They had all, Monsieur and Madame Bovary, Homais, and Monsieur Leon, gone to see a yarn-mill that was being built in the valley a mile and a half from Yonville. The druggist had taken Napoleon and Athalie to give them some exercise, and Justin accompanied them, carrying the umbrellas on his shoulder.
Nothing, however, could be less curious than this curiosity. A great piece of waste ground, on which pell-mell, amid a mass of sand and stones, were a few break-wheels, already rusty3, surrounded by a quadrangular building pierced by a number of little windows. The building was unfinished; the sky could be seen through the joists of the roofing. Attached to the stop-plank of the gable a bunch of straw mixed with corn-ears fluttered its tricoloured ribbons in the wind.
Homais was talking. He explained to the company the future importance of this establishment, computed4 the strength of the floorings, the thickness of the walls, and regretted extremely not having a yard-stick such as Monsieur Binet possessed5 for his own special use.
Emma, who had taken his arm, bent6 lightly against his shoulder, and she looked at the sun’s disc shedding afar through the mist his pale splendour. She turned. Charles was there. His cap was drawn7 down over his eyebrows8, and his two thick lips were trembling, which added a look of stupidity to his face; his very back, his calm back, was irritating to behold9, and she saw written upon his coat all the platitude10 of the bearer.
While she was considering him thus, tasting in her irritation11 a sort of depraved pleasure, Leon made a step forward. The cold that made him pale seemed to add a more gentle languor12 to his face; between his cravat13 and his neck the somewhat loose collar of his shirt showed the skin; the lobe14 of his ear looked out from beneath a lock of hair, and his large blue eyes, raised to the clouds, seemed to Emma more limpid15 and more beautiful than those mountain-lakes where the heavens are mirrored.
“Wretched boy!” suddenly cried the chemist.
And he ran to his son, who had just precipitated16 himself into a heap of lime in order to whiten his boots. At the reproaches with which he was being overwhelmed Napoleon began to roar, while Justin dried his shoes with a wisp of straw. But a knife was wanted; Charles offered his.
“Ah!” she said to herself, “he carried a knife in his pocket like a peasant.”
The hoar-frost was falling, and they turned back to Yonville.
In the evening Madame Bovary did not go to her neighbour’s, and when Charles had left and she felt herself alone, the comparison re-began with the clearness of a sensation almost actual, and with that lengthening17 of perspective which memory gives to things. Looking from her bed at the clean fire that was burning, she still saw, as she had down there, Leon standing18 up with one hand behind his cane19, and with the other holding Athalie, who was quietly sucking a piece of ice. She thought him charming; she could not tear herself away from him; she recalled his other attitudes on other days, the words he had spoken, the sound of his voice, his whole person; and she repeated, pouting20 out her lips as if for a kiss —
“Yes, charming! charming! Is he not in love?” she asked herself; “but with whom? With me?”
All the proofs arose before her at once; her heart leapt. The flame of the fire threw a joyous21 light upon the ceiling; she turned on her back, stretching out her arms.
Then began the eternal lamentation22: “Oh, if Heaven had out willed it! And why not? What prevented it?”
When Charles came home at midnight, she seemed to have just awakened23, and as he made a noise undressing, she complained of a headache, then asked carelessly what had happened that evening.
“Monsieur Leon,” he said, “went to his room early.”
She could not help smiling, and she fell asleep, her soul filled with a new delight.
The next day, at dusk, she received a visit from Monsieur Lherueux, the draper. He was a man of ability, was this shopkeeper. Born a Gascon but bred a Norman, he grafted24 upon his southern volubility the cunning of the Cauchois. His fat, flabby, beardless face seemed dyed by a decoction of liquorice, and his white hair made even more vivid the keen brilliance25 of his small black eyes. No one knew what he had been formerly26; a pedlar said some, a banker at Routot according to others. What was certain was that he made complex calculations in his head that would have frightened Binet himself. Polite to obsequiousness27, he always held himself with his back bent in the position of one who bows or who invites.
After leaving at the door his hat surrounded with crape, he put down a green bandbox on the table, and began by complaining to madame, with many civilities, that he should have remained till that day without gaining her confidence. A poor shop like his was not made to attract a “fashionable lady”; he emphasized the words; yet she had only to command, and he would undertake to provide her with anything she might wish, either in haberdashery or linen28, millinery or fancy goods, for he went to town regularly four times a month. He was connected with the best houses. You could speak of him at the “Trois Freres,” at the “Barbe d’Or,” or at the “Grand Sauvage”; all these gentlemen knew him as well as the insides of their pockets. To-day, then he had come to show madame, in passing, various articles he happened to have, thanks to the most rare opportunity. And he pulled out half-a-dozen embroidered29 collars from the box.
Madame Bovary examined them. “I do not require anything,” she said.
Then Monsieur Lheureux delicately exhibited three Algerian scarves, several packet of English needles, a pair of straw slippers30, and finally, four eggcups in cocoanut wood, carved in open work by convicts. Then, with both hands on the table, his neck stretched out, his figure bent forward, open-mouthed, he watched Emma’s look, who was walking up and down undecided amid these goods. From time to time, as if to remove some dust, he filliped with his nail the silk of the scarves spread out at full length, and they rustled31 with a little noise, making in the green twilight32 the gold spangles of their tissue scintillate33 like little stars.
“How much are they?”
“A mere34 nothing,” he replied, “a mere nothing. But there’s no hurry; whenever it’s convenient. We are not Jews.”
She reflected for a few moments, and ended by again declining Monsieur Lheureux’s offer. He replied quite unconcernedly —
“Very well. We shall understand one another by and by. I have always got on with ladies — if I didn’t with my own!”
Emma smiled.
“I wanted to tell you,” he went on good-naturedly, after his joke, “that it isn’t the money I should trouble about. Why, I could give you some, if need be.”
She made a gesture of surprise.
“Ah!” said he quickly and in a low voice, “I shouldn’t have to go far to find you some, rely on that.”
And he began asking after Pere Tellier, the proprietor36 of the “Cafe Francais,” whom Monsieur Bovary was then attending.
“What’s the matter with Pere Tellier? He coughs so that he shakes his whole house, and I’m afraid he’ll soon want a deal covering rather than a flannel37 vest. He was such a rake as a young man! Those sort of people, madame, have not the least regularity38; he’s burnt up with brandy. Still it’s sad, all the same, to see an acquaintance go off.”
And while he fastened up his box he discoursed39 about the doctor’s patients.
“It’s the weather, no doubt,” he said, looking frowningly at the floor, “that causes these illnesses. I, too, don’t feel the thing. One of these days I shall even have to consult the doctor for a pain I have in my back. Well, good-bye, Madame Bovary. At your service; your very humble40 servant.” And he closed the door gently.
Emma had her dinner served in her bedroom on a tray by the fireside; she was a long time over it; everything was well with her.
“How good I was!” she said to herself, thinking of the scarves.
She heard some steps on the stairs. It was Leon. She got up and took from the chest of drawers the first pile of dusters to be hemmed41. When he came in she seemed very busy.
The conversation languished42; Madame Bovary gave it up every few minutes, whilst he himself seemed quite embarrassed. Seated on a low chair near the fire, he turned round in his fingers the ivory thimble-case. She stitched on, or from time to time turned down the hem2 of the cloth with her nail. She did not speak; he was silent, captivated by her silence, as he would have been by her speech.
“Poor fellow!” she thought.
“How have I displeased44 her?” he asked himself.
At last, however, Leon said that he should have, one of these days, to go to Rouen on some office business.
“Your music subscription45 is out; am I to renew it?”
“No,” she replied.
“Why?”
“Because —”
And pursing her lips she slowly drew a long stitch of grey thread.
This work irritated Leon. It seemed to roughen the ends of her fingers. A gallant46 phrase came into his head, but he did not risk it.
“Then you are giving it up?” he went on.
“What?” she asked hurriedly. “Music? Ah! yes! Have I not my house to look after, my husband to attend to, a thousand things, in fact, many duties that must be considered first?”
She looked at the clock. Charles was late. Then, she affected47 anxiety. Two or three times she even repeated, “He is so good!”
The clerk was fond of Monsieur Bovary. But this tenderness on his behalf astonished him unpleasantly; nevertheless he took up on his praises, which he said everyone was singing, especially the chemist.
“Ah! he is a good fellow,” continued Emma.
“Certainly,” replied the clerk.
And he began talking of Madame Homais, whose very untidy appearance generally made them laugh.
“What does it matter?” interrupted Emma. “A good housewife does not trouble about her appearance.”
Then she relapsed into silence.
It was the same on the following days; her talks, her manners, everything changed. She took interest in the housework, went to church regularly, and looked after her servant with more severity.
She took Berthe from nurse. When visitors called, Felicite brought her in, and Madame Bovary undressed her to show off her limbs. She declared she adored children; this was her consolation48, her joy, her passion, and she accompanied her caresses49 with lyrical outburst which would have reminded anyone but the Yonville people of Sachette in “Notre Dame1 de Paris.”
When Charles came home he found his slippers put to warm near the fire. His waistcoat now never wanted lining35, nor his shirt buttons, and it was quite a pleasure to see in the cupboard the night-caps arranged in piles of the same height. She no longer grumbled50 as formerly at taking a turn in the garden; what he proposed was always done, although she did not understand the wishes to which she submitted without a murmur51; and when Leon saw him by his fireside after dinner, his two hands on his stomach, his two feet on the fender, his two cheeks red with feeding, his eyes moist with happiness, the child crawling along the carpet, and this woman with the slender waist who came behind his arm-chair to kiss his forehead: “What madness!” he said to himself. “And how to reach her!”
And thus she seemed so virtuous52 and inaccessible53 to him that he lost all hope, even the faintest. But by this renunciation he placed her on an extraordinary pinnacle54. To him she stood outside those fleshly attributes from which he had nothing to obtain, and in his heart she rose ever, and became farther removed from him after the magnificent manner of an apotheosis55 that is taking wing. It was one of those pure feelings that do not interfere56 with life, that are cultivated because they are rare, and whose loss would afflict57 more than their passion rejoices.
Emma grew thinner, her cheeks paler, her face longer. With her black hair, her large eyes, her aquiline58 nose, her birdlike walk, and always silent now, did she not seem to be passing through life scarcely touching59 it, and to bear on her brow the vague impress of some divine destiny? She was so sad and so calm, at once so gentle and so reserved, that near her one felt oneself seized by an icy charm, as we shudder60 in churches at the perfume of the flowers mingling61 with the cold of the marble. The others even did not escape from this seduction. The chemist said —
“She is a woman of great parts, who wouldn’t be misplaced in a sub-prefecture.”
The housewives admired her economy, the patients her politeness, the poor her charity.
But she was eaten up with desires, with rage, with hate. That dress with the narrow folds hid a distracted fear, of whose torment62 those chaste63 lips said nothing. She was in love with Leon, and sought solitude64 that she might with the more ease delight in his image. The sight of his form troubled the voluptuousness65 of this mediation66. Emma thrilled at the sound of his step; then in his presence the emotion subsided67, and afterwards there remained to her only an immense astonishment68 that ended in sorrow.
Leon did not know that when he left her in despair she rose after he had gone to see him in the street. She concerned herself about his comings and goings; she watched his face; she invented quite a history to find an excuse for going to his room. The chemist’s wife seemed happy to her to sleep under the same roof, and her thoughts constantly centered upon this house, like the “Lion d’Or” pigeons, who came there to dip their red feet and white wings in its gutters69. But the more Emma recognised her love, the more she crushed it down, that it might not be evident, that she might make it less. She would have liked Leon to guess it, and she imagined chances, catastrophes70 that should facilitate this.
What restrained her was, no doubt, idleness and fear, and a sense of shame also. She thought she had repulsed71 him too much, that the time was past, that all was lost. Then, pride, and joy of being able to say to herself, “I am virtuous,” and to look at herself in the glass taking resigned poses, consoled her a little for the sacrifice she believed she was making.
Then the lusts72 of the flesh, the longing73 for money, and the melancholy74 of passion all blended themselves into one suffering, and instead of turning her thoughts from it, she clave to it the more, urging herself to pain, and seeking everywhere occasion for it. She was irritated by an ill-served dish or by a half-open door; bewailed the velvets she had not, the happiness she had missed, her too exalted75 dreams, her narrow home.
What exasperated76 her was that Charles did not seem to notice her anguish43. His conviction that he was making her happy seemed to her an imbecile insult, and his sureness on this point ingratitude77. For whose sake, then was she virtuous? Was it not for him, the obstacle to all felicity, the cause of all misery78, and, as it were, the sharp clasp of that complex strap79 that bucked80 her in on all sides.
On him alone, then, she concentrated all the various hatreds81 that resulted from her boredom82, and every effort to diminish only augmented83 it; for this useless trouble was added to the other reasons for despair, and contributed still more to the separation between them. Her own gentleness to herself made her rebel against him. Domestic mediocrity drove her to lewd84 fancies, marriage tenderness to adulterous desires. She would have like Charles to beat her, that she might have a better right to hate him, to revenge herself upon him. She was surprised sometimes at the atrocious conjectures85 that came into her thoughts, and she had to go on smiling, to hear repeated to her at all hours that she was happy, to pretend to be happy, to let it be believed.
Yet she had loathing86 of this hypocrisy87. She was seized with the temptation to flee somewhere with Leon to try a new life; but at once a vague chasm88 full of darkness opened within her soul.
“Besides, he no longer loves me,” she thought. “What is to become of me? What help is to be hoped for, what consolation, what solace89?”
She was left broken, breathless, inert90, sobbing91 in a low voice, with flowing tears.
“Why don’t you tell master?” the servant asked her when she came in during these crises.
“It is the nerves,” said Emma. “Do not speak to him of it; it would worry him.”
“Ah! yes,” Felicite went on, “you are just like La Guerine, Pere Guerin’s daughter, the fisherman at Pollet, that I used to know at Dieppe before I came to you. She was so sad, so sad, to see her standing upright on the threshold of her house, she seemed to you like a winding-sheet spread out before the door. Her illness, it appears, was a kind of fog that she had in her head, and the doctors could not do anything, nor the priest either. When she was taken too bad she went off quite alone to the sea-shore, so that the customs officer, going his rounds, often found her lying flat on her face, crying on the shingle92. Then, after her marriage, it went off, they say.”
“But with me,” replied Emma, “it was after marriage that it began.”
点击收听单词发音
1 dame | |
n.女士 | |
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2 hem | |
n.贴边,镶边;vt.缝贴边;(in)包围,限制 | |
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3 rusty | |
adj.生锈的;锈色的;荒废了的 | |
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4 computed | |
adj.[医]计算的,使用计算机的v.计算,估算( compute的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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5 possessed | |
adj.疯狂的;拥有的,占有的 | |
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6 bent | |
n.爱好,癖好;adj.弯的;决心的,一心的 | |
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7 drawn | |
v.拖,拉,拔出;adj.憔悴的,紧张的 | |
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8 eyebrows | |
眉毛( eyebrow的名词复数 ) | |
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9 behold | |
v.看,注视,看到 | |
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10 platitude | |
n.老生常谈,陈词滥调 | |
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11 irritation | |
n.激怒,恼怒,生气 | |
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12 languor | |
n.无精力,倦怠 | |
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13 cravat | |
n.领巾,领结;v.使穿有领结的服装,使结领结 | |
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14 lobe | |
n.耳垂,(肺,肝等的)叶 | |
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15 limpid | |
adj.清澈的,透明的 | |
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16 precipitated | |
v.(突如其来地)使发生( precipitate的过去式和过去分词 );促成;猛然摔下;使沉淀 | |
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17 lengthening | |
(时间或空间)延长,伸长( lengthen的现在分词 ); 加长 | |
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18 standing | |
n.持续,地位;adj.永久的,不动的,直立的,不流动的 | |
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19 cane | |
n.手杖,细长的茎,藤条;v.以杖击,以藤编制的 | |
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20 pouting | |
v.撅(嘴)( pout的现在分词 ) | |
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21 joyous | |
adj.充满快乐的;令人高兴的 | |
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22 lamentation | |
n.悲叹,哀悼 | |
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23 awakened | |
v.(使)醒( awaken的过去式和过去分词 );(使)觉醒;弄醒;(使)意识到 | |
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24 grafted | |
移植( graft的过去式和过去分词 ); 嫁接; 使(思想、制度等)成为(…的一部份); 植根 | |
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25 brilliance | |
n.光辉,辉煌,壮丽,(卓越的)才华,才智 | |
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26 formerly | |
adv.从前,以前 | |
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27 obsequiousness | |
媚骨 | |
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28 linen | |
n.亚麻布,亚麻线,亚麻制品;adj.亚麻布制的,亚麻的 | |
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29 embroidered | |
adj.绣花的 | |
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30 slippers | |
n. 拖鞋 | |
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31 rustled | |
v.发出沙沙的声音( rustle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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32 twilight | |
n.暮光,黄昏;暮年,晚期,衰落时期 | |
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33 scintillate | |
v.闪烁火光;放出火花 | |
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34 mere | |
adj.纯粹的;仅仅,只不过 | |
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35 lining | |
n.衬里,衬料 | |
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36 proprietor | |
n.所有人;业主;经营者 | |
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37 flannel | |
n.法兰绒;法兰绒衣服 | |
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38 regularity | |
n.规律性,规则性;匀称,整齐 | |
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39 discoursed | |
演说(discourse的过去式与过去分词形式) | |
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40 humble | |
adj.谦卑的,恭顺的;地位低下的;v.降低,贬低 | |
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41 hemmed | |
缝…的褶边( hem的过去式和过去分词 ); 包围 | |
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42 languished | |
长期受苦( languish的过去式和过去分词 ); 受折磨; 变得(越来越)衰弱; 因渴望而变得憔悴或闷闷不乐 | |
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43 anguish | |
n.(尤指心灵上的)极度痛苦,烦恼 | |
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44 displeased | |
a.不快的 | |
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45 subscription | |
n.预订,预订费,亲笔签名,调配法,下标(处方) | |
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46 gallant | |
adj.英勇的,豪侠的;(向女人)献殷勤的 | |
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47 affected | |
adj.不自然的,假装的 | |
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48 consolation | |
n.安慰,慰问 | |
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49 caresses | |
爱抚,抚摸( caress的名词复数 ) | |
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50 grumbled | |
抱怨( grumble的过去式和过去分词 ); 发牢骚; 咕哝; 发哼声 | |
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51 murmur | |
n.低语,低声的怨言;v.低语,低声而言 | |
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52 virtuous | |
adj.有品德的,善良的,贞洁的,有效力的 | |
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53 inaccessible | |
adj.达不到的,难接近的 | |
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54 pinnacle | |
n.尖塔,尖顶,山峰;(喻)顶峰 | |
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55 apotheosis | |
n.神圣之理想;美化;颂扬 | |
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56 interfere | |
v.(in)干涉,干预;(with)妨碍,打扰 | |
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57 afflict | |
vt.使身体或精神受痛苦,折磨 | |
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58 aquiline | |
adj.钩状的,鹰的 | |
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59 touching | |
adj.动人的,使人感伤的 | |
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60 shudder | |
v.战粟,震动,剧烈地摇晃;n.战粟,抖动 | |
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61 mingling | |
adj.混合的 | |
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62 torment | |
n.折磨;令人痛苦的东西(人);vt.折磨;纠缠 | |
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63 chaste | |
adj.贞洁的;有道德的;善良的;简朴的 | |
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64 solitude | |
n. 孤独; 独居,荒僻之地,幽静的地方 | |
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65 voluptuousness | |
n.风骚,体态丰满 | |
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66 mediation | |
n.调解 | |
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67 subsided | |
v.(土地)下陷(因在地下采矿)( subside的过去式和过去分词 );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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68 astonishment | |
n.惊奇,惊异 | |
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69 gutters | |
(路边)排水沟( gutter的名词复数 ); 阴沟; (屋顶的)天沟; 贫贱的境地 | |
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70 catastrophes | |
n.灾祸( catastrophe的名词复数 );灾难;不幸事件;困难 | |
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71 repulsed | |
v.击退( repulse的过去式和过去分词 );驳斥;拒绝 | |
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72 lusts | |
贪求(lust的第三人称单数形式) | |
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73 longing | |
n.(for)渴望 | |
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74 melancholy | |
n.忧郁,愁思;adj.令人感伤(沮丧)的,忧郁的 | |
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75 exalted | |
adj.(地位等)高的,崇高的;尊贵的,高尚的 | |
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76 exasperated | |
adj.恼怒的 | |
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77 ingratitude | |
n.忘恩负义 | |
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78 misery | |
n.痛苦,苦恼,苦难;悲惨的境遇,贫苦 | |
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79 strap | |
n.皮带,带子;v.用带扣住,束牢;用绷带包扎 | |
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80 bucked | |
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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81 hatreds | |
n.仇恨,憎恶( hatred的名词复数 );厌恶的事 | |
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82 boredom | |
n.厌烦,厌倦,乏味,无聊 | |
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83 Augmented | |
adj.增音的 动词augment的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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84 lewd | |
adj.淫荡的 | |
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85 conjectures | |
推测,猜想( conjecture的名词复数 ) | |
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86 loathing | |
n.厌恶,憎恨v.憎恨,厌恶( loathe的现在分词);极不喜欢 | |
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87 hypocrisy | |
n.伪善,虚伪 | |
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88 chasm | |
n.深坑,断层,裂口,大分岐,利害冲突 | |
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89 solace | |
n.安慰;v.使快乐;vt.安慰(物),缓和 | |
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90 inert | |
adj.无活动能力的,惰性的;迟钝的 | |
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91 sobbing | |
<主方>Ⅰ adj.湿透的 | |
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92 shingle | |
n.木瓦板;小招牌(尤指医生或律师挂的营业招牌);v.用木瓦板盖(屋顶);把(女子头发)剪短 | |
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