with someone who is genuinely poor?
‘And then the way women treat you when you’ve no money!’ Gordon went on. ‘That’s another thing about this accursed money business — women!’
Ravelston nodded rather gloomily. This sounded to him more reasonable than what Gordon had been saying before. He thought of Hermione Slater, his own girl. They had been lovers two years but had never bothered to get married. It was ‘too much fag’, Hermione always said. She was rich, of course, or rather her people were. He thought of her shoulders, wide, smooth, and young, that seemed to rise out of her clothes like a mermaid123 rising from the sea; and her skin and hair, which were somehow warm and sleepy, like a wheatfield in the sun. Hermione always yawned at the mention of Socialism, and refused even to read Antichrist. ‘Don’t talk to me about the lower classes,’ she used to say. ‘I hate them. They SMELL.’ And Ravelston adored her.
‘Of course women ARE a difficulty,’ he admitted.
‘They’re more than a difficulty, they’re a bloody curse. That is, if you’ve got no money. A woman hates the sight of you if you’ve got no money.’
‘I think that’s putting it a little too strongly. Things aren’t so crude as all that.’
Gordon did not listen. ‘What rot it is to talk about Socialism or any other ism when women are what they are! The only thing a woman ever wants is money; money for a house of her own and two babies and Drage furniture and an aspidistra. The only sin they can imagine is not wanting to grab money. No woman ever judges a man by anything except his income. Of course she doesn’t put it to herself like that. She says he’s SUCH A NICE man — meaning that he’s got plenty of money. And if you haven’t got money you aren’t NICE. You’re dishonoured124, somehow. You’ve sinned. Sinned against the aspidistra.’
‘You talk a great deal about aspidistras,’ said Ravelston.
‘They’re a dashed important subject,’ said Gordon.
Ravelston rubbed his nose and looked away uncomfortably.
‘Look here, Gordon, you don’t mind my asking — have you got a girl of your own?’
‘Oh, Christ! don’t speak of her!’
He began, nevertheless, to talk about Rosemary. Ravelston had never met Rosemary. At this moment Gordon could not even remember what Rosemary was like. He could not remember how fond he was of her and she of him, how happy they always were together on the rare occasions when they could meet, how patiently she put up with his almost intolerable ways. He remembered nothing save that she would not sleep with him and that it was now a week since she had even written. In the dank night air, with beer inside him, he felt himself a forlorn, neglected creature. Rosemary was ‘cruel’ to him — that was how he saw it. Perversely, for the mere14 pleasure of tormenting125 himself and making Ravelston uncomfortable, be began to invent an imaginary character for Rosemary. He built up a picture of her as a callous126 creature who was amused by him and yet half despised him, who played with him and kept him at arm’s length, and who would nevertheless fall into his arms if only he had a little more money. And Ravelston, who had never met Rosemary, did not altogether disbelieve him. He broke in:
‘But I say, Gordon, look here. This girl, Miss — Miss Waterlow, did you say her name was? — Rosemary; doesn’t she care for you at all, really?’
Gordon’s conscience pricked127 him, though not very deeply. He could not say that Rosemary did not care for him.
‘Oh, yes, she does care for me. In her own way, I dare say she cares for me quite a lot. But not enough, don’t you see. She can’t, while I’ve got no money. It’s all money.’
‘But surely money isn’t so important as all that? After all, there ARE other things.’
‘What other things? Don’t you see that a man’s whole personality is bound up with his income? His personality IS his income. How can you be attractive to a girl when you’ve got no money? You can’t wear decent clothes, you can’t take her out to dinner or to the theatre or away for week-ends, you can’t carry a cheery, interesting atmosphere about with you. And it’s rot to say that kind of thing doesn’t matter. It does. If you haven’t got money there isn’t even anywhere where you can meet. Rosemary and I never meet except in the streets or in picture galleries. She lives in some foul women’s hostel, and my bitch of a landlady won’t allow women in the house. Wandering up and down beastly wet streets — that’s what Rosemary associates me with. Don’t you see how it takes the gilt128 off everything?’
Ravelston was distressed129. It must be pretty bloody when you haven’t even the money to take your girl out. He tried to nerve himself to say something, and failed. With guilt, and also with desire, he thought of Hermione’s body, naked like a ripe warm fruit. With any luck she would have dropped in at the flat this evening. Probably she was waiting for him now. He thought of the unemployed in Middlesbrough. Sexual starvation is awful among the unemployed. They were nearing the flat. He glanced up at the windows. Yes, they were lighted up. Hermione must be there. She had her own latchkey.
As they approached the flat Gordon edged closer to Ravelston. Now the evening was ending, and he must part from Ravelston, whom he adored, and go back to his foul lonely bedroom. And all evenings ended in this way; the return through the dark streets to the lonely room, the womanless bed. And Ravelston would say ‘Come up, won’t you?’ and Gordon, in duty bound, would say, ‘No.’ Never stay too long with those you love — another commandment of the moneyless.
They halted at the foot of the steps. Ravelston laid his gloved hand on one of the iron spearheads of the railing.
‘Come up, won’t you?’ he said without conviction.
‘No, thanks. It’s time I was getting back.’
Ravelston’s fingers tightened131 round the spearhead. He pulled as though to go up, but did not go. Uncomfortably, looking over Gordon’s head into the distance, he said:
‘I say, Gordon, look here. You won’t be offended if I say something?’
‘What?’
‘I say, you know, I hate that business about you and your girl. Not being able to take her out, and all that. It’s bloody, that kind of thing.’
‘Oh, it’s nothing really.’
As soon as he heard Ravelston say that it was ‘bloody’, he knew that he had been exaggerating. He wished that he had not talked in that silly self-pitiful way. One says these things, with the feeling that one cannot help saying them, and afterwards one is sorry.
‘I dare say I exaggerate,’ he said.
‘I say, Gordon, look here. Let me lend you ten quid. Take the girl out to dinner a few times. Or away for the week-end, or something. It might make all the difference. I hate to think —’
Gordon frowned bitterly, almost fiercely. He had stepped a pace back, as though from a threat or an insult. The terrible thing was that the temptation to say ‘Yes’ had almost overwhelmed him. There was so much that ten quid would do! He had a fleeting132 vision of Rosemary and himself at a restaurant table — a bowl of grapes and peaches, a bowing hovering133 waiter, a wine bottle dark and dusty in its wicker cradle.
‘No fear!’ he said.
‘I do wish you would. I tell you I’d LIKE to lend it you.’
‘Thanks. But I prefer to keep my friends.’
‘Isn’t that rather — well, rather a bourgeois134 kind of thing to say?’
‘Do you think it would be BORROWING if I took ten quid off you? I couldn’t pay it back in ten years.’
‘Oh, well! It wouldn’t matter so very much.’ Ravelston looked away. Out it had got to come — the disgraceful, hateful admission that he found himself forced so curiously often to make! ‘You know, I’ve got quite a lot of money.’
‘I know you have. That’s exactly why I won’t borrow off you.’
‘You know, Gordon, sometimes you’re just a little bit — well, pigheaded.’
‘I dare say. I can’t help it.’
‘Oh, well! Good night, then.’
‘Good night.’
Ten minutes later Ravelston rode southwards in a taxi, with Hermione. She had been waiting for him, asleep or half asleep in one of the monstrous armchairs in front of the sitting-room135 fire. Whenever there was nothing particular to do, Hermione always fell asleep as promptly136 as an animal, and the more she slept the healthier she became. As he came across to her she woke and stretched herself with voluptuous137, sleepy writhings, half smiling, half yawning up at him, one cheek and bare arm rosy138 in the firelight. Presently she mastered her yawns to greet him:
‘Hullo, Philip! Where have you been all this time? I’ve been waiting ages.’
‘Oh, I’ve been out with a fellow. Gordon Comstock. I don’t expect you know him. The poet.’
‘Poet! How much did he borrow off you?’
‘Nothing. He’s not that kind of person. He’s rather a fool about money, as a matter of fact. But he’s very gifted in his way.’
‘You and your poets! You look tired, Philip. What time did you have dinner?’
‘Well — as a matter of fact I didn’t have any dinner.’
‘Didn’t have any dinner! Why?’
‘Oh, well, you see — I don’t know if you’ll understand. It was a kind of accident. It was like this.’
He explained. Hermione burst out laughing and dragged herself into a more upright position.
‘Philip! You ARE a silly old ass3! Going without your dinner, just so as not to hurt that little beast’s feelings! You must have some food at once. And of course your char’s gone home. Why don’t you keep some proper servants, Philip? I hate this hole-and-corner way you live. We’ll go out and have supper at Modigliani’s.’
‘But it’s after ten. They’ll be shut.’
‘Nonsense! They’re open till two. I’ll ring up for a taxi. I’m not going to have you starving yourself.’
In the taxi she lay against him, still half asleep, her head pillowed on his breast. He thought of the unemployed in Middlesbrough, seven in a room on twenty-five bob a week. But the girl’s body was heavy against him, and Middlesbrough was very far away. Also he was damnably hungry. He thought of his favourite corner table at Modigliani’s, and of that vile pub with its hard benches, stale beer-stink, and brass spittoons. Hermione was sleepily lecturing him.
‘Philip, why do you have to live in such a dreadful way?’
‘But I don’t live in a dreadful way.’
‘Yes, you do. Pretending you’re poor when you’re not, and living in that poky flat with no servants, and going about with all these beastly people.’
‘What beastly people?’
‘Oh, people like this poet friend of yours. All those people who write for your paper. They only do it to cadge29 from you. Of course I know you’re a Socialist. So am I. I mean we’re all Socialists139 nowadays. But I don’t see why you have to give all your money away and make friends with the lower classes. You can be a Socialist AND have a good time, that’s what I say.’
‘Hermione, dear, please don’t call them the lower classes!’
‘Why not? They ARE the lower classes, aren’t they?’
‘It’s such a hateful expression. Call them the working class, can’t you?’
‘The working class, if you like, then. But they smell just the same.’
‘You oughtn’t to say that kind of thing,’ he protested weakly.
‘Do you know, Philip, sometimes I think you LIKE the lower classes.’
‘Of course I like them.’
‘How disgusting. How absolutely disgusting.’
She lay quiet, content to argue no longer, her arms round him, like a sleepy siren. The woman-scent breathed out of her, a powerful wordless propaganda against all altruism140 and all justice. Outside Modigliani’s they had paid off the taxi and were moving for the door when a big, lank50 wreck141 of a man seemed to spring up from the paving-stones in front of them. He stood across their path like some fawning142 beast, with dreadful eagerness and yet timorously143, as though afraid that Ravelston would strike him. His face came close up to Ravelston’s — a dreadful face, fish-white and scrubby-bearded to the eyes. The words ‘A cup of tea, guv’nor!’ were breathed through carious teeth. Ravelston shrank from him in disgust. He could not help it. His hand moved automatically to his pocket. But in the same instant Hermione caught him by the arm and hauled him inside the restaurant.
‘You’d give away every penny you’ve got if I let you,’ she said.
They went to their favourite table in the corner. Hermione played with some grapes, but Ravelston was very hungry. He ordered the grilled144 rumpsteak he had been thinking of, and half a bottle of Beaujolais. The fat, white-haired Italian waiter, an old friend of Ravelston’s, brought the smoking steak. Ravelston cut it open. Lovely, its red-blue heart! In Middlesbrough the unemployed huddle145 in frowzy146 beds, bread and marg and milkless tea in their bellies147. He settled down to his steak with all the shameful148 joy of a dog with a stolen leg of mutton.
Gordon walked rapidly homewards. It was cold. The fifth of December — real winter now. Circumcise ye your foreskins, saith the Lord. The damp wind blew spitefully through the naked trees. Sharply the menacing wind sweeps over. The poem he had begun on Wednesday, of which six stanzas were now finished, came back to his mind. He did not dislike it at this moment. It was queer how talking with Ravelston always bucked149 him up. The mere contact with Ravelston seemed to reassure150 him somehow. Even when their talk had been unsatisfactory, he came away with the feeling that, after all, he wasn’t quite a failure. Half aloud he repeated the six finished stanzas. They were not bad, not bad at all.
But intermittently151 he was going over in his mind the things he had said to Ravelston. He stuck to everything he had said. The humiliation152 of poverty! That’s what they can’t understand and won’t understand. Not hardship — you don’t suffer hardship on two quid a week, and if you did it wouldn’t matter — but just humiliation, the awful, bloody humiliation. The way it gives everyone the right to stamp on you. The way everyone WANTS to stamp on you. Ravelston wouldn’t believe it. He had too much decency, that was why. He thought you could be poor and still be treated like a human being. But Gordon knew better. He went into the house repeating to himself that he knew better.
There was a letter waiting for him on the hall tray. His heart jumped. All letters excited him nowadays. He went up the stairs three at a time, shut himself in and lit the gas. The letter was from Doring.
DEAR COMSTOCK — What a pity you didn’t turn up on Saturday. There were some people I wanted you to meet. We did tell you it was Saturday and not Thursday this time, didn’t we? My wife says she’s certain she told you. Anyway, we’re having another party on the twenty-third, a sort of before-Christmas party, about the same time. Won’t you come then? Don’t forget the date this time.
Yours
PAUL DORING
A painful convulsion happened below Gordon’s ribs153. So Doring was pretending that it was all a mistake — was pretending not to have insulted him! True, he could not actually have gone there on Saturday, because on Saturday he had to be at the shop; still, it was the intention that counted.
His heart sickened as he re-read the words ‘some people I wanted you to meet’. Just like his bloody luck! He thought of the people he might have met — editors of highbrow magazines, for instance. They might have given him books to review or asked to see his poems or Lord knew what. For a moment he was dreadfully tempted154 to believe that Doring had spoken the truth. Perhaps after all they HAD told him it was Saturday and not Thursday. Perhaps if he searched his memory he might remember about it — might even find the letter itself lying among his muddle155 of papers. But no! He wouldn’t think of it. He fought down the temptation. The Dorings HAD insulted him on purpose. He was poor, therefore they had insulted him. If you are poor, people will insult you. It was his creed156. Stick to it!
He went across to the table, tearing Doring’s letter into small bits. The aspidistra stood in its pot, dull green, ailing130, pathetic in its sickly ugliness. As he sat down, he pulled it towards him and looked at it meditatively157. There was the intimacy158 of hatred between the aspidistra and him. ‘I’ll beat you yet, you b — ’ he whispered to the dusty leaves.
Then he rummaged159 among his papers until he found a clean sheet, took his pen and wrote in his small, neat hand, right in the middle of the sheet:
DEAR DORING — With reference to your letter: Go and —— yourself.
Yours truly
GORDON COMSTOCK
He stuck it into an envelope, addressed it, and at once went out to get stamps from the slot machine. Post it tonight: these things look different in the morning. He dropped it into the pillar-box. So there was another friend gone west.
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1
affected
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| adj.不自然的，假装的 | |
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conceit
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| n.自负，自高自大 | |
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ass
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| n.驴；傻瓜，蠢笨的人 | |
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sardonic
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| adj.嘲笑的，冷笑的，讥讽的 | |
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pebble
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| n.卵石，小圆石 | |
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pane
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| n.窗格玻璃，长方块 | |
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7
socialist
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| n.社会主义者；adj.社会主义的 | |
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8
precisely
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| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
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snob
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| n.势利小人，自以为高雅、有学问的人 | |
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brass
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| n.黄铜；黄铜器，铜管乐器 | |
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11
inscribed
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| v.写，刻( inscribe的过去式和过去分词 )；内接 | |
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12
vehement
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| adj.感情强烈的；热烈的；(人)有强烈感情的 | |
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ardent
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| adj.热情的，热烈的，强烈的，烈性的 | |
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14
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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15
flannel
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| n.法兰绒；法兰绒衣服 | |
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fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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curiously
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| adv.有求知欲地；好问地；奇特地 | |
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18
forefinger
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| n.食指 | |
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pint
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| n.品脱 | |
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pints
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| n.品脱( pint的名词复数 )；一品脱啤酒 | |
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21
comelier
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| adj.英俊的，好看的( comely的比较级 ) | |
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frail
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| adj.身体虚弱的；易损坏的 | |
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miserably
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| adv.痛苦地；悲惨地；糟糕地；极度地 | |
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decency
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| n.体面，得体，合宜，正派，庄重 | |
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graceful
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| adj.优美的，优雅的；得体的 | |
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undoubtedly
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| adv.确实地，无疑地 | |
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virtues
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| 美德( virtue的名词复数 )； 德行； 优点； 长处 | |
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28
puffed
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| adj.疏松的v.使喷出( puff的过去式和过去分词 )；喷着汽（或烟）移动；吹嘘；吹捧 | |
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29
cadge
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| v.乞讨 | |
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30
browsed
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| v.吃草( browse的过去式和过去分词 )；随意翻阅；（在商店里）随便看看；（在计算机上）浏览信息 | |
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31
drowsy
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| adj.昏昏欲睡的，令人发困的 | |
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32
swapping
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| 交换，交换技术 | |
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33
despondent
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| adj.失望的，沮丧的，泄气的 | |
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34
arid
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| adj.干旱的；(土地)贫瘠的 | |
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35
rattling
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| adj. 格格作响的, 活泼的, 很好的 adv. 极其, 很, 非常 动词rattle的现在分词 | |
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abruptly
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| adv.突然地，出其不意地 | |
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37
fleas
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| n.跳蚤( flea的名词复数 )；爱财如命；没好气地（拒绝某人的要求） | |
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38
loathing
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| n.厌恶，憎恨v.憎恨，厌恶( loathe的现在分词)；极不喜欢 | |
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abortion
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| n.流产，堕胎 | |
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40
guilt
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| n.犯罪；内疚；过失，罪责 | |
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41
futility
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| n.无用 | |
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42
bloodiness
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| n.血染；血污；残忍；野蛮 | |
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43
vein
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| n.血管，静脉；叶脉，纹理；情绪；vt.使成脉络 | |
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44
capitalism
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| n.资本主义 | |
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45
unemployed
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| adj.失业的，没有工作的；未动用的，闲置的 | |
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46
naive
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| adj.幼稚的，轻信的；天真的 | |
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47
hatred
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| n.憎恶，憎恨，仇恨 | |
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48
residential
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| adj.提供住宿的；居住的；住宅的 | |
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49
hoarding
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| n.贮藏；积蓄；临时围墙；囤积v.积蓄并储藏（某物）( hoard的现在分词 ) | |
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50
lank
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| adj.瘦削的；稀疏的 | |
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51
pallid
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| adj.苍白的，呆板的 | |
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52
withering
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| 使人畏缩的，使人害羞的，使人难堪的 | |
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53
chaos
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| n.混乱，无秩序 | |
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54
corpses
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| n.死尸，尸体( corpse的名词复数 ) | |
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55
misery
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| n.痛苦，苦恼，苦难；悲惨的境遇，贫苦 | |
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56
zooming
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| adj.快速上升的v.（飞机、汽车等）急速移动( zoom的过去分词 )；（价格、费用等）急升，猛涨 | |
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57
bloody
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| adj.非常的的；流血的；残忍的；adv.很；vt.血染 | |
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58
aesthetically
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| adv.美地，艺术地 | |
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59
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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60
longing
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| n.（for）渴望 | |
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61
stagnation
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| n. 停滞 | |
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62
incurable
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| adj.不能医治的，不能矫正的，无救的；n.不治的病人，无救的人 | |
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63
confession
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| n.自白，供认，承认 | |
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64
spout
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| v.喷出，涌出；滔滔不绝地讲；n.喷管；水柱 | |
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65
veered
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| v.（尤指交通工具）改变方向或路线( veer的过去式和过去分词 )；（指谈话内容、人的行为或观点）突然改变；（指风） （在北半球按顺时针方向、在南半球按逆时针方向）逐渐转向；风向顺时针转 | |
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66
nostrils
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| 鼻孔( nostril的名词复数 ) | |
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67
tickled
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| （使）发痒( tickle的过去式和过去分词 )； （使）愉快，逗乐 | |
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68
gallantly
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| adv. 漂亮地，勇敢地，献殷勤地 | |
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69
foul
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| adj.污秽的；邪恶的；v.弄脏；妨害；犯规；n.犯规 | |
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70
enveloped
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| v.包围，笼罩，包住( envelop的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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71
filthy
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| adj.卑劣的；恶劣的，肮脏的 | |
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72
rations
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| 定量( ration的名词复数 )； 配给量； 正常量； 合理的量 | |
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73
monstrous
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| adj.巨大的；恐怖的；可耻的，丢脸的 | |
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74
intensity
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| n.强烈，剧烈；强度；烈度 | |
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75
landlady
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| n.女房东，女地主 | |
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76
darts
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| n.掷飞镖游戏；飞镖( dart的名词复数 )；急驰，飞奔v.投掷，投射( dart的第三人称单数 )；向前冲，飞奔 | |
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77
hush
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| int.嘘，别出声；n.沉默，静寂；v.使安静 | |
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78
inquisitively
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| 过分好奇地； 好问地 | |
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79
casually
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| adv.漠不关心地，无动于衷地，不负责任地 | |
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80
insolent
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| adj.傲慢的，无理的 | |
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81
greasy
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| adj. 多脂的，油脂的 | |
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82
subsiding
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| v.（土地）下陷（因在地下采矿）( subside的现在分词 )；减弱；下降至较低或正常水平；一下子坐在椅子等上 | |
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83
averted
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| 防止，避免( avert的过去式和过去分词 )； 转移 | |
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84
rinsed
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| v.漂洗( rinse的过去式和过去分词 )；冲洗；用清水漂洗掉（肥皂泡等）；（用清水）冲掉 | |
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85
vile
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| adj.卑鄙的，可耻的，邪恶的；坏透的 | |
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86
unreasonable
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| adj.不讲道理的，不合情理的，过度的 | |
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87
tightening
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| 上紧，固定，紧密 | |
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88
communal
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| adj.公有的，公共的，公社的，公社制的 | |
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89
hostel
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| n.（学生）宿舍，招待所 | |
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90
repudiated
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| v.（正式地）否认( repudiate的过去式和过去分词 )；拒绝接受；拒绝与…往来；拒不履行（法律义务） | |
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91
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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92
cosy
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| adj.温暖而舒适的，安逸的 | |
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93
meek
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| adj.温顺的，逆来顺受的 | |
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94
momentary
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| adj.片刻的，瞬息的；短暂的 | |
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95
heartiness
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| 诚实，热心 | |
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96
insolence
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| n.傲慢；无礼；厚颜；傲慢的态度 | |
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97
flickering
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| adj.闪烁的，摇曳的，一闪一闪的 | |
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98
bass
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| n.男低音(歌手)；低音乐器；低音大提琴 | |
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99
alcoholic
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| adj.（含）酒精的，由酒精引起的；n.酗酒者 | |
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100
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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101
philosophic
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| adj.哲学的，贤明的 | |
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102
dictated
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| v.大声讲或读( dictate的过去式和过去分词 )；口授；支配；摆布 | |
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103
obliquely
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| adv.斜； 倾斜； 间接； 不光明正大 | |
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104
knuckle
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| n.指节；vi.开始努力工作；屈服，认输 | |
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105
ideology
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| n.意识形态，(政治或社会的)思想意识 | |
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106
sneaking
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| a.秘密的，不公开的 | |
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107
sewer
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| n.排水沟，下水道 | |
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108
vilest
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| adj.卑鄙的( vile的最高级 )；可耻的；极坏的；非常讨厌的 | |
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109
retail
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| v./n.零售；adv.以零售价格 | |
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110
dilated
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| adj.加宽的，扩大的v.（使某物）扩大，膨胀，张大( dilate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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111
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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112
furtive
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| adj.鬼鬼崇崇的，偷偷摸摸的 | |
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113
miserable
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| adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的 | |
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114
revolving
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| adj.旋转的，轮转式的；循环的v.（使）旋转( revolve的现在分词 )；细想 | |
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115
watery
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| adj.有水的，水汪汪的；湿的，湿润的 | |
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116
dismal
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| adj.阴沉的，凄凉的，令人忧郁的，差劲的 | |
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117
stanzas
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| 节，段( stanza的名词复数 ) | |
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118
rankling
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| v.（使）痛苦不已，（使）怨恨不已( rankle的现在分词 ) | |
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119
perversely
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| adv. 倔强地 | |
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120
perverse
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| adj.刚愎的；坚持错误的，行为反常的 | |
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121
deferential
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| adj. 敬意的，恭敬的 | |
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122
vehemently
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| adv. 热烈地 | |
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123
mermaid
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| n.美人鱼 | |
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124
dishonoured
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| a.不光彩的，不名誉的 | |
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125
tormenting
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| 使痛苦的，使苦恼的 | |
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126
callous
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| adj.无情的，冷淡的，硬结的，起老茧的 | |
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127
pricked
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| 刺，扎，戳( prick的过去式和过去分词 )； 刺伤； 刺痛； 使剧痛 | |
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128
gilt
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| adj.镀金的；n.金边证券 | |
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129
distressed
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| 痛苦的 | |
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130
ailing
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| v.生病 | |
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131
tightened
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| 收紧( tighten的过去式和过去分词 )； （使）变紧； （使）绷紧； 加紧 | |
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132
fleeting
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| adj.短暂的，飞逝的 | |
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133
hovering
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| 鸟( hover的现在分词 )； 靠近（某事物）； （人）徘徊； 犹豫 | |
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134
bourgeois
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| adj./n.追求物质享受的(人)；中产阶级分子 | |
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135
sitting-room
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| n.（BrE）客厅，起居室 | |
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136
promptly
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| adv.及时地，敏捷地 | |
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137
voluptuous
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| adj.肉欲的，骄奢淫逸的 | |
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138
rosy
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| adj.美好的，乐观的，玫瑰色的 | |
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139
socialists
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| 社会主义者( socialist的名词复数 ) | |
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140
altruism
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| n.利他主义，不自私 | |
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141
wreck
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| n.失事，遇难；沉船；vt.(船等)失事，遇难 | |
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142
fawning
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| adj.乞怜的，奉承的v.（尤指狗等）跳过来往人身上蹭以示亲热( fawn的现在分词 )；巴结；讨好 | |
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143
timorously
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| adv.胆怯地，羞怯地 | |
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144
grilled
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| adj. 烤的, 炙过的, 有格子的 动词grill的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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145
huddle
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| vi.挤作一团；蜷缩；vt.聚集；n.挤在一起的人 | |
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146
frowzy
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| adj.不整洁的；污秽的 | |
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147
bellies
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| n.肚子( belly的名词复数 )；腹部；（物体的）圆形或凸起部份；腹部…形的 | |
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148
shameful
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| adj.可耻的，不道德的 | |
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149
bucked
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| adj.快v.（马等）猛然弓背跃起( buck的过去式和过去分词 )；抵制；猛然震荡；马等尥起后蹄跳跃 | |
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150
reassure
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| v.使放心，使消除疑虑 | |
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151
intermittently
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| adv.间歇地；断断续续 | |
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152
humiliation
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| n.羞辱 | |
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153
ribs
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| n.肋骨( rib的名词复数 )；（船或屋顶等的）肋拱；肋骨状的东西；（织物的）凸条花纹 | |
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154
tempted
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| v.怂恿（某人）干不正当的事；冒…的险（tempt的过去分词） | |
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155
muddle
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| n.困惑，混浊状态；vt.使混乱，使糊涂，使惊呆；vi.胡乱应付，混乱 | |
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156
creed
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| n.信条；信念，纲领 | |
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157
meditatively
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| adv.冥想地 | |
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158
intimacy
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| n.熟悉，亲密，密切关系，亲昵的言行 | |
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159
rummaged
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| 翻找，搜寻( rummage的过去式和过去分词 )； 已经海关检查 | |
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