Chapter 3 Sometime a Fire

THE LAST MEDIAEVAL WAR was fought in Italy in 1943 and 1944. Fortress¹ towns on great promontorieswhich had been battled over since the eighth century had the armies of new kings flung carelessly against them.

Around the outcrops of rocks were the traffic of stretchers, butchered vineyards, where, if you dug deep beneaththe tank ruts, you found blood-axe and spear. Monterchi, Cortona, Urbino, Arezzo, Sanse-polcro, Anghiari. Andthen the coast.

Cats slept in the gun turrets² looking south. English and Americans and Indians and Australians and Canadiansad.vanced north, and the shell traces exploded and dissolved in the air. When the armies assembled atSansepolcro, a town whose symbol is the crossbow, some soldiers acquired them and fired them silently at nightover the walls of the untaken city. Field Marshal Kesselring of the retreating German army seriously consideredthe pouring of hot oil from battlements.

Mediaeval scholars were pulled out of Oxford⁴ colleges and flown into Umbria. Their average age was sixty.

They were billeted with the troops, and in meetings with strategic com.mand they kept forgetting the inventionof the airplane. They spoke⁵ of towns in terms of the art in them. At Monterchi there was the Madonna del Partoby Piero della Francesca, located in the chapel⁶ next to the town graveyard⁷. When the thirteenth-century castlewas finally taken during the spring rains, troops were billeted under the high dome⁹ of the church and slept by thestone pulpit where Hercules slays¹⁰ the Hydra¹¹. There was only bad water. Many died of typhoid and other fevers.

Looking up with service binoculars¹² in the Gothic church at Arezzo soldiers would come upon theircontempo.rary faces in the Piero della Francesca frescoes¹³. The Queen of Sheba conversing¹⁴ with King Solomon.

Nearby a twig¹⁵ from the Tree of Good and Evil inserted into the mouth of the dead Adam. Years later this queenwould realize that the bridge over the Siloam was made from the wood of this sacred tree.

It was always raining and cold, and there was no order but for the great maps of art that showed judgement, pietyand sacrifice. The Eighth Army came upon river after river of destroyed bridges, and their sapper unitsclambered down banks on ladders of rope within enemy gunfire and swam or waded¹⁹ across. Food and tents werewashed away. Men who were tied to equipment disappeared. Once across the river they tried to ascend²⁰ out of thewater. They sank their hands and wrists into the mud wall of the cliff face and hung there. They wanted the mudto harden and hold them.

The young Sikh sapper put his cheek against the mud and thought of the Queen of Sheba’s face, the texture²¹ ofher skin. There was no comfort in this river except for his desire for her, which somehow kept him warm. Hewould pull the veil off her hair. He would put his right hand between her neck and olive blouse. He too was tiredand sad, as the wise king and guilty queen he had seen in Arezzo two weeks earlier.

He hung over the water, his hands locked into the mud-bank. Character, that subtle art, disappeared among themduring those days and nights, existed only in a book or on a painted wall. Who was sadder in that dome’s mural?

He leaned forward to rest on the skin of her frail²² neck. He fell in love with her downcast eye. This woman whowould someday know the sacredness of bridges.

At night in the camp bed, his arms stretched out into dis.tance like two armies. There was no promise of solutionor victory except for the temporary pact²³ between him and that painted fresco’s royalty²⁴ who would forget him,never acknowl.edge his existence or be aware of him, a Sikh, halfway²⁵ up a sapper’s ladder in the rain, erecting²⁶ aBailey bridge for the army behind him. But he remembered the painting of their story. And when a month laterthe battalions²⁷ reached the sea, after they had survived everything and entered the coastal²⁹ town of Cattolica andthe engineers had cleared the beach of mines in a twenty-yard stretch so the men could go down naked into thesea, he approached one of the mediaevalists who had befriended him—who had once simply talked with him andshared some Spam—and promised to show him some.thing in return for his kindness.

The sapper signed out a Triumph motorbike, strapped³⁰ a crimson³¹ emergency light onto his arm, and they rodeback the way they had come—back into and through the now innocent towns like Urbino and Anghiari, along thewinding crest³³ of the mountain ridge¹⁶ that was a spine³⁴ down Italy, the old man bundled up behind him hugginghim, and down the western slope towards Arezzo. The piazza³⁶ at night was empty of troops, and the sapperparked in front of the church. He helped the mediaevalist off, collected his equipment and walked into thechurch. A colder darkness. A greater emptiness, the sound of his boots filling the area. Once more he smelled theold stone and wood. He lit three flares³⁸. He slung³⁹ block and tackle across the columns above the nave⁴⁰, then fired arivet already threaded with rope into a high wooden beam. The professor was watch.ing him bemused, now andthen peering up into the high darkness. The young sapper circled him and knotted a sling⁴² across his waist andshoulders, taped a small lit flare³⁷ to the old man’s chest.

He left him there by the communion rail and noisily climbed the stairs to the upper level, where the other end ofthe rope was. Holding onto it, he stepped off the balcony into the dark.ness, and the old man was simultaneouslyswung up, hoisted⁴³ up fast until, when the sapper touched ground, he swung idly in midair within three feet of thefrescoed walls, the flare brightening a halo around him. Still holding the rope the sap.per walked forward untilthe man swung to the right to hover⁴⁴ in front of The Flight of Emperor Maxentius.

Five minutes later he let the man down. He lit a flare for himself and hoisted his body up into the dome withinthe deep blue of the artificial sky. He remembered its gold stars from the time he had gazed on it with binoculars.

Looking down he saw the mediaevalist sitting on a bench, exhausted⁴⁵. He was now aware of the depth of thischurch, not its height. The liquid sense of it. The hollowness and darkness of a well. The flare sprayed out of hishand like a wand. He pulleyed himself across to her face, his Queen of Sadness, and his brown hand reached outsmall against the giant neck.

The Sikh sets up a tent in the far reaches of the garden, where Hana thinks lavender was once grown. She hasfound dry leaves in that area which she has rolled in her fingers and identified. Now and then after a rain sherecognizes the per.fume⁴⁶ of it.

At first he will not come into the house at all. He walks past on some duty or other to do with the dismantling⁴⁷ ofmines. Always courteous⁴⁸. A little nod of his head. Hana sees him wash at a basin of collected rainwater, placedformally on top of a sundial. The garden tap, used in previous times for the seedbeds, is now dry. She sees hisshirtless brown body as he tosses water over himself like a bird using its wing. During the day she notices mostlyhis arms in the short-sleeved army shirt and the rifle which is always with him, even though battles seem now tobe over for them.

He has various postures⁴⁹ with the gun—half-staff, half a crook⁵⁰ for his elbows when it is over his shoulders. Hewill turn, suddenly realizing she is watching him. He is a survivor⁵¹ of his fears, will step around anythingsuspicious, acknowledg.ing her look in this panorama⁵² as if claiming he can deal with it all.

He is a relief to her in his self-sufficiency, to all of them in the house, though Caravaggio grumbles⁵³ at thesapper’s contin.uous humming of Western songs he has learned for himself in the last three years of the war.

The other sapper, who had arrived with him in the rainstorm, Hardy⁵⁴ he was called, is billeted elsewhere, nearerthe town, though she has seen them working together, entering a garden with their wands of gad-getry to clearmines.

The dog has stuck by Caravaggio. The young soldier, who will run and leap with the dog along the path, refusesto give it food of any kind, feeling it should survive on its own. If he finds food he eats it himself. His courtesygoes only so far. Some nights he sleeps on the parapet that overlooks the valley, crawling into his tent only if itrains.

He, for his part, witnesses Caravaggio’s wanderings at night. On two occasions the sapper trails Caravaggio at adis.tance. But two days later Caravaggio stops him and says, Don’t follow me again. He begins to deny it, butthe older man puts his hand across his lying face and quiets him. So the soldier knows Caravaggio was aware ofhim two nights before. In any case, the trailing was simply a remnant of a habit he had been taught during thewar. Just as even now he desires to aim his rifle and fire and hit some target precisely⁵⁵. Again and again he aimsat a nose on a statue or one of the brown hawks⁵⁶ veering⁵⁸ across the sky of the valley.

He is still very much a youth. He wolfs down food, jumps up to clear away his plate, allowing himself half anhour for lunch.

She has watched him at work, careful and timeless as a cat, in the orchard⁵⁹ and within the overgrown garden thatrises behind the house. She notices the darker brown skin of his wrist, which slides freely within the bangle thatclinks some.times when he drinks a cup of tea in front of her.

He never speaks about the danger that comes with his kind of searching. Now and then an explosion brings herand Ca-ravaggio quickly out of the house, her heart taut⁶⁰ from the muffled⁶¹ blast. She runs out or runs to a windowseeing Cara-vaggio too in the corner of her vision, and they will see the sapper waving lazily towards the house,not even turning around from the herb terrace.

Once Caravaggio entered the library and saw the sapper up by the ceiling, against the trompe 1’oeil—onlyCaravaggio would walk into a room and look up into the high corners to see if he was alone—and the youngsoldier, his eyes not leav.ing their focus, put out his palm and snapped his fingers, halting Caravaggio in hisentrance, a warning to leave the room for safety as he unthreaded and cut a fuze wire he had traced to that corner,hidden above the valance.

He is always humming or whistling. “Who is whistling?” asks the English patient one night, having not met oreven seen the newcomer. Always singing to himself as he lies upon the parapet looking up at a shift of clouds.

When he steps into the seemingly empty villa⁶² he is noisy. He is the only one of them who has remained inuniform. Immaculate, buckles⁶⁴ shined, the sapper appears out of his tent, his turban symmetrically layered, theboots clean and banging into the wood or stone floors of the house. On a dime⁶⁵ he turns from a problem he isworking on and breaks into laughter. He seems unconsciously in love with his body, with his physicalness,bending over to pick up a slice of bread, his knuckles⁶⁶ brushing the grass, even twirling the rifle absent-mindedlylike a huge mace⁶⁷ as he walks along the path of cy.presses to meet the other sappers in the village.

He seems casually⁶⁸ content with this small group in the villa, some kind of loose star on the edge of their system.

This is like a holiday for him after the war of mud and rivers and bridges. He enters the house only when invitedin, just a tentative visitor, the way he had done that first night when he had followed the faltering⁶⁹ sound ofHana’s piano and come up the cypress⁷⁰-lined path and stepped into the library.

He had approached the villa on that night of the storm not out of curiosity about the music but because of adanger to the piano player. The retreating army often left pencil mines within musical instruments. Returningowners opened up pi.anos and lost their hands. People would revive the swing on a grandfather clock, and aglass bomb would blow out half a wall and whoever was nearby.

He followed the noise of the piano, rushing up the hill with Hardy, climbed over the stone wall and entered thevilla As long as there was no pause it meant the player would not lean forward and pull out the thin metal band toset the metronome going. Most pencil bombs were hidden in these—the easiest place to solder⁷¹ the thin layer ofwire upright. Bombs were attached to taps, to the spines⁷² of books, they were drilled into fruit trees so an applefalling onto a lower branch would deto.nate the tree, just as a hand gripping that branch would. He was unableto look at a room or field without seeing the possi.bilities of weapons there.

He had paused by the French doors, leaned his head against the frame, then slid into the room and except formoments of lightning remained within the darkness. There was a girl standing⁷³, as if waiting for him, lookingdown at the keys she was playing. His eyes took in the room before they took her in, swept across it like a sprayof radar⁷⁴. The metronome was ticking already, swaying innocently back and forth⁷⁵. There was no danger, no tinywire. He stood there in his wet uniform, the young woman at first unaware⁷⁶ of his entrance.

Beside his tent the antenna⁷⁷ of a crystal set is strung up into the trees. She can see the phosphorus green from theradio dial if she looks over there at night with Caravaggio’s field glasses, the sapper’s shifting body covering itup suddenly if he moves across the path of vision. He wears the portable contraption during the day, just oneearphone attached to his head, the other loose under his chin, so he can hear sounds from the rest of the worldthat might be important to him. He will come into the house to pass on whatever information he has picked upthat he thinks might be interesting to them. Oi\e afternoon he announces that the bandleader Glenn Miller⁷⁸ hasdied, his plane having crashed somewhere between Eng.land and France.

So he moves among them. She sees him in the distance of a defunct⁷⁹ garden with the diviner or, if he has foundsomething, unravelling⁸⁰ that knot of wires and fuzes someone has left him like a terrible letter.

He is always washing his hands. Caravaggio at first thinks he is too fussy⁸¹. “How did you get through a war?”

Caravaggio laughs.

“I grew up in India, Uncle. You wash your hands all the time. Before all meals. A habit. I was born in thePunjab.”

“I’m from Upper America,” she says.

He sleeps half in and half out of the tent. She sees his hands remove the earphone and drop it onto his lap.

Then Hana puts down the glasses and turns away.

They were under the huge vault⁸². The sergeant⁸³ lit a flare, and the sapper lay on the floor and looked up throughthe rifle’s telescope, looked at the ochre faces as if he were search.ing for a brother in the crowd. The cross hairsshook along the biblical figures, the light dousing⁸⁴ the coloured vestments and flesh darkened by hundreds ofyears of oil and candle smoke. And now this yellow gas smoke, which they knew was outra.geous in thissanctuary, so the soldiers would be thrown out, would be remembered for abusing the permission they re.ceivedto see the Great Hall, which they had come to, wading⁸⁵ up beachheads and the one thousand skirmishes of smallwars and the bombing of Monte Cassino and then walking in hushed politeness through the Raphael Stanze tillthey were here, finally, seventeen men who had landed in Sicily and fought their way up the ankle of the countryto be here— where they were offered just a mostly dark hall. As if being in the presence of the place wasenough.

And one of them had said, “Damn. Maybe more light, Sergeant Shand?” And the sergeant released the catch ofthe flare and held it up in his outstretched arm, the niagara of its light pouring off his fist, and stood there for thelength of its burn like that. The rest of them stood looking up at the figures and faces crowded onto the ceilingthat emerged in the light. But the young sapper was already on his back, the rifle aimed, his eye almost brushingthe beards of Noah and Abraham and the variety of demons⁸⁶ until he reached the great face and was stilled by it,the face like a spear, wise, unforgiving.

The guards were yelling at the entrance and he could hear the running steps, just another thirty seconds left onthe flare. He rolled over and handed the rifle to the padre. “That one. Who is he? At three o’clock northwest, whois he? Quick, the flare is almost out.”

The padre cradled the rifle and swept it over to the corner, and the flare died.

He returned the rifle to the young Sikh.

“You know we shall all be in serious trouble over this light.ing of weapons in the Sistine Chapel. I should nothave come here. But I also must thank Sergeant Shand, he was heroic to do it. No real damage has been done, Isuppose.”

“Did you see it? The face. Who was it?”

“Ah yes, it is a great face.”

“You saw it.”

“Yes. Isaiah.”

When the Eighth Army got to Gabicce on the east coast, the sapper was head of night patrol. On the second nighthe re.ceived a signal over the shortwave that there was enemy move.ment in the water. The patrol sent out ashell and the water erupted, a rough warning shot. They did not hit anything, but in the white spray of theexplosion he picked up a darker outline of movement. He raised the rifle and held the drifting shadow in hissights for a full minute, deciding not to shoot in order to see if there would be other movement nearby. Theenemy was still camped up north, in Rimini, on the edge of the city. He had the shadow in his sights when thehalo was suddenly illuminated⁸⁷ around the head of the Virgin⁸⁸ Mary. She was coming out of the sea.

She was standing in a boat. Two men rowed. Two other men held her upright, and as they touched the beach thepeople of the town began to applaud from their dark and opened windows.

The sapper could see the cream-coloured face and the halo of small battery lights. He was lying on the concretepillbox, between the town and the sea, watching her as the four men climbed out of the boat and lifted the five-foot-tall plaster statue into their arms. They walked up the beach, without pausing, no hesitation⁸⁹ for the mines.

Perhaps they had watched them being buried and charted them when the Ger.mans had been there. Their feetsank into the sand. This was Gabicce Mare⁹¹ on May 29, 1944. Marine⁹² Festival of the Virgin Mary.

Adults and children were on the streets. Men in band uni.forms had also emerged. The band would not play andbreak the rules of curfew, but the instruments were still part of the ceremony, immaculately polished.

He slid from the darkness, the mortar⁹³ tube strapped to his back, carrying the rifle in his hands. In his turban andwith the weapons he was a shock to them. They had not expected him to emerge too out of the no-man’s-land ofthe beach.

He raised his rifle and picked up her face in the gun sight —ageless, without sexuality, the foreground of themen’s dark hands reaching into her light, the gracious nod of the twenty small light bulbs. The figure wore a paleblue cloak, her left knee raised slightly to suggest drapery.

They were not romantic people. They had survived the Fas.cists, the English, Gauls, Goths and Germans. Theyhad been owned so often it meant nothing. But this blue and cream plaster figure had come out of the sea, wasplaced in a grape truck full of flowers, while the band marched ahead of her in silence. Whatever protection hewas supposed to provide for this town was meaningless. He couldn’t walk among their children in white dresseswith these guns.

He moved one street south of them and walked at the speed of the statue’s movement, so they reached the joiningstreets at the same time. He raised his rifle to pick up her face once again in his sights. It all ended on apromontory overlooking the sea, where they left her and returned to their homes. None of them was aware of hiscontinued presence on the periphery⁹⁴.

Her face was still lit. The four men who had brought her by boat sat in a square around her like sentries⁹⁵. Thebattery attached to her back began to fade; it died at about four-thirty in the morning. He glanced at his watchthen. He picked up the men with the rifle telescope. Two were asleep. He swung the sights up to her face andstudied her again. A different look in the fading light around her. A face which in the dark.ness looked more likesomeone he knew. A sister. Someday a daughter. If he could have parted with it, the sapper would have leftsomething there as his gesture. But he had his own faith after all.

Caravaggio enters the library. He has been spending most afternoons there. As always, books are mysticalcreatures to him. He plucks one out and opens it to the title page. He is in the room about five minutes before hehears a slight groan⁹⁶.

He turns and sees Hana asleep on the sofa. He closes the book and leans back against the thigh⁹⁷-high ledge⁹⁸ underthe shelves. She is curled up, her left cheek on the dusty brocade and her right arm up towards her face, a fistagainst her jaw⁹⁹. Her eyebrows¹⁰⁰ shift, the face concentrating within sleep.

When he had first seen her after all this time she had looked taut, boiled down to just body enough to get herthrough this efficiently¹⁰¹. Her body had been in a war and, as in love, it had used every part of itself.

He sneezed out loud, and when he looked up from the movement of his tossed-down head she was awake, theeyes open staring ahead at him. “Guess what time it is.”

“About four-oh-five. No, four-oh-seven,” she said. It was an old game between a man and a child. He slipped outof the room to look for the clock, and by his movement and assuredness she could tell he had recently takenmorphine, was refreshed and precise, with his familiar confidence. She sat up and smiled when he came backshaking his head with wonder at her accuracy.

“I was born with a sundial in my head, right?” “And at night?”

“Do they have moondials? Has anyone invented one? Per.haps⁹⁰ every architect preparing a villa hides amoondial for thieves, like a necessary tithe¹⁰².”

“A good worry for the rich.”

“Meet me at the moondial, David. A place where the weak can enter the strong.”

“Like the English patient and you?”

“I was almost going to have a baby a year ago.”

Now that his mind is light and exact with the drug, she can whip around and he will be with her, thinkingalongside her. And she is being open, not quite realizing she is awake and conversing, as if still speaking in adream, as if his sneeze had been the sneeze in a dream.

Caravaggio is familiar with this state. He has often met people at the moondial. Disturbing them at two a.m. as awhole bedroom cupboard came crashing down by mistake. Such shocks, he discovered, kept them away fromfear and violence. Disturbed by owners of houses he was robbing, he would clap his hands and conversefrantically, flinging an ex.pensive¹⁰³ clock into the air and catching¹⁰⁴ it in his hands, quickly asking them questions,about where things were.

“I lost the child. I mean, I had to lose it. The father was already dead. There was a war.”

“Were you in Italy?”

“In Sicily, about the time this happened. All through the time we came up the Adriatic behind the troops Ithought of it. I had continued conversations with the child. I worked very hard in the hospitals and retreated fromeverybody around me. Except the child, who I shared everything with. In my head. I was talking to him while Ibathed and nursed patients. I was a little crazy.”

“And then your father died.”

“Yes. Then Patrick died. I was in Pisa when I heard.”

She was awake. Sitting up.

“You knew, huh?”

“I got a letter from home.”

“Is that why you came here, because you knew?”

“No.”

“Good. I don’t think that he believed in wakes and such things. Patrick used to say he wanted a duet by twowomen on musical instruments when he died. Squeeze-box and violin. That’s all. He was so damn sentimental¹⁰⁵.”

“Yes. You could really make him do anything. Find him a woman in distress¹⁰⁶ and he was lost.”

The wind rose up out of the valley to their hill so the cypress trees that lined the thirty-six steps outside thechapel wrestled¹⁰⁷ with it. Drops of earlier rain nudged off, falling with a ticking sound upon the two of them sittingon the balustrade by the steps. It was long after midnight. She was lying on the con³.crete ledge, and he paced orleaned out looking down into the valley. Only the sound of the dislodged rain.

“When did you stop talking to the baby?”

“It all got too busy, suddenly. Troops were going into battles at the Moro Bridge and then into Urbino. Maybe inUrbino I stopped. You felt you could be shot anytime there, not just if you were a soldier, but a priest or nurse. Itwas a rabbit warren, those narrow tilted¹⁰⁸ streets. Soldiers were coming in with just bits of their bodies, falling inlove with me for an hour and then dying. It was important to remember their names. But I kept seeing the childwhenever they died. Being washed away. Some would sit up and rip all their dressings¹⁰⁹ off trying to breathebetter. Some would be worried about tiny scratches on their arms when they died. Then the bubble in the mouth.

That little pop. I leaned forward to close a dead soldier’s eyes, and he opened them and sneered¹¹⁰, “Can’t wait tohave me dead? You bitchl” He sat up and swept everything on my tray to the floor. So furious. Who would wantto die like that? To die with that kind of anger. You bitchl After that I always waited for the bubble in theirmouths. I know death now, David. I know all the smells, I know how to divert them from agony. When to givethe quick jolt¹¹¹ of morphine in a major vein¹¹². The saline solution. To make them empty their bowels¹¹³ before theydie. Every damn general should have had my job. Every damn general. It should have been a prerequisite¹¹⁴ for anyriver crossing. Who the hell were we to be given this responsibility, expected to be wise as old priests, to knowhow to lead people towards something no one wanted and somehow make them feel comfortable. I could neverbelieve in all those services they gave for the dead. Their vulgar rhetoric¹¹⁵. How dare they! How dare they talk likethat about a human being dying.”

There was no light, all lamps out, the sky mostly cloud-hidden. It was safer not to draw attention to thecivilisation of existing homes. They were used to walking the grounds of the house in darkness.

“You know why the army didn’t want you to stay here, with the English patient? Do you?”

“An embarrassing marriage? My father complex?” She was smiling at him.

“How’s the old guy?”

“He still hasn’t calmed down about that dog.”

“Tell him he came with me.”

“He’s not really sure you are staying here either. Thinks you might walk off with the china.”

“Do you think he would like some wine? I managed to scrounge a bottle today.”

“From?”

“Do you want it or not?”

“Let’s just have it now. Let’s forget him.”

“Ah, the breakthrough!”

“Not the breakthrough. I badly need a serious drink.”

“Twenty years old. By the time I was twenty ...”

“Yes, yes, why don’t you scrounge a gramophone someday. By the way, I think this is called looting.”

“My country taught me all this. It’s what I did for them during the war.”

He went through the bombed chapel into the house.

Hana sat up, slightly dizzy, off balance. “And look what they did to you,” she said to herself.

Even among those she worked closely with she hardly talked during the war. She needed an uncle, a member ofthe family’ She needed the father of the child, while she waited in this hill town to get drunk for the first time inyears, while a burned man upstairs had fallen into his four hours of sleep and an old friend of her father’s wasnow rifling through her medicine chest, breaking the glass tab, tightening¹¹⁶ a bootlace round his arm and injectingthe morphine quickly into him.self, in the time it took for him to turn around.

At night, in the mountains around them, even by ten o’clock, only the earth is dark. Clear grey sky and the greenhills.

“I was sick of the hunger. Of just being lusted¹¹⁷ at. So I stepped away, from the dates, the jeep rides, the courtship’

The last dances before they died—I was considered a snob¹¹⁸. I worked harder than others. Double shifts, underfire, did any.thing for them, emptied every bedpan. I became a snob be.cause I wouldn’t go out and spend theirmoney. I wanted to go home and there was no one at home. And I was sick of Europe. Sick of being treated likegold because I was female. I courted one man and he died and the child died. I mean, the child didn’t just die, Iwas the one who destroyed it. After that I stepped so far back no one could get near me. Not with talk of snobs¹¹⁹.

Not with anyone’s death. Then I met him, the man burned black. Who turned out to be, up close, anEnglishman-”It has been a long time, David, since I thought of anything to do with a man.”

After a week of the Sikh sapper’s presence around the villa they adapted to his habits of eating. Wherever he was—on the hill or in the village—he would return around twelve-thirty and join Hana and Caravaggio, pull out thesmall bundle of blue handkerchief from his shoulder bag and spread it onto the table alongside their meal. Hisonions and his herbs— which Caravaggio suspected he was taking from the Francis.cans’ garden during thetime he spent there sweeping¹²⁰ the place for mines. He peeled the onions with the same knife he used to striprubber from a fuze wire. This was followed by fruit. Caravaggio suspected he had gone through the wholeinvasion never eating from a mess canteen.

In fact he had always been dutifully in line at the crack of dawn, holding out his cup for the English tea he loved,adding to it his own supply of condensed milk. He would drink slowly, standing in sunlight to watch the slowmovement of troops who, if they were stationary¹²² that day, would already be playing canasta by nine a.m.

Now, at dawn, under the scarred trees in the half-bombed gardens of the Villa San Girolamo, he takes a mouthfulof water from his canteen. He pours tooth powder onto the brush and begins a ten-minute session of lackadaisicalbrushing as he wanders around looking down into the valley still buried in the mist, his mind curious rather thanawestruck at the vista¹²³ he happens now to be living above. The brushing of teeth, since he was a child, has alwaysbeen for him an outdoor activity.

The landscape around him is just a temporary thing, there is no permanence to it. He simply acknowledges thepossibility of rain, a certain odour from a shrub¹²⁴. As if his mind, even when unused, is radar, his eyes locating thechoreography of inanimate objects for the quarter-mile around him, which is the killing¹²⁵ radius¹²⁶ of small arms. Hestudies the two onions he has pulled out of the earth with care, aware that gardens too have been mined byretreating armies.

At lunch there is Caravaggio’s avuncular¹²⁷ glance at the ob.jects on the blue handkerchief. There is probablysome rare animal, Caravaggio thinks, who eats the same foods that this young soldier eats with his right hand, hisfingers carrying it to his mouth. He uses the knife only to peel the skin from the onion, to slice fruit.

The two men take a trip by cart down into the valley to pick up a sack of flour. Also, the soldier has to delivermaps of the cleared areas to headquarters at San Domenico. Finding it difficult to ask questions about each other,they speak about Hana. There are many questions before the older man admits having known her before the war.

“In Canada?”

“Yes, I knew her there.”

They pass numerous bonfires on the sides of the road and Caravaggio diverts the young soldier’s attention tothem. The sapper’s nickname is Kip. “Get Kip.” “Here comes Kip.” The name had attached itself to himcuriously. In his first bomb disposal report in England some butter had marked his paper, and the officer hadexclaimed, “What’s this? Kipper grease?” and laughter surrounded him. He had no idea what a kipper was, butthe young Sikh had been thereby¹²⁸ translated into a salty English fish. Within a week his real name, Kirpal Singh,had been forgotten. He hadn’t minded this. Lord Suffolk and his demolition¹²⁹ team took to calling him by hisnickname, which he preferred to the English habit of calling people by their surname.

That summer the English patient wore his hearing aid so he was alive to everything in the house. The amber¹⁷ shellhung within his ear with its translations of casual noises—the chair in the hall scraping against the floor, the clickof the dog’s claws outside his room so he would turn up the volume and even hear its damn breathing, or theshout on the terrace from the sapper. The English patient within a few days of the young soldier’s arrival hadthus become aware of his presence around the house, though Hana kept them separate, knowing they wouldprobably not like each other.

But she entered the Englishman’s room one day to find the sapper there. He was standing at the foot of the bed,his arms hung over the rifle that rested across his shoulders. She dis.liked this casual handling of the gun, hislazy spin towards her entrance as if his body were the axle of a wheel, as if the weapon had been sewn along hisshoulders and arms and into his small brown wrists.

The Englishman turned to her and said, “We’re getting along famously!”

She was put out that the sapper had strolled casually into this domain¹³⁰, seemed able to surround her, beeverywhere. Kip, hearing from Caravaggio that the patient knew about guns, had begun to discuss the search forbombs with the Englishman. He had come up to the room and found him a reservoir of information about Alliedand enemy weaponry. The Englishman not only knew about the absurd Italian fuzes but also knew the detailedtopography of this region of Tuscany. Soon they were drawing outlines of bombs for each other and talking outthe theory of each specific circuit.

“The Italian fuzes seem to be put in vertically¹³¹. And not always at the tail.”

“Well, that depends. The ones made in Naples are that way, but the factories in Rome follow the German system.

Of course, Naples, going back to the fifteenth century ...”

It meant having to listen to the patient talk in his circuitous¹³² way, and the young soldier was not used to remainingstill and silent. He would get restless and kept interrupting the pauses and silences the Englishman alwaysallowed himself, trying to energize¹³³ the train of thought. The soldier rolled his head back and looked at theceiling.

“What we should do is make a sling,” the sapper mused⁴¹, turning to Hana as she entered, “and carry him aroundthe house.” She looked at both of them, shrugged¹³⁴ and walked out of the room.

When Caravaggio passed her in the hall she was smiling. They stood in the hall and listened to the conversationinside the room.

Did I tell you my concept ofVirgilian man, Kip? Let me...

Is your hearing aid on?

What?

Turn it—“I think he’s found a friend,” she said to Caravaggio.

She walks out into the sunlight and the courtyard. At noon the taps deliver water into the villa’s fountain and fortwenty minutes it bursts forth. She removes her shoes, climbs into the dry bowl of the fountain and waits.

At this hour the smell of hay grass is everywhere. Bluebot.tles stumble in the air and bang into humans as ifslamming into a wall, then retreat unconcerned. She notices where water spiders have nested beneath the upperbowl of the foun.tain, her face in the shade of its overhang. She likes to sit in this cradle of stone, the smell ofcool and dark hidden air emerging from the still empty spout¹³⁵ near her, like air from a basement opened for thefirst time in late spring so the heat outside hangs in contrast. She brushes her arms and toes free of dust, of thecrimp of shoes, and stretches.

Too many men in the house. Her mouth leans against the bare arm of her shoulder. She smells her skin, thefamiliarity of it. One’s own taste and flavour. She remembers when she had first grown aware of it, somewherein her teens—it seemed a place rather than a time—kissing her forearm to practise kissing, smelling her wrist orbending down to her thigh. Breathing into her own cupped hands so breath would bounce back towards her nose.

She rubs her bare white feet now against the brindle colour of the fountain. The sapper has told her about statueshe came across during the fighting, how he had slept beside one who was a grieving angel, half male, halffemale, that he had found beautiful. He had lain back, looking at the body, and for the first time during the warfelt at peace.

She sniffs¹³⁶ the stone, the cool moth¹³⁷ smell of it.

Did her father struggle into his death or die calm? Did he lie the way the English patient reposes¹³⁸ grandly on hiscot? Was he nursed by a stranger? A man not of your own blood can break upon your emotions more thansomeone of your own blood. As if falling into the arms of a stranger you discover the mirror of your choice.

Unlike the sapper, her father was never fully¹²¹ comfortable in the world. His conversations lost some of theirsyllables out of shyness. In any of Patrick’s sentences, her mother had complained, you lost two or three crucialwords. But Hana liked that about him, there seemed to be no feudal¹³⁹ spirit around him. He had a vagueness, anuncertainty that allowed him tentative charm. He was unlike most men. Even the wounded English patient hadthe familiar purpose of the feudal. But her father was a hungry ghost, liking¹⁴⁰ those around him to be confident,even raucous¹⁴¹.

Did he move towards his death with the same casual sense of being there at an accident? Or in fury? He was theleast furious man she knew, hating argument, just walking out of a room if someone spoke badly of Roosevelt orTim Buck⁶³ or praised certain Toronto mayors. He had never attempted to convert anyone in his life, justbandaging or celebrating events that occurred near him. That was all. A novel is a mirror walking down a road.

She had read that in one of the books the English patient recommended, and that was the way she rememberedher father—whenever she collected the moments of him—stopping his car under one specific bridge in Torontonorth of Pottery¹⁴² Road at midnight and telling her that this was where the starlings and pigeons uncomfortablyand not too happily shared the rafters during the night. So they had paused there on a summer night and leanedtheir heads out into the racket of noise and sleepy chirpings.

I was told Patrick died in a dove-cot, Caravaggio said.

Her father loved a city of his own invention, whose streets and walls and borders he and his friends had painted.

He never truly stepped out of that world. She realizes everything she knew about the real world she learned onher own or from Caravaggio or, during the time they lived together, from her stepmother, Clara. Clara, who hadonce been an actress, the articulate one, who had articulated fury when they all left for the war. All through thelast year in Italy she has carried the letters from Clara. Letters she knows were written on a pink rock on anisland in Georgian Bay, written with the wind coming over the water and curling the paper of her notebookbefore she finally tore the pages out and put them in an envelope for Hana. She carried them in her suitcase, eachcontain.ing a flake¹⁴³ of pink rock and that wind. But she has never answered them. She has missed Clara with awoe but is un.able to write to her, now, after all that has happened to her. She cannot bear to talk of or evenacknowledge the death of Patrick.

And now, on this continent, the war having travelled else.where, the nunneries and churches that were turnedbriefly into hospitals are solitary¹⁴⁴, cut off in the hills of Tuscany and Umbria. They hold the remnants of warsocieties, small mo.raines left by a vast glacier¹⁴⁵. All around them now is the holy forest.

She tucks her feet under her thin frock and rests her arms along her thighs¹⁴⁶. Everything is still. She hears thefamiliar hollow churn, restless in the pipe that is buried in the central column of the fountain. Then silence. Thensuddenly there is a crash as the water arrives bursting around her.

The tales Hana had read to the English patient, travelling with the old wanderer in Kim or with Fabrizio in TheChar.terhouse of Parma, had intoxicated¹⁴⁷ them in a swirl¹⁴⁸ of armies and horses and wagons—those running awayfrom or running towards a war. Stacked in one corner of his bedroom were other books she had read to himwhose landscapes they have already walked through.

Many books open with an author’s assurance of order. One slipped into their waters with a silent paddle.

I begin my work at the time when Servius Galba was Consul¹⁴⁹.... The histories of Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius andNero, while they were a power, were falsified through terror and after their death were written under a freshhatred.

So Tacitus began his Annals.

But novels commenced with hesitation or chaos¹⁵⁰. Readers were never fully in balance. A door a lock a weiropened and they rushed through, one hand holding a gunnel, the other a hat.

When she begins a book she enters through stilted¹⁵¹ doorways¹⁵² into large courtyards. Parma and Paris and Indiaspread their carpets.

He sat, in defiance¹⁵³ of municipal orders, astride the gun Zam-Zammah on her brick platform opposite the oldAjaib-Gher— the Wonder House, as the natives called the Lahore Museum. Who hold Zam-Zammah, that “firebreathingdragon,” hold the Punjab; for the great green-bronze piece is always first of the conqueror’s loot.

“Read him slowly, dear girl, you must read Kipling slowly. Watch carefully where the commas fall so you candiscover the natural pauses. He is a writer who used pen and ink. He looked up from the page a lot, I believe,stared through his window and listened to birds, as most writers who are alone do. Some do not know the namesof birds, though he did. Your eye is too quick and North American. Think about the speed of his pen. What anappalling, barnacled old first paragraph it is otherwise.”

That was the English patient’s first lesson about reading. He did not interrupt again. If he happened to fall asleepshe would continue, never looking up until she herself was fa.tigued. If he had missed the last half-hour of plot,just one room would be dark in a story he probably already knew. He was familiar with the map of the story.

There was Benares to the east and Chilianwallah in the north of the Punjab. (All this occurred before the sapperentered their lives, as if out of this fiction. As if the pages of Kipling had been rubbed in the night like a magiclamp. A drug of wonders.)She had turned from the ending of Kirn, with its delicate and holy sentences—and now clean diction—andpicked up the patient’s notebook, the book he had somehow managed to carry with him out of the fire. The booksplayed open, almost twice its original thickness.

There was thin paper from a Bible, torn out and glued into the text.

King David was old and stricken in years and they covered him with clothes but he received no heat.

Whereupon his servants said, Let there be sought for the King a young virgin: and let her cherish him, and let herlie in this bosom¹⁵⁴, that our King may have heat.

So they sought for a fair damsel throughout all the coasts of Israel, and found Abishag a Shunammite. And thedamsel cherished the King, and ministered to him: but the King knew her not.

The ———— tribe that had saved the burned pilot brought him into the British base at Siwa in 1944. He wasmoved in the midnight ambulance train from the Western Desert to Tunis, then shipped to Italy. At that time ofthe war there were hundreds of soldiers lost from themselves, more innocent than devious¹⁵⁵. Those who claimed tobe uncertain of their nationalities were housed in compounds in Tirrenia, where the sea hospital was. The burnedpilot was one more enigma¹⁵⁶, with no identification, unrecognizable. In the crim.inal compound nearby they keptthe American poet Ezra Pound in a cage, where he hid on his body and pockets, moving it daily for his ownimage of security, the propeller¹⁵⁷ of eucalyptus¹⁵⁸ he had bent¹⁵⁹ down and plucked from his trai.tor’s garden when hewas arrested. “Eucalyptus that is for memory.”

“You should be trying to trick me,” the burned pilot told his interrogators, “make me speak German, which I can,by the way, ask me about Don Bradman. Ask me about Marmite, the great Gertrude Jekyll.” He knew whereevery Giotto was in Europe, and most of the places where a person could find convincing trompe 1’oeil.

The sea hospital was created out of bathing cabins along the beach that tourists had rented at the turn of thecentury. During the heat the old Campari umbrellas were placed once more into their table sockets¹⁶⁰, and thebandaged and the wounded and the comatose¹⁶¹ would sit under them in the sea air and talk slowly or stare or talkall the time. The burned man noticed the young nurse, separate from the others. He was familiar with such deadglances, knew she was more patient than nurse. He spoke only to her when he needed something.

He was interrogated¹⁶² again. Everything about him was very English except for the fact that his skin was tarredblack, a bogman from history among the interrogating¹⁶³ officers.

They asked him where the Allies stood in Italy, and he said he assumed they had taken Florence but were held upby the hill towns north of them. The Gothic Line. “Your division is stuck in Florence and cannot get past baseslike Prato and Fiesole for instance because the Germans have barracked themselves into villas¹⁶⁴ and convents andthey are brilliantly defended. It’s an old story—the Crusaders made the same mistake against the Saracens. Andlike them you now need the fortress towns. They have never been abandoned except dur.ing times of cholera¹⁶⁵.”

He had rambled¹⁶⁶ on, driving them mad, traitor¹⁶⁷ or ally, leav.ing them never quite sure who he was.

Now, months later in the Villa San Girolamo, in the hill town north of Florence, in the arbour room that is hisbed.room, he reposes like the sculpture of the dead knight¹⁶⁸ in Ravenna. He speaks in fragments about oasistowns, the later Medicis, the prose style of Kipling, the woman who bit into his flesh. And in his commonplacebook, his 1890 edition of Herodotus’ Histories, are other fragments—maps, diary en.tries, writings in manylanguages, paragraphs cut out of other books. All that is missing is his own name. There is still no clue to who heactually is, nameless, without rank or battalion²⁸ or squadron. The references in his book are all pre-war, thedeserts of Egypt and Libya in the 19305, interspersed¹⁷⁰ with references to cave art or gallery art or journal notes inhis own small handwriting. “There are no brunettes,” the English pa.tient says to Hana as she bends over him,“among Florentine Madonnas.”

The book is in his hands. She carries it away from his sleeping body and puts it on the side table. Leaving itopen she stands there, looking down, and reads. She promises herself she will not turn the page.

May 1936.

I will read you a poem, Clifton’s wife said, in her formal voice, which is how she always seems unless you arevery close to her. We were all at the southern campsite, within the firelight.

I walked in a desert.

And I cried:

“Ah, God, take me from this place!”

A voice said: “It is no desert.”

I cried: “Well, but—The sand, the heat, the vacant horizon.”

A voice said: “It is no desert.”

No one said anything.

She said, That was by Stephen Crane, he never came to the desert.

He came to the desert, Madox said.

July 1936.

There are betrayals in war that are childlike compared with our human betrayals during peace. The new loverenters the habits of the other. Things are smashed, revealed in new light. This is done with nervous or tendersentences, although the heart is an organ of fire.

A love story is not about those who lose their heart but about those who find that sullen¹⁷¹ inhabitant who, when itis stumbled upon, means the body can fool no one, can fool nothing—not the wisdom of sleep or the habit ofsocial graces. It is a consuming of oneself and the past.

It is almost dark in the green room. Hana turns and realizes her neck is stiff from stillness. She has been focusedand submerged within the crabbed¹⁷² handwriting in his thick-leaved sea-book of maps and texts. There is even asmall fern glued into it. The Histories. She doesn’t close the book, hasn’t touched it since she laid it on the sidetable. She walks away from it.

Kip was in a field north of the villa when he found the large mine, his foot—almost on the green wire as hecrossed the orchard—twisting away, so he lost his balance and was on his knees. He lifted the wire until it wastaut, then followed it, zigzagging¹⁷³ among the trees.

He sat down at the source with the canvas bag on his lap. The mine shocked him. They had covered it withconcrete. They had laid the explosive there and then plastered wet con.crete over it to disguise its mechanismand what its strength was. There was a bare tree about four yards away. Another tree about ten yards away. Twomonths’ grass had grown over the concrete ball.

He opened his bag and with scissors clipped the grass away. He laced a small hammock of rope around it andafter attach.ing a rope and pulley to the tree branch slowly lifted the concrete into the air. Two wires led fromthe concrete towards the earth. He sat down, leaned against the tree and looked at it. Speed did not matter now.

He pulled the crystal set out of the bag and placed the earphones to his head. Soon the radio was filling him withAmerican music from the AIF station. Two and a half minutes average for each song or dance num.ber. Hecould work his way back along “A String of Pearls,” “C-Jam Blues” and other tunes¹⁷⁴ to discover how long he hadbeen there, receiving the background music subconsciously¹⁷⁶.

Noise did not matter. There would be no faint tickings or clickings to signal danger on this kind of bomb. Thedis.traction¹⁷⁷ of music helped him towards clear thought, to the possible forms of structure in the mine, to thepersonality that had laid the city of threads and then poured wet concrete over it.

The tightening of the concrete ball in midair, braced¹⁷⁹ with a second rope, meant the two wires would not pullaway, no matter how hard he attacked it. He stood up and began to chisel¹⁸⁰ the disguised mine gently, blowingaway loose grain with his mouth, using the feather stick, chipping more con.crete off. He stopped his focus onlywhen the music slipped off the wavelength¹⁸¹ and he had to realign the station, bringing clarity back to the swingtunes. Very slowly he unearthed¹⁸² the series of wires. There were six wires jumbled¹⁸³ up, tied to.gether, all paintedblack.

He brushed the dust off the mapboard the wires lay on.

Six black wires. When he was a child his father had bunched up his fingers and, disguising all but the tips ofthem, made him guess which was the long one. His own small finger would touch his choice, and his father’shand would unfold, blossoming, to reveal the boy’s mistake. One could of course make a red wire negative. Butthis opponent had not just concreted the thing but painted all the characters black. Kip was being pulled into apsychological vortex. With the knife he began to scrape the paint free, revealing a red, a blue, a green. Would hisopponent have also switched them? He’d have to set up a detour¹⁸⁴ with black wire of his own like an oxbow riverand then test the loop for positive or negative power. Then he would check it for fading power and know wherethe danger lay.

Hana was carrying a long mirror in front of her down the hall. She would pause because of the weight of it andthen move forward, the mirror reflecting the old dark pink of the passageway.

The Englishman had wanted to see himself. Before she stepped into the room she carefully turned the reflectionupon herself, not wanting the light to bounce indirectly¹⁸⁵ from the window onto his face.

He lay there in his dark skin, the only paleness the hearing aid in his ear and the seeming blaze of light from hispillow. He pushed the sheets down with his hands. Here, do this, pushing as far as he could, and Hana flicked¹⁸⁶ thesheet to the base of the bed.

She stood on a chair at the foot of the bed and slowly tilted the mirror down at him. She was in this position, herhands braced out in front of her, when she heard the faint shouts.

She ignored them at first. The house often picked up noise from the valley. The use of megaphones by theclearance mil.itary had constantly unnerved her when she was living alone with the English patient.

“Keep the mirror still, my dear,” he said.

“I think there is someone shouting. Do you hear it?”

His left hand turned up the hearing aid.

“It’s the boy. You’d better go and find out.”

She leaned the mirror against the wall and rushed down the corridor. She paused outside waiting for the nextyell. When it came she took off through the garden and into the fields above the house.

He stood, his hands raised above him as if he were holding a giant cobweb. He was shaking his head to get freeof the earphones. As she ran towards him he yelled at her to circle to the left, there were mine wires all over theplace. She stopped. It was a walk she had taken numerous times with no sense of danger. She raised her skirt andmoved forward, watching her feet as they entered the long grass.

His hands were still up in the air as she came alongside him. He had been tricked, ending up holding two livewires he could not put down without the safety of a descant¹⁸⁷ chord. He needed a third hand to negate¹⁸⁸ one of themand he needed to go back once more to the fuze head. He passed the wires carefully to her and dropped his arms,getting blood back into them.

“I’ll take them back in a minute.”

“It’s okay.”

“Keep very still.”

He opened up his satchel¹⁸⁹ for the Geiger counter and mag.net. He ran the dial up and along the wires she washolding. No swerve¹⁹⁰ to negative. No clue. Nothing. He stepped back.wards³⁵, wondering where the trick could be.

“Let me tape those to the tree, and you leave.”

“No. I’ll hold it. They won’t reach the tree.”

“No.”

“Kip—I can hold them.”

“We have an impasse¹⁹¹. There’s a joke. I don’t know where to go from here. I don’t know how complete the trickis.”

Leaving her, he ran back to where he had first sighted the wire. He raised it and followed it all the way this time,the Geiger counter alongside it. Then he was crouched¹⁹² about ten yards from her, thinking, now and then lookingup, looking right through her, watching only the two tributaries¹⁹³ of wire she held in her hands. I don’t know, hesaid out loud, slowly, / don’t know. I think I have to cut the wire in your left hand, you must leave. He waspulling the radio earphones on over his head, so the sound came back into him fully, filling him with clarity. Heschemed along the different paths of the wire and swerved¹⁹⁴ into the convolutions of their knots, the suddencorners, the buried switches that translated them from positive to negative. The tinderbox. He remembered thedog, whose eyes were as big as saucers. He raced with the music along the wires, and all the while he was staringat the girl’s hands, which were very still holding onto them.

“You’d better go.”

“You need another hand to cut it, don’t you?”

“I can attach it to the tree.”

“I’ll hold it.”

He picked the wire like a thin adder¹⁸ from her left hand. Then the other. She didn’t move away. He said nothingmore, he now had to think as clearly as he could, as if he were alone. She came up to him and took back one ofthe wires. He was not conscious of this at all, her presence erased¹⁹⁵. He travelled the path of the bomb fuze again,alongside the mind that had choreographed¹⁹⁶ this, touching¹⁹⁷ all the key points, seeing the X ray of it, the bandmusic filling everything else.

Stepping up to her, he cut the wire below her left fist before the theorem faded, the sound like something bittenthrough with a tooth. He saw the dark print of her dress along her shoulder, against her neck. The bomb wasdead. He dropped the cutters and put his hand on her shoulder, needing to touch something human. She wassaying something he couldn’t hear, and she reached forward and pulled the earphones off so silence invaded.

Breeze and a rustle¹⁹⁸. He realized the click of the wire being cut had not been heard at all, just felt, the snap of it,the break of a small rabbit bone. Not letting go of her, he moved his hand down her arm and pulled the seveninches of wire out of her still tight grip.

She was looking at him, quizzical, waiting for his answer to what she had said, but he hadn’t heard her. Sheshook her head and sat down. He started collecting various objects around himself, putting them into his satchel.

She looked up into the tree and then only by chance looked back down and saw his hands shaking, tense andhard like an epileptic’s, his breathing deep and fast, over in a moment. He was crouched over.

“Did you hear what I said?”

“No. What was it?”

“I thought I was going to die. I wanted to die. And I thought if I was going to die I would die with you. Someonelike you, young as I am, I saw so many dying near me in the last year. I didn’t feel scared. I certainly wasn’tbrave just now. I thought to myself, We have this villa this grass, we should have lain down together, you in myarms, before we died. I wanted to touch that bone at your neck, collarbone, it’s like a small hard wing under yourskin. I wanted to place my fingers against it. I’ve always liked flesh the colour of rivers and rocks or like thebrown eye of a Susan, do you know what that flower is? Have you seen them? I am so tired, Kip, I want to sleep.

I want to sleep under this tree, put my eye against your collarbone I just want to close my eyes without thinkingof others, want to find the crook of a tree and climb into it and sleep. What a careful mind! To know which wireto cut. How did you know? You kept saying I don’t know I don’t know, but you did. Right? Don’t shake, youhave to be a still bed for me, let me curl up as if you were a good grandfather I could hug, I love the word ‘curl,’

such a slow word, you can’t rush it...”

Her mouth was against his shirt. He lay with her on the ground as still as he had to, his eyes clear, looking upinto a branch. He could hear her deep breath. When he had put his arm around her shoulder she was alreadyasleep but had gripped it against herself. Glancing down he noticed she still had the wire, she must have picked itup again.

It was her breath that was most alive. Her weight seemed so light she must have balanced most of it away fromhim. How long could he lie like this, unable to move or turn to busyness. It was essential to remain still, the wayhe had relied on statues during those months when they moved up the coast fighting into and beyond eachfortress town until there was no difference in them, the same narrow streets everywhere that became sewers¹⁹⁹ ofblood so he would dream that if he lost balance he would slip down those slopes on the red liquid and be flungoff the cliff into the valley. Every night he had walked into the coldness of a captured church and found a statuefor the night to be his sentinel. He had given his trust only to this race of stones, moving as close as possibleagainst them in the darkness, a grieving angel whose thigh was a woman’s perfect thigh, whose line and shadowappeared so soft. He would place his head on the lap of such creatures and release himself into sleep.

She suddenly let more weight onto him. And now her breathing stretched deeper, like the voice of a cello²⁰⁰. Hewatched her sleeping face. He was still annoyed the girl had stayed with him when he defused the bomb, as if bythat she had made him owe her something. Making him feel in retro.spect responsible for her, though there wasno thought of that at the time. As if that could usefully influence what he chose to do with a mine.

But he felt he was now within something, perhaps a paint.ing he had seen somewhere in the last year. Somesecure couple in a field. How many he had seen with their laziness of sleep, with no thought of work or thedangers of the world. Beside him there were the mouselike movements within Hana’s breath; her eyebrows rodeupon argument, a small fury in her dreaming. He turned his eyes away, up towards the tree and the sky of whitecloud. Her hand gripped him as mud had clung along the bank of the Moro River, his fist plunging²⁰¹ into the wetearth to stop himself slipping back into the already crossed torrent²⁰².

If he were a hero in a painting, he could claim a just sleep.

But as even she had said, he was the brownness of a rock, the brownness of a muddy storm-fed river. Andsomething in him made him step back from even the naive²⁰³ innocence²⁰⁴ of such a remark. The successful defusingof a bomb ended novels. Wise white fatherly men shook hands, were acknowledged, and limped away, havingbeen coaxed²⁰⁵ out of solitude²⁰⁶ for this special occasion. But he was a professional. And he remained the foreigner,the Sikh. His only human and personal contact was this enemy who had made the bomb and departed brush.inghis tracks with a branch behind him.

Why couldn’t he sleep? Why couldn’t he turn towards the girl, stop thinking everything was still half lit, hangingfire? In a painting of his imagining the field surrounding this em.brace¹⁷⁸ would have been in flames. He had oncefollowed a sapper’s entrance into a mined house with binoculars. He had seen him brush a box of matches off theedge of a table and be enveloped²⁰⁷ by light for the half-second before the crumpling²⁰⁸ sound of the bomb reachedhim. What lightning was like in 1944. How could he trust even this circle of elastic²⁰⁹ on the sleeve of the girl’sfrock that gripped her arm? Or the rattle²¹⁰ in her intimate breath as deep as stones within a river.

She woke when the caterpillar²¹¹ moved from the collar of her dress onto her cheek, and she opened her eyes, sawhim crouched over her. He plucked it from her face, not touching her skin, and placed it in the grass. She noticedhe had already packed up his equipment. He moved back and sat against the tree, watching her as she rolledslowly onto her back and then stretched, holding that moment for as long as she could. It must have beenafternoon, the sun over there. She leaned her head back and looked at him.

“You were supposed to hold onto me!”

“I did. Till you moved away.”

“How long did you hold me?”

“Until you moved. Until you needed to move.”

“I wasn’t taken advantage of, was I?” Adding, “Just joking,” as she saw him beginning to blush.

“Do you want to go down to the house?”

“Yes, I’m hungry.”

She could hardly stand up, the dazzle of sun, her tired legs. How long they had been there she still didn’t know.

She could not forget the depth of her sleep, the lightness of the plummet²¹².

A party began in the English patient’s room when Caravaggio revealed the gramophone he had foundsomewhere.

“I will use it to teach you to dance, Hana. Not what your young friend there knows. I have seen and turned myback on certain dances. But this tune¹⁷⁵, ‘How Long Has This Been Going On,’ is one of the great songs becausethe introduction’s melody is purer than the song it introduces. And only great jazzmen have acknowledged that.

Now, we can have this party on the terrace, which would allow us to invite the dog, or we can invade theEnglishman and have it in the bedroom up.stairs. Your young friend who doesn’t drink managed to find bottlesof wine yesterday in San Domenico. We have not just music. Give me your arm. No. First we must chalk thefloor and practise. Three main steps—one-two-three—now give me your arm. What happened to you today?”

“He dismantled²¹³ a large bomb, a difficult one. Let him tell you about it.”

The sapper shrugged, not modestly, but as if it was too complicated to explain. Night fell fast, night filled up thevalley and then the mountains and they were left once more with lanterns.

They were shuffling²¹⁴ together in the corridors towards the English patient’s bedroom, Caravaggio carrying thegramo.phone, one hand holding its arm and needle.

“Now, before you begin on your histories,” he said to the static figure in the bed, “I will present you with ‘MyRomance.’

“Written in 1935 by Mr. Lorenz Hart, I believe,” muttered the Englishman. Kip was sitting at the window, andshe said she wanted to dance with the sapper.

“Not until I’ve taught you, dear worm.”

She looked up at Caravaggio strangely; that was her father’s term of endearment²¹⁵ for her. He pulled her into histhick grizzled embrace and said “dear worm” again, and began the dancing lesson.

She had put on a clean but unironed dress. Each time they spun²¹⁶ she saw the sapper singing to himself, followingthe lyrics²¹⁷. If they had had electricity they could have had a radio, they could have had news of the warsomewhere. All they had was the crystal set belonging to Kip, but he had courteously²¹⁸ left it in his tent. TheEnglish patient was discussing the unfortunate life of Lorenz Hart. Some of his best lyrics to “Manhattan,” heclaimed, had been changed and he now broke into those verses“We’ll bathe at Brighton;The fish we’ll frightenWhen we’re in.

Your bathing suit so thinWill make the shellfish grinFin to fin⁸.

“Splendid lines, and erotic, but Richard Rodgers, one sus.pects, wanted more dignity.”

“You must guess my moves, you see.”

“Why don’t you guess mine?”

“I will when you know what to do. At present I’m the only one who does.”

“I bet Kip knows.”

“He may know but he won’t do it.”

“I shall have some wine,” the English patient said, and the sapper picked up a glass of water, flung the contentsthrough the window and poured wine for the Englishman. “This is my first drink in a year.”

There was a muffled noise, and the sapper turned quickly and looked out of the window, into the darkness. Theothers froze. It could have been a mine. He turned back to the party and said, “It’s all right, it wasn’t a mine.

That seemed to come from a cleared area.”

“Turn the record over, Kip. Now I will introduce you to ‘How Long Has This Been Going On,’ written by—” Heleft an opening for the English patient, who was stymied²¹⁹, shaking his head, grinning with the wine in his mouth.

“This alcohol will probably kill me.” “Nothing will kill you, my friend. You are pure carbon.” “Caravaggio!”

“George and Ira Gershwin. Listen.”

He and Hana were gliding²²⁰ to that sadness of the saxophone. He was right. The phrasing so slow, so drawn²²¹ out,she could sense the musician did not wish to leave the small parlour of the introduction and enter the song, keptwanting to remain there, where the story had not yet begun, as if enamoured by a maid in the prologue²²². TheEnglishman murmured that the introductions to such songs were called “burdens.”

Her cheek rested against the muscles of Caravaggio’s shoul.der. She could feel those terrible paws on her backagainst the clean frock, and they moved in the limited space between the bed and the wall, between bed and door,between the bed and the window alcove²²³ that Kip sat within. Every now and then as they turned she would see hisface. His knees up and his arms resting on them. Or he would be looking out of the window into darkness.

“Do any of you know a dance called the Bosphorus hug?” the Englishman asked.

“No such thing.”

Kip watched the large shadows slide over the ceiling, over the painted wall. He struggled up and walked to theEnglish patient to fill his empty glass, and touched the rim³² of his glass with the bottle in a toast. West windcoming into the room. And he turned suddenly, angry. A frail scent²²⁴ of cordite reach.ing him, a percentage of itin the air, and then he slipped out of the room, gesturing weariness, leaving Hana in the arms of Caravaggio.

There was no light with him as he ran along the dark hall. He scooped²²⁵ up the satchel, was out of the house andracing down the thirty-six chapel steps to the road, just running, cancelling the thought of exhaustion²²⁶ from hisbody.

Was it a sapper or was it a civilian²²⁷? The smell of flower and herb along the road wall, the beginning stitch at hisside. An accident or wrong choice. The sappers kept to themselves for the most part. They were an odd group asfar as character went, somewhat like people who worked with jewels or stone, they had a hardness and claritywithin them, their decisions frightening even to others in the same trade. Kip had recog.nized that quality amonggem-cutters but never in himself, though he knew others saw it there. The sappers never be.came familiar witheach other. When they talked they passed only information along, new devices, habits of the enemy. He wouldstep into the town hall, where they were billeted, and his eyes would take in the three faces and be aware of theabsence of the fourth. Or there would be four of them and in a field somewhere would be the body of an old manor²²⁸ a girl.

He had learned diagrams of order when he joined the army, blueprints²²⁹ that became more and more complicated,like great knots or musical scores. He found out he had the skill of the three-dimensional gaze, the rogue²³⁰ gazethat could look at an object or page of information and realign it, see all the false descants²³¹. He was by natureconservative but able also to imag.ine the worst devices, the capacity for accident in a room—a plum on a table,a child approaching and eating the pit of poison, a man walking into a dark room and before joining his wife inbed brushing loose a paraffin lamp from its bracket. Any room was full of such choreography. The rogue gazecould see the buried line under the surface, how a knot might weave when out of sight. He turned away frommystery books with irritation²³², able to pinpoint²³³ villains²³⁴ with too much ease. He was most comfortable with menwho had the abstract madness of autodidacts, like his mentor²³⁵, Lord Suffolk, like the English patient.

He did not yet have a faith in books. In recent days, Hana had watched him sitting beside the English patient, andit seemed to her a reversal of Kim. The young student was now Indian, the wise old teacher was English. But itwas Hana in the night who stayed with the old man, who guided him over the mountains to the sacred river. Theyhad even read that book together, Hana’s voice slow when wind flattened²³⁶ the candle flame beside her, the pagedark for a moment.

He squatted²³⁷ in a corner of the clanging -waiting-room, rapt from all other thoughts; hands folded in lap, andpupils con.tracted to pin-points. In a minute—in another half second— he felt he would arrive at the solution ofthe tremendous puzzle...

And in some way on those long nights of reading and listen.ing, she supposed, they had prepared themselves forthe young soldier, the boy grown up, who would join them. But it was Hana who was the young boy in the story.

And if Kip was anyone, he was the officer Creighton.

A book, a map of knots, a fuze board, a room of four people in an abandoned villa lit only by candlelight andnow and then light from a storm, now and then the possible light from an explosion. The mountains and hills andFlorence blinded without electricity. Candlelight travels less than fifty yards. From a greater distance there wasnothing here that belonged to the outside world. They had celebrated²³⁸ in this evening’s brief dance in the Englishpatient’s room their own simple adventures—Hana her sleep, Caravaggio his “finding” of the gramophone, andKip a difficult defusing, though he had al.most forgotten such a moment already. He was someone who feltuncomfortable in celebrations, in victories.

Just fifty yards away, there had been no representation of them in the world, no sound or sight of them from thevalley’s eye as Hana’s and Caravaggio’s shadows glided²³⁹ across the walls and Kip sat comfortably encased in thealcove and the English patient sipped²⁴⁰ his wine and felt its spirit percolate²⁴¹ through his unused body so it wasquickly drunk, his voice bringing forth the whistle of a desert fox bringing forth a flutter of the En.glish woodthrush he said was found only in Essex, for it thrived in the vicinity of lavender and wormwood. All of theburned man’s desire was in the brain, the sapper had been thinking to himself, sitting in the stone alcove. Thenhe turned his head suddenly, knowing everything as he heard the sound, certain of it. He had looked back at themand for the first time in his life lied—”It’s all right, it wasn’t a mine. That seemed to come from a clearedarea”—prepared to wait till the smell of the cordite reached him.

Now, hours later, Kip sits once again in the window alcove. If he could walk the seven yards across theEnglishman’s room and touch her he would be sane²⁴². There was so little light in the room, just the candle at thetable where she sat, not reading tonight; he thought perhaps she was slightly drunk.

He had returned from the source of the mine explosion to find Caravaggio asleep on the library sofa with the dogin his arms. The hound watched him as he paused at the open door, moving as little of its body as it had to, toacknowledge it was awake and guarding the place. Its quiet growl²⁴³ rising above Caravaggio’s snore.

He took off his boots, tied the laces together and slung them over his shoulder as he went upstairs. It had startedto rain and he needed a tarpaulin²⁴⁴ for his tent. From the hall he saw the light still on in the English patient’s room.

She sat in the chair, one elbow on the table where the low candle sprayed its light, her head leaning back. Helowered his boots to the floor and came silently into the room, where the party had been going on three hoursearlier. He could smell alcohol in the air. She put her fingers to her lips as he entered and then pointed²⁴⁵ to thepatient. He wouldn’t hear Kip’s silent walk. The sapper sat in the well of the window again. If he could walkacross the room and touch her he would be sane. But between them lay a treacherous²⁴⁶ and com.plex journey. Itwas a very wide world. And the Englishman woke at any sound, the hearing aid turned to full level when heslept, so he could be secure in his own awareness²⁴⁷. The girl’s eyes darted²⁴⁸ around and then were still when shefaced Kip in the rectangle of window.

He had found the location of the death and what was left there and they had buried his second-in-command,Hardy. And afterwards he kept thinking of the girl that afternoon, suddenly terrified for her, angry at her forinvolving herself. She had tried to damage her life so casually. She stared. Her last communication had been thefinger to her lips. He leaned over and wiped the side of his cheek against the lanyard on his shoulder.

He had walked back through the village, rain falling into pollarded trees of the town square untrimmed since thestart of the war, past the strange statue of two men shaking hands on horseback. And now he was here, thecandlelight swaying, altering her look so he could not tell what she thought. Wis.dom or sadness or curiosity.

If she had been reading or if she had been bending over the Englishman, he would have nodded to her andprobably left, but he is now watching Hana as someone young and alone. Tonight, gazing at the scene of themine blast, he had begun to fear her presence during the afternoon dismantling. He had to remove it, or shewould be with him each time he ap.proached a fuze. He would be pregnant with her. When he worked, clarityand music filled him, the human world extin.guished. Now she was within him or on his shoulder, the way hehad once seen a live goat being carried by an officer out of a tunnel they were attempting to flood.

No.

That wasn’t true. He wanted Hana’s shoulder, wanted to place his palm over it as he had done in the sunlightwhen she slept and he had lain there as if in someone’s rifle sights, awkward with her. Within the imaginarypainter’s landscape. He did not want comfort but he wanted to surround the girl with it, to guide her from thisroom. He refused to believe in his own weaknesses, and with her he had not found a weak.ness to fit himselfagainst. Neither of them was willing to reveal such a possibility to the other. Hana sat so still. She looked at him,and the candle wavered and altered her look. He was unaware that for her he was just a silhouette²⁴⁹, his slight bodyand his skin part of the darkness.

Earlier, when she saw that he had left the window alcove, she had been enraged²⁵⁰. Knowing that he was protectingthem like children from the mine. She had clung closer to Caravag-gio. It had been an insult. And tonight thegrowing exhilaration of the evening didn’t permit her to read after Caravaggio had gone to bed, stopping to riflethrough her medicine box first, and after the English patient had plucked at the air with his bony finger and,when she had bent over, kissed her cheek.

She had blown out the other candles, lit just the night stub at the bedside table and sat there, the Englishman’sbody facing her in silence after the wildness of his drunken speeches. “Sometime a horse I’ll be, sometime ahound. A hog²⁵¹, a headless bear, sometime a fire.” She could hear the spill of the wax into the metal tray besideher. The sapper had gone through town to some reach of the hill where the explosion had taken place, and hisunnecessary silence still angered her.

She could not read. She sat in the room with her eternally dying man, the small of her back still feeling bruisedfrom an accidental slam against the wall during her dance with Caravaggio.

Now if he moves towards her she will stare him out, will treat him to a similar silence. Let him guess, make amove. She has been approached before by soldiers.

But what he does is this. He is halfway across the room, his hand sunk to the wrist in his open satchel which stillhangs off his shoulder. His walk silent. He turns and pauses beside the bed. As the English patient completes oneof his long exhalations he snips²⁵² the wire of his hearing aid with the cut.ters and drops them back into the satchel.

He turns and grins towards her.

“I’ll rewire him in the morning.”

He puts his left hand on her shoulder.

David Caravaggio—an absurd name for you, of course ...”

“At least I have a name.”

“Yes.”

Caravaggio sits in Hana’s chair. Afternoon sun fills the room, revealing the swimming motes²⁵³. The Englishman’sdark lean face with its angular nose has the appearance of a still hawk⁵⁷ swaddled in sheets. The coffin²⁵⁴ of a hawk,Caravaggio thinks.

The Englishman turns to him.

“There’s a painting by Caravaggio, done late in his life. David with the Head of Goliath. In it, the young warriorholds at the end of his outstretched arm the head of Goliath, ravaged²⁵⁵ and old. But that is not the true sadness inthe picture. It is assumed that the face of David is a portrait of the youthful Caravaggio and the head of Goliath isa portrait of him as an older man, how he looked when he did the painting. Youth judging age at the end of itsoutstretched hand. The judging of one’s own mortality. I think when I see him at the foot of my bed that Kip ismy David.”

Caravaggio sits there in silence, thoughts lost among the floating motes. War has unbalanced him and he canreturn to no other world as he is, wearing these false limbs that mor.phine promises. He is a man in middle agewho has never become accustomed to families. All his life he has avoided permanent intimacy²⁵⁶. Till this war hehas been a better lover than husband. He has been a man who slips away, in the way lovers leave chaos, the waythieves leave reduced houses.

He watches the man in the bed. He needs to know who this Englishman from the desert is, and reveal him forHana’s sake. Or perhaps invent a skin for him, the way tannic acid camouflages²⁵⁷ a burned man’s rawness.

Working in Cairo during the early days of the war, he had been trained to invent double agents or phantoms²⁵⁸ whowould take on flesh. He had been in charge of a mythical²⁵⁹ agent named “Cheese,” and he spent weeks clothinghim with facts, giving him qualities of character—such as greed and a weak.ness for drink when he would spillfalse rumours²⁶⁰ to the enemy. Just as some in Cairo he worked for invented whole platoons in the desert. He hadlived through a time of war when everything offered up to those around him was a lie. He had felt like a man inthe darkness of a room imitating the calls of a bird.

But here they were shedding skins. They could imitate nothing but what they were. There was no defence but tolook for the truth in others.

She pulls down the copy of Kim from the library shelf and, standing against the piano, begins to write into theflyleaf in its last pages.

He says the gun—the Zam-Zammah cannon—is still there outside the museum in Lahore. There were two guns,made up of metal cups and bowls taken from every Hindu household in the city—as jizya, or tax. These weremelted down and made into the guns. They were used in many battles in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuriesagainst Sikhs. The other gun was lost during a battle crossing in the Chenab River—She closes the book, climbs onto a chair and nestles the book into the high, invisible shelf.

She enters the painted bedroom with a new book and an.nounces the title.

“No books now, Hana.”

She looks at him. He has, even now, she thinks, beautiful eyes. Everything occurs there, in that grey stare out ofhis darkness. There is a sense of numerous gazes that flicker²⁶¹ onto her for a moment, then shift away like alighthouse.

“No more books. Just give me the Herodotus.”

She puts the thick, soiled book into his hands.

“I have seen editions of The Histories with a sculpted²⁶² por.trait on the cover. Some statue found in a Frenchmuseum. But I never imagine Herodotus this way. I see him more as one of those spare men of the desert whotravel from oasis¹⁶⁹ to oasis, trading legends as if it is the exchange of seeds, consuming everything withoutsuspicion, piecing together a mirage²⁶³. ‘This history of mine,’ Herodotus says, ‘has from the begin.ning soughtout the supplementary²⁶⁴ to the main argument.’ What you find in him are cul-de-sacs within the sweep of history—how people betray each other for the sake of nations, how people fall in love.... How old did you say youwere?”

“Twenty.”

“I was much older when I fell in love.”

Hana pauses. “Who was she?”

But his eyes are away from her now.

Birds prefer trees with dead branches,” said Caravaggio. “They have complete vistas²⁶⁵ from where they perch²⁶⁶.

They can take off in any direction.”

“If you are talking about me,” Hana said, “I’m not a bird. The real bird is the man upstairs.”

Kip tried to imagine her as a bird.

“Tell me, is it possible to love someone who is not as smart as you are?” Caravaggio, in a belligerent²⁶⁷ morphinerush, wanted the mood of argument. “This is something that has concerned me most of my sexual life—whichbegan late, I must announce to this select company. In the same way the sexual pleasure of conversation came tome only after I was married. I had never thought words erotic. Sometimes I really do like to talk more than fuck.

Sentences. Buckets of this buckets of that and then buckets of this again. The trouble with words is that you canreally talk yourself into a corner. Whereas you can’t fuck yourself into a corner.”

“That’s a man talking,” muttered Hana.

“Well, I haven’t,” Caravaggio continued, “maybe you have, Kip, when you came down to Bombay from thehills, when you came to England for military training. Has anyone, I wonder, fucked themselves into a corner.

How old are you, Kip?”

“Twenty-six.”

“Older than I am.”

“Older than Hana. Could you fall in love with her if she wasn’t smarter than you? I mean, she may not besmarter than you. But isn’t it important for you to think she is smarter than you in order to fall in love? Thinknow. She can be obsessed²⁶⁸ by the Englishman because he knows more. We’re in a huge field when we talk to thatguy. We don’t even know if he’s English. He’s probably not. You see, I think it is easier to fall in love with himthan with you. Why is that? Because we want to know things, how the pieces fit. Talkers seduce²⁶⁹, words direct usinto corners. We want more than anything to grow and change. Brave new world.”

“I don’t think so,” said Hana.

“Neither do I. Let me tell you about people my age. The worst thing is others assume you have developed yourcharac.ter by now. The trouble with middle age is they think you are fully formed. Here.”

Here Caravaggio lifted up his hands, so they faced Hana and Kip. She got up and went behind him and put herarm around his neck.

“Don’t do this, okay, David?”

She wrapped her hands softly around his.

“We’ve already got one crazy talker upstairs.”

“Look at us—we sit here like the filthy²⁷⁰ rich in their filthy villas up in the filthy hills when the city gets too hot.

It’s nine in the morning—the old guy upstairs is asleep. Hana’s ob.sessed with him. I am obsessed with thesanity of Hana, I’m obsessed with my ‘balance,’ and Kip will probably get blown up one of these days. Why?

For whose sake? He’s twenty-six years old. The British army teaches him the skills and the Americans teach himfurther skills and the team of sappers are given lectures, are decorated and sent off into the rich hills. You arebeing used, boyo, as the Welsh say. I’m not staying here much longer. I want to take you home. Get the hell outof Dodge²⁷¹ City.”

“Stop it, David. He’ll survive.”

“The sapper who got blown up the other night, what was his name?”

Nothing from Kip.

“What was his name?”

“Sam Hardy.” Kip went to the window and looked out, leaving their conversation.

“The trouble with all of us is we are where we shouldn’t be. What are we doing in Africa, in Italy? What is Kipdoing dismantling bombs in orchards²⁷², for God’s sake? What is he doing fighting English wars? A farmer on thewestern front cannot prune²⁷³ a tree without ruining his saw. Why? Because of the amount of shrapnel shot into itduring the last war. Even the trees are thick with diseases we brought. The armies indoctrinate you and leave youhere and they fuck off some.where else to cause trouble, inky-dinky parlez-vous. We should all move outtogether.”

“We can’t leave the Englishman.”

“The Englishman left months ago, Hana, he’s with the Bedouin or in some English garden with its phlox andshit. He probably can’t even remember the woman he’s circling around, trying to talk about. He doesn’t knowwhere the fuck he is.

“You think I’m angry at you, don’t you? Because you have fallen in love. Don’t you? A jealous uncle. I’mterrified for you. I want to kill the Englishman, because that is the only thing that will save you, get you out ofhere. And I am begin.ning to like him. Desert your post. How can Kip love you if you are not smart enough tomake him stop risking his life?”

“Because. Because he believes in a civilised world. He’s a civilised man.”

“First mistake. The correct move is to get on a train, go and have babies together. Shall we go and ask theEnglishman, the bird, what he thinks?

“Why are you not smarter? It’s only the rich who can’t afford to be smart. They’re compromised. They gotlocked years ago into privilege. They have to protect their belongings²⁷⁴.

No one is meaner than the rich. Trust me. But they have to follow the rules of their shitty civilised world. Theydeclare war, they have honour, and they can’t leave. But you two. We three. We’re free. How many sappers die?

Why aren’t you dead yet? Be irresponsible. Luck runs out.”

Hana was pouring milk into her cup. As she finished she moved the lip of the jug²⁷⁵ over Kip’s hand and continuedpouring the milk over his brown hand and up his arm to his elbow and then stopped. He didn’t move it away.

There are two levels of long, narrow garden to the west of the house. A formal terrace and, higher up, the darkergarden, where stone steps and concrete statues almost disappear under the green mildew²⁷⁶ of the rains. The sapperhas his tent pitched here. Rain falls and mist rises out of the valley, and the other rain from the branches ofcypress and fir falls upon this half-cleared pocket on the side of the hill.

Only bonfires can dry the permanently²⁷⁷ wet and shadowed upper garden. The refuse of planks²⁷⁸, rafters from priorshell-ings, dragged branches, weeds pulled up by Hana during the afternoons, scythed²⁷⁹ grass and nettles—all arebrought here and burned by them during the late afternoon’s pivot²⁸⁰ into dusk. The damp fires steam and burn, andthe plant-odoured smoke sidles into the bushes, up into the trees, then withers²⁸¹ on the terrace in front of the house.

It reaches the window of the English patient, who can hear the drift of voices, now and then a laugh from thesmoky garden. He translates the smell, evolving it backwards²⁸² to what had been burned. Rosemary, he thinks,milkweed, wormwood, something else is also there, scentless²⁸³, perhaps the dog violet, or the false sunflower,which loves the slightly acidic soil of this hill.

The English patient advises Hana on what to grow. “Get your Italian friend to find seeds for you, he seemscapable in that category. What you want are plum leaves. Also fire pink and Indian pink—if you want the Latinname for your Latin friend, it is Silene virginica. Red savory²⁸⁴ is good. If you want finches get hazel andchokecherries.”

She writes everything down. Then puts the fountain pen into the drawer of the small table where she keeps thebook she is reading to him, along with two candles, Vesta matches. There are no medical supplies in this room.

She hides them in other rooms. If Caravaggio is to hunt them out, she doesn’t want him disturbing theEnglishman. She puts the slip of paper with the names of plants into the pocket of her dress to give toCaravaggio. Now that physical attraction has raised its head, she has begun to feel awkward in the company ofthe three men.

If it is physical attraction. If all this has to do with love of Kip. She likes to lay her face against the upper reachesof his arm, that dark brown river, and to wake submerged within it, against the pulse of an unseen vein in hisflesh beside her. The vein she would have to locate and insert a saline solution into if he were dying.

At two or three in the morning, after leaving the Englishman, she walks through the garden towards the sapper’shurricane lamp, which hangs off the arm of St. Christopher. Absolute darkness between her and the light, but sheknows every shrub and bush in her path, the location of the bonfire she passes, low and pink in its nearcompletion. Sometimes she cups a hand over the glass funnel²⁸⁵ and blows out the flame, and sometimes she leavesit burning and ducks under it and enters through the open flaps, to crawl in against his body, the arm she wants,her tongue instead of a swab, her tooth instead of a needle, her mouth instead of the mask with the codeine dropsto make him sleep, to make his immortal²⁸⁶ ticking brain slow into sleepiness. She folds her paisley dress andplaces it on top of her tennis shoes. She knows that for him the world burns around them with only a few crucialrules. You replace TNT with steam, you drain it, you—all this sheknows is in his head as she sleeps beside him virtuous²⁸⁷ as a sister.

The tent and the dark wood surround them.

They are only a step past the comfort she has given others in the temporary hospitals in Ortona or Monterchi. Herbody for last warmth, her whisper for comfort, her needle for sleep. But the sapper’s body allows nothing toenter him that comes from another world. A boy in love who will not eat the food she gathers, who does not needor want the drug in a needle she could slide into his arm, as Caravaggio does, or those ointments²⁸⁸ of desertinvention the Englishman craves²⁸⁹, oint.ments and pollen²⁹⁰ to reassemble himself the way the Bedouin had done forhim. Just for the comfort of sleep.

There are ornaments²⁹¹ he places around himself. Certain leaves she has given him, a stub of candle, and in his tentthe crystal set and the shoulder bag full of the objects of discipline. He has emerged from the fighting with acalm which, even if false, means order for him. He continues his strictness, fol.lowing the hawk in its float alongthe valley within the V of his rifle sight, opening up a bomb and never taking his eyes off what he is searchingfor as he pulls a Thermos²⁹² towards him and unscrews the top and drinks, never even looking at the metal cup.

The rest of us are just periphery, she thinks, his eyes are only on what is dangerous, his listening ear on whateveris happening in Helsinki or Berlin that comes over the short.wave. Even when he is a tender lover, and her lefthand holds him above the kara, where the muscles of his forearm tense, she feels invisible to that lost look till hisgroan when his head falls against her neck. Everything else, apart from danger, is periphery. She has taught himto make a noise, desired it of him, and if he is relaxed at all since the fighting it is only in this, as if finallywilling to admit his whereabouts in the dark.ness, to signal out his pleasure with a human sound.

How much she is in love with him or he with her we don’t know. Or how much it is a game of secrets. As theygrow intimate the space between them during the day grows larger. She likes the distance he leaves her, thespace he assumes is their right. It gives each of them a private energy, a code of air between them when he passesbelow her window without a word, walking the half-mile to assemble with the other sap.pers in the town. Hepasses a plate or some food into her hands. She places a leaf across his brown wrist. Or they work withCaravaggio between them mortaring up a collapsing²⁹³ wall. The sapper sings his Western songs, whichCaravaggio enjoys but pretends not to.

“Pennsylvania six-five-oh-oh-oh,” the young soldier gasps²⁹⁴.

She learns all the varieties of his darkness. The colour of his forearm against the colour of his neck. The colourof his palms, his cheek, the skin under the turban. The darkness of fingers separating red and black wires, oragainst bread he picks off the gunmetal plate he still uses for food. Then he stands up. His self-sufficiency seemsrude to them, though no doubt he feels it is excessive politeness.

She loves most the wet colours of his neck when he bathes. And his chest with its sweat which her fingers gripwhen he is over her, and the dark, tough arms in the darkness of his tent, or one time in her room when light fromthe valley’s city, finally free of curfew, rose among them like twilight²⁹⁵ and lit the colour of his body.

Later she will realize he never allowed himself to be beholden to her, or her to him. She will stare at the word ina novel, lift it off the book and carry it to a dictionary. Beholden. To be under obligation. And he, she knows,never allowed that. If she crosses the two hundred yards of dark garden to him it is her choice, and she mightfind him asleep, not from a lack of love but from necessity, to be clear-minded towards the next day’streacherous objects.

He thinks her remarkable²⁹⁶. He wakes and sees her in the spray of the lamp. He loves most her face’s smart look.

Or in the evenings he loves her voice as she argues Caravaggio out of a foolishness. And the way she crawls inagainst his body like a saint.

They talk, the slight singsong of his voice within the canvas smell of their tent, which has been his all throughthe Italian campaign, which he reaches up to touch with his slight fingers as if it too belonged to his body, akhaki wing he folds over himself during the night. It is his world. She feels displaced out of Canada during thesenights. He asks her why she can.not sleep. She lies there irritated at his self-sufficiency, his ability to turn soeasily away from the world. She wants a tin roof for the rain, two poplar trees to shiver outside her win.dow, anoise she can sleep against, sleeping trees and sleeping roofs that she grew up with in the east end of Toronto andthen for a couple of years with Patrick and Clara along the Skootamatta River and later Georgian Bay. She hasnot found a sleeping tree, even in the density²⁹⁷ of this garden.

“Kiss me. It’s your mouth I’m most purely²⁹⁸ in love with. Your teeth.” And later, when his head has fallen to oneside, towards the air by the tent’s opening, she has whispered aloud, heard only by herself, “Perhaps we shouldask Caravaggio. My father told me once that Caravaggio was a man always in love. Not just in love but alwayssinking within it. Always confused. Always happy. Kip? Do you hear me? I’m so happy with you. To be withyou like this.”

Most of all she wished for a river they could swim in. There was a formality in swimming which she assumedwas like being in a ballroom²⁹⁹. But he had a different sense of rivers, had entered the Moro in silence and pulledthe harness of cables attached to the folding Bailey bridge, the bolted steel panels of it slipping into the waterbehind him like a creature, and the sky then had lit up with shell fire and someone was sinking beside him inmid-river. Again and again the sappers dove for the lost pulleys, grappling hooks in the water among them, mudand surface and faces lit up by phosphorus flares in the sky around them.

All through the night, weeping and shouting, they had to stop each other going crazy. Their clothes full of winterriver, the bridge slowly eased into a road above their heads. And two days later another river. Every river theycame to was bridge-less, as if its name had been erased, as if the sky were starless, homes doorless. The sapperunits slid in with ropes, carried cables over their shoulders and spannered the bolts, oil-covered to silence themetals, and then the army marched over. Drove over the prefabricated bridge with the sappers still in the waterbelow.

So often they were caught in midstream when the shells came, flaring³⁰⁰ into mudbanks breaking apart the steel andiron into stones. Nothing would protect them then, the brown river thin as silk against metals that ripped throughit.

He turned from that. He knew the trick of quick sleep against this one who had her own rivers and was lost fromthem.

Yes, Caravaggio would explain to her how she could sink into love. Even how to sink into cautious love. “I wantto take you to the Skootamatta River, Kip,” she said. “I want to show you Smoke Lake. The woman my fatherloved lives out on the lakes, slips into canoes more easily than into a car. I miss thunder that blinks outelectricity. I want you to meet Clara of the canoes, the last one in my family. There are no others now. My fatherforsook her for a war.”

She walks towards his night tent without a false step or any hesitation. The trees make a sieve³⁰¹ of moonlight, as ifshe is caught within the light of a dance hall’s globe. She enters his tent and puts an ear to his sleeping chest andlistens to his beating heart, the way he will listen to a clock on a mine. Two a.m. Everyone is asleep but her.

1 fortress   

n.堡垒，防御工事

参考例句：

• They made an attempt on a fortress.他们试图夺取这一要塞。
• The soldier scaled the wall of the fortress by turret.士兵通过塔车攀登上了要塞的城墙。

2 turrets   

（六角）转台( turret的名词复数 )； （战舰和坦克等上的）转动炮塔； （摄影机等上的）镜头转台； （旧时攻城用的）塔车

参考例句：

• The Northampton's three turrets thundered out white smoke and pale fire. “诺思安普敦号”三座炮塔轰隆隆地冒出白烟和淡淡的火光。
• If I can get to the gun turrets, I'll have a chance. 如果我能走到炮塔那里，我就会赢得脱险的机会。

3 con   

n.反对的观点，反对者，反对票，肺病；vt.精读，学习，默记；adv.反对地，从反面；adj.欺诈的

参考例句：

• We must be fair and consider the reason pro and con.我们必须公平考虑赞成和反对的理由。
• The motion is adopted non con.因无人投反对票，协议被通过。

4 Oxford   

n.牛津（英国城市）

参考例句：

• At present he has become a Professor of Chemistry at Oxford.他现在已是牛津大学的化学教授了。
• This is where the road to Oxford joins the road to London.这是去牛津的路与去伦敦的路的汇合处。

5 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

6 chapel   

n.小教堂，殡仪馆

参考例句：

• The nimble hero,skipped into a chapel that stood near.敏捷的英雄跳进近旁的一座小教堂里。
• She was on the peak that Sunday afternoon when she played in chapel.那个星期天的下午，她在小教堂的演出，可以说是登峰造极。

7 graveyard   

n.坟场

参考例句：

• All the town was drifting toward the graveyard.全镇的人都象流水似地向那坟场涌过去。
• Living next to a graveyard would give me the creeps.居住在墓地旁边会使我毛骨悚然。

8 fin   

n.鳍；(飞机的)安定翼

参考例句：

• They swim using a small fin on their back.它们用背上的小鳍游动。
• The aircraft has a long tail fin.那架飞机有一个长长的尾翼。

9 dome   

n.圆屋顶，拱顶

参考例句：

• The dome was supported by white marble columns.圆顶由白色大理石柱支撑着。
• They formed the dome with the tree's branches.他们用树枝搭成圆屋顶。

10 slays   

杀死，宰杀，杀戮( slay的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• No other infection so quickly slays. 再没有别的疾病会造成如此迅速的死亡。
• That clown just slays me. 那小丑真叫我笑死了。

11 hydra   

n.水螅；难于根除的祸患

参考例句：

• Let's knock down those hydras and drive them to the sea!让我们铲除祸根，把他们赶到大海去！
• We may be facing a hydra that defies any easy solution.我们也许正面临一个无法轻易解决的难题。

12 binoculars   

n.双筒望远镜

参考例句：

• He watched the play through his binoculars.他用双筒望远镜看戏。
• If I had binoculars,I could see that comet clearly.如果我有望远镜，我就可以清楚地看见那颗彗星。

13 frescoes   

n.壁画( fresco的名词复数 )；温壁画技法，湿壁画

参考例句：

• The Dunhuang frescoes are gems of ancient Chinese art. 敦煌壁画是我国古代艺术中的瑰宝。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• The frescoes in these churches are magnificent. 这些教堂里的壁画富丽堂皇。 来自《简明英汉词典》

14 conversing   

v.交谈，谈话( converse的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• I find that conversing with her is quite difficult. 和她交谈实在很困难。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• They were conversing in the parlor. 他们正在客厅谈话。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》

15 twig   

n.小树枝，嫩枝；v.理解

参考例句：

• He heard the sharp crack of a twig.他听到树枝清脆的断裂声。
• The sharp sound of a twig snapping scared the badger away.细枝突然折断的刺耳声把獾惊跑了。

16 ridge   

n.山脊；鼻梁；分水岭

参考例句：

• We clambered up the hillside to the ridge above.我们沿着山坡费力地爬上了山脊。
• The infantry were advancing to attack the ridge.步兵部队正在向前挺进攻打山脊。

17 amber   

n.琥珀；琥珀色；adj.琥珀制的

参考例句：

• Would you like an amber necklace for your birthday?你过生日想要一条琥珀项链吗？
• This is a piece of little amber stones.这是一块小小的琥珀化石。

18 adder   

n.蝰蛇；小毒蛇

参考例句：

• The adder is Britain's only venomous snake.蝰蛇是英国唯一的一种毒蛇。
• An adder attacked my father.一条小毒蛇攻击了我父亲。

19 waded   

（从水、泥等）蹚，走过，跋( wade的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• She tucked up her skirt and waded into the river. 她撩起裙子蹚水走进河里。
• He waded into the water to push the boat out. 他蹚进水里把船推出来。

20 ascend   

vi.渐渐上升，升高；vt.攀登，登上

参考例句：

• We watched the airplane ascend higher and higher.我们看着飞机逐渐升高。
• We ascend in the order of time and of development.我们按时间和发展顺序向上溯。

21 texture   

n.(织物)质地；(材料)构造；结构；肌理

参考例句：

• We could feel the smooth texture of silk.我们能感觉出丝绸的光滑质地。
• Her skin has a fine texture.她的皮肤细腻。

22 frail   

adj.身体虚弱的；易损坏的

参考例句：

• Mrs. Warner is already 96 and too frail to live by herself.华纳太太已经九十六岁了，身体虚弱，不便独居。
• She lay in bed looking particularly frail.她躺在床上，看上去特别虚弱。

23 pact   

n.合同，条约，公约，协定

参考例句：

• The two opposition parties made an electoral pact.那两个反对党订了一个有关选举的协定。
• The trade pact between those two countries came to an end.那两国的通商协定宣告结束。

24 royalty   

n.皇家，皇族

参考例句：

• She claims to be descended from royalty.她声称她是皇室后裔。
• I waited on tables，and even catered to royalty at the Royal Albert Hall.我做过服务生， 甚至在皇家阿伯特大厅侍奉过皇室的人。

25 halfway   

adj.中途的，不彻底的，部分的；adv.半路地，在中途，在半途

参考例句：

• We had got only halfway when it began to get dark.走到半路，天就黑了。
• In study the worst danger is give up halfway.在学习上，最忌讳的是有始无终。

26 erecting   

v.使直立，竖起( erect的现在分词 )；建立

参考例句：

• Nations can restrict their foreign trade by erecting barriers to exports as well as imports. 象设置进口壁垒那样，各国可以通过设置出口壁垒来限制对外贸易。 来自辞典例句
• Could you tell me the specific lift-slab procedure for erecting buildings? 能否告之用升板法安装楼房的具体程序？ 来自互联网

27 battalions   

n.（陆军的）一营（大约有一千兵士）( battalion的名词复数 )；协同作战的部队；军队；（组织在一起工作的）队伍

参考例句：

• God is always on the side of the strongest battalions. 上帝总是帮助强者。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• Two battalions were disposed for an attack on the air base. 配置两个营的兵力进攻空军基地。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

28 battalion   

n.营；部队；大队(的人)

参考例句：

• The town was garrisoned by a battalion.该镇由一营士兵驻守。
• At the end of the drill parade,the battalion fell out.操练之后，队伍解散了。

29 coastal   

adj.海岸的，沿海的，沿岸的

参考例句：

• The ocean waves are slowly eating away the coastal rocks.大海的波浪慢慢地侵蚀着岸边的岩石。
• This country will fortify the coastal areas.该国将加强沿海地区的防御。

30 strapped   

adj.用皮带捆住的，用皮带装饰的；身无分文的；缺钱；手头紧v.用皮带捆扎(strap的过去式和过去分词)；用皮带抽打；包扎；给…打绷带

参考例句：

• Make sure that the child is strapped tightly into the buggy. 一定要把孩子牢牢地拴在婴儿车上。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The soldiers' great coats were strapped on their packs. 战士们的厚大衣扎捆在背包上。 来自《简明英汉词典》

31 crimson   

n./adj.深(绯)红色(的)；vi.脸变绯红色

参考例句：

• She went crimson with embarrassment.她羞得满脸通红。
• Maple leaves have turned crimson.枫叶已经红了。

32 rim   

n.(圆物的)边，轮缘；边界

参考例句：

• The water was even with the rim of the basin.盆里的水与盆边平齐了。
• She looked at him over the rim of her glass.她的目光越过玻璃杯的边沿看着他。

33 crest   

n.顶点；饰章；羽冠；vt.达到顶点；vi.形成浪尖

参考例句：

• The rooster bristled his crest.公鸡竖起了鸡冠。
• He reached the crest of the hill before dawn.他于黎明前到达山顶。

34 spine   

n.脊柱，脊椎；(动植物的)刺；书脊

参考例句：

• He broke his spine in a fall from a horse.他从马上跌下摔断了脊梁骨。
• His spine developed a slight curve.他的脊柱有点弯曲。

35 wards   

区( ward的名词复数 )； 病房； 受监护的未成年者； 被人照顾或控制的状态

参考例句：

• This hospital has 20 medical [surgical] wards. 这所医院有 20 个内科[外科]病房。
• It was a big constituency divided into three wards. 这是一个大选区，下设三个分区。

36 piazza   

n.广场；走廊

参考例句：

• Siena's main piazza was one of the sights of Italy.锡耶纳的主要广场是意大利的名胜之一。
• They walked out of the cafeteria,and across the piazzadj.他们走出自助餐厅,穿过广场。

37 flare   

v.闪耀，闪烁；n.潮红；突发

参考例句：

• The match gave a flare.火柴发出闪光。
• You need not flare up merely because I mentioned your work.你大可不必因为我提到你的工作就动怒。

38 flares   

n.喇叭裤v.（使）闪耀( flare的第三人称单数 )；（使）（船舷）外倾；（使）鼻孔张大；（使）（衣裙、酒杯等）呈喇叭形展开

参考例句：

• The side of a ship flares from the keel to the deck. 船舷从龙骨向甲板外倾。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He's got a fiery temper and flares up at the slightest provocation. 他是火爆性子，一点就着。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

39 slung   

抛( sling的过去式和过去分词 )； 吊挂； 遣送； 押往

参考例句：

• He slung the bag over his shoulder. 他把包一甩，挎在肩上。
• He stood up and slung his gun over his shoulder. 他站起来把枪往肩上一背。

40 nave   

n.教堂的中部；本堂

参考例句：

• People gathered in the nave of the house.人们聚拢在房子的中间。
• The family on the other side of the nave had a certain look about them,too.在中殿另一边的那一家人，也有着自己特有的相貌。

41 mused   

v.沉思，冥想( muse的过去式和过去分词 )；沉思自语说（某事）

参考例句：

• \"I wonder if I shall ever see them again, \"he mused. “我不知道是否还可以再见到他们，”他沉思自问。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• \"Where are we going from here?\" mused one of Rutherford's guests. 卢瑟福的一位客人忍不住说道：‘我们这是在干什么？” 来自英汉非文学 - 科学史

42 sling   

vt.扔；悬挂；n.挂带；吊索，吊兜；弹弓

参考例句：

• The boy discharged a stone from a sling.这个男孩用弹弓射石头。
• By using a hoist the movers were able to sling the piano to the third floor.搬运工人用吊车才把钢琴吊到3楼。

43 hoisted   

把…吊起，升起( hoist的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• He hoisted himself onto a high stool. 他抬身坐上了一张高凳子。
• The sailors hoisted the cargo onto the deck. 水手们把货物吊到甲板上。

44 hover   

vi.翱翔，盘旋；徘徊；彷徨，犹豫

参考例句：

• You don't hover round the table.你不要围着桌子走来走去。
• A plane is hover on our house.有一架飞机在我们的房子上盘旋。

45 exhausted   

adj.极其疲惫的，精疲力尽的

参考例句：

• It was a long haul home and we arrived exhausted.搬运回家的这段路程特别长，到家时我们已筋疲力尽。
• Jenny was exhausted by the hustle of city life.珍妮被城市生活的忙乱弄得筋疲力尽。

46 fume   

n.(usu pl.)(浓烈或难闻的)烟，气，汽

参考例句：

• The pressure of fume in chimney increases slowly from top to bottom.烟道内压力自上而下逐渐增加，底层住户的排烟最为不利。
• Your harsh words put her in a fume.你那些难听的话使她生气了。

47 dismantling   

（枪支）分解

参考例句：

• The new government set about dismantling their predecessors' legislation. 新政府正着手废除其前任所制定的法律。
• The dismantling of a nuclear reprocessing plant caused a leak of radioactivity yesterday. 昨天拆除核后处理工厂引起了放射物泄漏。

48 courteous   

adj.彬彬有礼的，客气的

参考例句：

• Although she often disagreed with me,she was always courteous.尽管她常常和我意见不一，但她总是很谦恭有礼。
• He was a kind and courteous man.他为人友善，而且彬彬有礼。

49 postures   

姿势( posture的名词复数 )； 看法； 态度； 立场

参考例句：

• Modern consciousness has this great need to explode its own postures. 现代意识很有这种摧毁本身姿态的需要。
• They instinctively gathered themselves into more tidy postures. 她们本能地恢复了端庄的姿态。

50 crook   

v.使弯曲；n.小偷，骗子，贼；弯曲(处)

参考例句：

• He demanded an apology from me for calling him a crook.我骂他骗子，他要我向他认错。
• She was cradling a small parcel in the crook of her elbow.她用手臂挎着一个小包裹。

51 survivor   

n.生存者，残存者，幸存者

参考例句：

• The sole survivor of the crash was an infant.这次撞车的惟一幸存者是一个婴儿。
• There was only one survivor of the plane crash.这次飞机失事中只有一名幸存者。

52 panorama   

n.全景，全景画，全景摄影，全景照片[装置]

参考例句：

• A vast panorama of the valley lay before us.山谷的广阔全景展现在我们面前。
• A flourishing and prosperous panorama spread out before our eyes.一派欣欣向荣的景象展现在我们的眼前。

53 grumbles   

抱怨( grumble的第三人称单数 )； 发牢骚； 咕哝； 发哼声

参考例句：

• He grumbles at his lot instead of resolutely facing his difficulties. 他不是果敢地去面对困难，而是抱怨自己运气不佳。
• I'm sick of your unending grumbles. 我对你的不断埋怨感到厌烦。

54 hardy   

adj.勇敢的，果断的，吃苦的；耐寒的

参考例句：

• The kind of plant is a hardy annual.这种植物是耐寒的一年生植物。
• He is a hardy person.他是一个能吃苦耐劳的人。

55 precisely   

adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地

参考例句：

• It's precisely that sort of slick sales-talk that I mistrust.我不相信的正是那种油腔滑调的推销宣传。
• The man adjusted very precisely.那个人调得很准。

56 hawks   

鹰( hawk的名词复数 )； 鹰派人物，主战派人物

参考例句：

• Two hawks were hover ing overhead. 两只鹰在头顶盘旋。
• Both hawks and doves have expanded their conditions for ending the war. 鹰派和鸽派都充分阐明了各自的停战条件。

57 hawk   

n.鹰，骗子；鹰派成员

参考例句：

• The hawk swooped down on the rabbit and killed it.鹰猛地朝兔子扑下来,并把它杀死。
• The hawk snatched the chicken and flew away.老鹰叼了小鸡就飞走了。

58 veering   

n.改变的；犹豫的；顺时针方向转向；特指使船尾转向上风来改变航向v.（尤指交通工具）改变方向或路线( veer的现在分词 )；（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

参考例句：

• Anyone veering too close to the convoys risks being shot. 任何人改变方向，过于接近车队就有遭枪击的风险。 来自互联网
• The little boat kept veering from its course in such a turbulent river. 小船在这湍急的河中总是改变方向。 来自互联网

59 orchard   

n.果园，果园里的全部果树，(美俚)棒球场

参考例句：

• My orchard is bearing well this year.今年我的果园果实累累。
• Each bamboo house was surrounded by a thriving orchard.每座竹楼周围都是茂密的果园。

60 taut   

adj.拉紧的，绷紧的，紧张的

参考例句：

• The bowstring is stretched taut.弓弦绷得很紧。
• Scarlett's taut nerves almost cracked as a sudden noise sounded in the underbrush near them. 思嘉紧张的神经几乎一下绷裂了，因为她听见附近灌木丛中突然冒出的一个声音。

61 muffled   

adj.（声音）被隔的；听不太清的；（衣服）裹严的；蒙住的v.压抑，捂住( muffle的过去式和过去分词 )；用厚厚的衣帽包着（自己）

参考例句：

• muffled voices from the next room 从隔壁房间里传来的沉闷声音
• There was a muffled explosion somewhere on their right. 在他们的右面什么地方有一声沉闷的爆炸声。 来自《简明英汉词典》

62 villa   

n.别墅，城郊小屋

参考例句：

• We rented a villa in France for the summer holidays.我们在法国租了一幢别墅消夏。
• We are quartered in a beautiful villa.我们住在一栋漂亮的别墅里。

63 buck   

n.雄鹿，雄兔；v.马离地跳跃

参考例句：

• The boy bent curiously to the skeleton of the buck.这个男孩好奇地弯下身去看鹿的骸骨。
• The female deer attracts the buck with high-pitched sounds.雌鹿以尖声吸引雄鹿。

64 buckles   

搭扣，扣环( buckle的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• She gazed proudly at the shiny buckles on her shoes. 她骄傲地注视着鞋上闪亮的扣环。
• When the plate becomes unstable, it buckles laterally. 当板失去稳定时，就发生横向屈曲。

65 dime   

n.（指美国、加拿大的钱币）一角

参考例句：

• A dime is a tenth of a dollar.一角银币是十分之一美元。
• The liberty torch is on the back of the dime.自由火炬在一角硬币的反面。

66 knuckles   

n.（指人）指关节( knuckle的名词复数 )；（指动物）膝关节，踝v.（指人）指关节( knuckle的第三人称单数 )；（指动物）膝关节，踝

参考例句：

• He gripped the wheel until his knuckles whitened. 他紧紧握住方向盘，握得指关节都变白了。
• Her thin hands were twisted by swollen knuckles. 她那双纤手因肿大的指关节而变了形。 来自《简明英汉词典》

67 mace   

n.狼牙棒，豆蔻干皮

参考例句：

• The sword and mace were favourite weapons for hand-to-hand fighting.剑和狼牙棒是肉搏战的最佳武器。
• She put some mace into the meat.她往肉里加了一些肉豆蔻干皮。

68 casually   

adv.漠不关心地，无动于衷地，不负责任地

参考例句：

• She remarked casually that she was changing her job.她当时漫不经心地说要换工作。
• I casually mentioned that I might be interested in working abroad.我不经意地提到我可能会对出国工作感兴趣。

69 faltering   

犹豫的，支吾的，蹒跚的

参考例句：

• The economy shows no signs of faltering. 经济没有衰退的迹象。
• I canfeel my legs faltering. 我感到我的腿在颤抖。

70 cypress   

n.柏树

参考例句：

• The towering pine and cypress trees defy frost and snow.松柏参天傲霜雪。
• The pine and the cypress remain green all the year round.苍松翠柏，常绿不凋。

71 solder   

v.焊接，焊在一起；n.焊料，焊锡

参考例句：

• Fewer workers are needed to solder circuit boards.焊接电路板需要的工人更少了。
• He cuts the pieces and solders them together.他把那些断片切碎，然后把它们焊在一起。

72 spines   

n.脊柱( spine的名词复数 )；脊椎；（动植物的）刺；书脊

参考例句：

• Porcupines use their spines to protect themselves. 豪猪用身上的刺毛来自卫。
• The cactus has spines. 仙人掌有刺。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》

73 standing   

n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的

参考例句：

• After the earthquake only a few houses were left standing.地震过后只有几幢房屋还立着。
• They're standing out against any change in the law.他们坚决反对对法律做任何修改。

74 radar   

n.雷达，无线电探测器

参考例句：

• They are following the flight of an aircraft by radar.他们正在用雷达追踪一架飞机的飞行。
• Enemy ships were detected on the radar.敌舰的影像已显现在雷达上。

75 forth   

adv.向前；向外，往外

参考例句：

• The wind moved the trees gently back and forth.风吹得树轻轻地来回摇晃。
• He gave forth a series of works in rapid succession.他很快连续发表了一系列的作品。

76 unaware   

a.不知道的，未意识到的

参考例句：

• They were unaware that war was near. 他们不知道战争即将爆发。
• I was unaware of the man's presence. 我没有察觉到那人在场。

77 antenna   

n.触角，触须；天线

参考例句：

• The workman fixed the antenna to the roof of the house.工人把天线固定在房顶上。
• In our village, there is an antenna on every roof for receiving TV signals.在我们村里，每家房顶上都有天线接收电视信号。

78 miller   

n.磨坊主

参考例句：

• Every miller draws water to his own mill.磨坊主都往自己磨里注水。
• The skilful miller killed millions of lions with his ski.技术娴熟的磨坊主用雪橇杀死了上百万头狮子。

79 defunct   

adj.死亡的；已倒闭的

参考例句：

• The scheme for building an airport seems to be completely defunct now.建造新机场的计划看来整个完蛋了。
• This schema object is defunct.No modifications are allowed until it is made active again.此架构对象不起作用。在重新激活之前，不能进行任何改动。

80 unravelling   

解开，拆散，散开( unravel的现在分词 )； 阐明； 澄清； 弄清楚

参考例句：

• Nail head clamp the unravelling of nail exteriorize broken nails and clean. 钉头卡钉，拆开钉头取出碎钉并清洁。
• The ends of ropes are in good condition and secured without unravelling. 缆绳端部状况良好及牢固，并无松散脱线。

81 fussy   

adj.为琐事担忧的，过分装饰的，爱挑剔的

参考例句：

• He is fussy about the way his food's cooked.他过分计较食物的烹调。
• The little girl dislikes her fussy parents.小女孩讨厌她那过分操心的父母。

82 vault   

n.拱形圆顶，地窖，地下室

参考例句：

• The vault of this cathedral is very high.这座天主教堂的拱顶非常高。
• The old patrician was buried in the family vault.这位老贵族埋在家族的墓地里。

83 sergeant   

n.警官，中士

参考例句：

• His elder brother is a sergeant.他哥哥是个警官。
• How many stripes are there on the sleeve of a sergeant?陆军中士的袖子上有多少条纹？

84 dousing   

v.浇水在…上( douse的现在分词 )；熄灯[火]

参考例句：

• The other spider took a second dousing before it emerged, still alive. 另外一个蜘蛛在冲刷第二遍时才被发现，是个活蜘蛛。 来自互联网
• At this point, the specimen can be shattered by dousing it with sterilized warm saline. 此时，可以用浸入温暖的消毒盐水的方法粉碎标本。 来自互联网

85 wading   

（从水、泥等）蹚，走过，跋( wade的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• The man tucked up his trousers for wading. 那人卷起裤子，准备涉水。
• The children were wading in the sea. 孩子们在海水中走着。

86 demons   

n.恶人( demon的名词复数 )；恶魔；精力过人的人；邪念

参考例句：

• demons torturing the sinners in Hell 地狱里折磨罪人的魔鬼
• He is plagued by demons which go back to his traumatic childhood. 他为心魔所困扰，那可追溯至他饱受创伤的童年。 来自《简明英汉词典》

87 illuminated   

adj.被照明的；受启迪的

参考例句：

• Floodlights illuminated the stadium. 泛光灯照亮了体育场。
• the illuminated city at night 夜幕中万家灯火的城市

88 virgin   

n.处女，未婚女子；adj.未经使用的；未经开发的

参考例句：

• Have you ever been to a virgin forest?你去过原始森林吗？
• There are vast expanses of virgin land in the remote regions.在边远地区有大片大片未开垦的土地。

89 hesitation   

n.犹豫，踌躇

参考例句：

• After a long hesitation, he told the truth at last.踌躇了半天，他终于直说了。
• There was a certain hesitation in her manner.她的态度有些犹豫不决。

90 haps   

n.粗厚毛披巾；偶然，机会，运气( hap的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• He recorded all the little haps and mishaps of his life. 他记录了下他生命中的所有小祸小福。 来自互联网
• Per haps he's never run up against any walls. 这家伙大概没有碰过钉子吧？ 来自互联网

91 mare   

n.母马，母驴

参考例句：

• The mare has just thrown a foal in the stable.那匹母马刚刚在马厩里产下了一只小马驹。
• The mare foundered under the heavy load and collapsed in the road.那母马因负载过重而倒在路上。

92 marine   

adj.海的；海生的；航海的；海事的；n.水兵

参考例句：

• Marine creatures are those which live in the sea. 海洋生物是生存在海里的生物。
• When the war broke out,he volunteered for the Marine Corps.战争爆发时，他自愿参加了海军陆战队。

93 mortar   

n.灰浆，灰泥；迫击炮；v.把…用灰浆涂接合

参考例句：

• The mason flushed the joint with mortar.泥工用灰浆把接缝处嵌平。
• The sound of mortar fire seemed to be closing in.迫击炮的吼声似乎正在逼近。

94 periphery   

n.(圆体的)外面；周围

参考例句：

• Geographically, the UK is on the periphery of Europe.从地理位置上讲，英国处于欧洲边缘。
• The periphery of the retina is very sensitive to motion.视网膜的外围对运动非常敏感。

95 sentries   

哨兵，步兵( sentry的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• We posted sentries at the gates of the camp. 我们在军营的大门口布置哨兵。
• We were guarded by sentries against surprise attack. 我们由哨兵守卫，以免遭受突袭。

96 groan   

vi./n.呻吟，抱怨；(发出)呻吟般的声音

参考例句：

• The wounded man uttered a groan.那个受伤的人发出呻吟。
• The people groan under the burden of taxes.人民在重税下痛苦呻吟。

97 thigh   

n.大腿；股骨

参考例句：

• He is suffering from a strained thigh muscle.他的大腿肌肉拉伤了，疼得很。
• The thigh bone is connected to the hip bone.股骨连着髋骨。

98 ledge   

n.壁架，架状突出物；岩架，岩礁

参考例句：

• They paid out the line to lower him to the ledge.他们放出绳子使他降到那块岩石的突出部分。
• Suddenly he struck his toe on a rocky ledge and fell.突然他的脚趾绊在一块突出的岩石上，摔倒了。

99 jaw   

n.颚，颌，说教，流言蜚语；v.喋喋不休，教训

参考例句：

• He delivered a right hook to his opponent's jaw.他给了对方下巴一记右钩拳。
• A strong square jaw is a sign of firm character.强健的方下巴是刚毅性格的标志。

100 eyebrows   

眉毛( eyebrow的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Eyebrows stop sweat from coming down into the eyes. 眉毛挡住汗水使其不能流进眼睛。
• His eyebrows project noticeably. 他的眉毛特别突出。

101 efficiently   

adv.高效率地，有能力地

参考例句：

• The worker oils the machine to operate it more efficiently.工人给机器上油以使机器运转更有效。
• Local authorities have to learn to allocate resources efficiently.地方政府必须学会有效地分配资源。

102 tithe   

n.十分之一税；v.课什一税，缴什一税

参考例句：

• It's not Christ plus your tithe.这不是基督再加上你的什一税。
• The bible tells us that the tithe is the lords.圣经说十分之一是献给主的。

103 pensive   

a.沉思的,哀思的,忧沉的

参考例句：

• He looked suddenly sombre,pensive.他突然看起来很阴郁，一副忧虑的样子。
• He became so pensive that she didn't like to break into his thought.他陷入沉思之中,她不想打断他的思路。

104 catching   

adj.易传染的，有魅力的，迷人的，接住

参考例句：

• There are those who think eczema is catching.有人就是认为湿疹会传染。
• Enthusiasm is very catching.热情非常富有感染力。

105 sentimental   

adj.多愁善感的，感伤的

参考例句：

• She's a sentimental woman who believes marriage comes by destiny.她是多愁善感的人，她相信姻缘命中注定。
• We were deeply touched by the sentimental movie.我们深深被那感伤的电影所感动。

106 distress   

n.苦恼，痛苦，不舒适；不幸；vt.使悲痛

参考例句：

• Nothing could alleviate his distress.什么都不能减轻他的痛苦。
• Please don't distress yourself.请你不要忧愁了。

107 wrestled   

v.（与某人）搏斗( wrestle的过去式和过去分词 )；扭成一团；扭打；（与…）摔跤

参考例句：

• As a boy he had boxed and wrestled. 他小的时候又是打拳又是摔跤。
• Armed guards wrestled with the intruder. 武装警卫和闯入者扭打起来。 来自《简明英汉词典》

108 tilted   

v. 倾斜的

参考例句：

• Suddenly the boat tilted to one side. 小船突然倾向一侧。
• She tilted her chin at him defiantly. 她向他翘起下巴表示挑衅。

109 dressings   

n.敷料剂；穿衣( dressing的名词复数 )；穿戴；（拌制色拉的）调料；（保护伤口的）敷料

参考例句：

• He always made sure that any cuts were protected by sterile dressings. 他总是坚持要用无菌纱布包扎伤口。 来自辞典例句
• I waked the orderly and he poured mineral water on the dressings. 我喊醒勤务，他在我的绷带上倒了些矿质水。 来自辞典例句

110 sneered   

讥笑，冷笑( sneer的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• He sneered at people who liked pop music. 他嘲笑喜欢流行音乐的人。
• It's very discouraging to be sneered at all the time. 成天受嘲讽是很令人泄气的。

111 jolt   

v.（使）摇动，（使）震动，（使）颠簸

参考例句：

• We were worried that one tiny jolt could worsen her injuries.我们担心稍微颠簸一下就可能会使她的伤势恶化。
• They were working frantically in the fear that an aftershock would jolt the house again.他们拼命地干着，担心余震可能会使房子再次受到震动。

112 vein   

n.血管，静脉；叶脉，纹理；情绪；vt.使成脉络

参考例句：

• The girl is not in the vein for singing today.那女孩今天没有心情唱歌。
• The doctor injects glucose into the patient's vein.医生把葡萄糖注射入病人的静脉。

113 bowels   

n.肠，内脏，内部；肠( bowel的名词复数 )；内部，最深处

参考例句：

• Salts is a medicine that causes movements of the bowels. 泻盐是一种促使肠子运动的药物。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The cabins are in the bowels of the ship. 舱房设在船腹内。 来自《简明英汉词典》

114 prerequisite   

n.先决条件；adj.作为前提的，必备的

参考例句：

• Stability and unity are a prerequisite to the four modernizations.安定团结是实现四个现代化的前提。
• It is a prerequisite of entry to the profession that you pass the exams.做这一行的先决条件是要通过了有关的考试。

115 rhetoric   

n.修辞学，浮夸之言语

参考例句：

• Do you know something about rhetoric?你懂点修辞学吗？
• Behind all the rhetoric,his relations with the army are dangerously poised.在冠冕堂皇的言辞背后，他和军队的关系岌岌可危。

116 tightening   

上紧，固定，紧密

参考例句：

• Make sure the washer is firmly seated before tightening the pipe. 旋紧水管之前，检查一下洗衣机是否已牢牢地固定在底座上了。
• It needs tightening up a little. 它还需要再收紧些。

117 lusted   

贪求（lust的过去式与过去分词形式）

参考例句：

• He had even lusted for Halina, already woven a net in readiness to ensnare her. 他甚至贪恋海莉娜，已经编织了一个罗网，在引诱她落进去。
• Men feared him and women lusted after the handsome warrior. 男人们害怕他，女人们纷纷追求这个英俊的勇士。

118 snob   

n.势利小人，自以为高雅、有学问的人

参考例句：

• Going to a private school had made her a snob.上私立学校后，她变得很势利。
• If you think that way, you are a snob already.如果你那样想的话，你已经是势利小人了。

119 snobs   

（谄上傲下的）势利小人( snob的名词复数 )； 自高自大者，自命不凡者

参考例句：

• She dislikes snobs intensely. 她极其厌恶势利小人。
• Most of the people who worshipped her, who read every tidbit about her in the gossip press and hung up pictures of her in their rooms, were not social snobs. 崇敬她大多数的人不会放过每一篇报导她的八卦新闻，甚至在他们的房间中悬挂黛妃的画像，这些人并非都是傲慢成性。

120 sweeping   

adj.范围广大的，一扫无遗的

参考例句：

• The citizens voted for sweeping reforms.公民投票支持全面的改革。
• Can you hear the wind sweeping through the branches?你能听到风掠过树枝的声音吗？

121 fully   

adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地

参考例句：

• The doctor asked me to breathe in,then to breathe out fully.医生让我先吸气，然后全部呼出。
• They soon became fully integrated into the local community.他们很快就完全融入了当地人的圈子。

122 stationary   

adj.固定的，静止不动的

参考例句：

• A stationary object is easy to be aimed at.一个静止不动的物体是容易瞄准的。
• Wait until the bus is stationary before you get off.你要等公共汽车停稳了再下车。

123 vista   

n.远景，深景，展望，回想

参考例句：

• From my bedroom window I looked out on a crowded vista of hills and rooftops.我从卧室窗口望去，远处尽是连绵的山峦和屋顶。
• These uprisings come from desperation and a vista of a future without hope.发生这些暴动是因为人们被逼上了绝路，未来看不到一点儿希望。

124 shrub   

n.灌木，灌木丛

参考例句：

• There is a small evergreen shrub on the hillside.山腰上有一小块常绿灌木丛。
• Moving a shrub is best done in early spring.移植灌木最好是在初春的时候。

125 killing   

n.巨额利润；突然赚大钱，发大财

参考例句：

• Investors are set to make a killing from the sell-off.投资者准备清仓以便大赚一笔。
• Last week my brother made a killing on Wall Street.上个周我兄弟在华尔街赚了一大笔。

126 radius   

n.半径，半径范围；有效航程，范围，界限

参考例句：

• He has visited every shop within a radius of two miles.周围两英里以内的店铺他都去过。
• We are measuring the radius of the circle.我们正在测量圆的半径。

127 avuncular   

adj.叔伯般的，慈祥的

参考例句：

• He began to talk in his most gentle and avuncular manner.他开始讲话了，态度极其和蔼而慈祥。
• He was now playing the role of disinterested host and avuncular mentor.他现在正扮演着慷慨的主人和伯父似的指导人的角色。

128 thereby   

adv.因此，从而

参考例句：

• I have never been to that city,,ereby I don't know much about it.我从未去过那座城市，因此对它不怎么熟悉。
• He became a British citizen,thereby gaining the right to vote.他成了英国公民，因而得到了投票权。

129 demolition   

n.破坏,毁坏,毁坏之遗迹

参考例句：

• The church has been threatened with demolition for years. 这座教堂多年来一直面临拆毀的威胁。
• The project required the total demolition of the old bridge. 该项目要求将老桥完全拆毁。

130 domain   

n.(活动等)领域，范围；领地，势力范围

参考例句：

• This information should be in the public domain.这一消息应该为公众所知。
• This question comes into the domain of philosophy.这一问题属于哲学范畴。

131 vertically   

adv.垂直地

参考例句：

• Line the pages for the graph both horizontally and vertically.在这几页上同时画上横线和竖线，以便制作图表。
• The human brain is divided vertically down the middle into two hemispheres.人脑从中央垂直地分为两半球。

132 circuitous   

adj.迂回的路的，迂曲的，绕行的

参考例句：

• They took a circuitous route to avoid reporters.他们绕道避开了记者。
• The explanation was circuitous and puzzling.这个解释很迂曲，让人困惑不解。

133 energize   

vt.给予(某人或某物)精力、能量

参考例句：

• It is used to energize the city.它的作用是为城市供给能量。
• This is a great way to energize yourself and give yourself more power!这种方法非常棒，可以激活你的能量，让你有更多的活力！

134 shrugged   

vt.耸肩（shrug的过去式与过去分词形式）

参考例句：

• Sam shrugged and said nothing. 萨姆耸耸肩膀，什么也没说。
• She shrugged, feigning nonchalance. 她耸耸肩，装出一副无所谓的样子。 来自《简明英汉词典》

135 spout   

v.喷出，涌出；滔滔不绝地讲；n.喷管；水柱

参考例句：

• Implication in folk wealth creativity and undertaking vigor spout.蕴藏于民间的财富创造力和创业活力喷涌而出。
• This acts as a spout to drain off water during a rainstorm.在暴风雨季，这东西被用作喷管来排水。

136 sniffs   

v.以鼻吸气，嗅，闻( sniff的第三人称单数 )；抽鼻子（尤指哭泣、患感冒等时出声地用鼻子吸气）；抱怨，不以为然地说

参考例句：

• When a dog smells food, he usually sniffs. 狗闻到食物时常吸鼻子。 来自辞典例句
• I-It's a difficult time [ Sniffs ] with my husband. 最近[哭泣]和我丈夫出了点问题。 来自电影对白

137 moth   

n.蛾，蛀虫

参考例句：

• A moth was fluttering round the lamp.有一只蛾子扑打着翅膀绕着灯飞。
• The sweater is moth-eaten.毛衣让蛀虫咬坏了。

138 reposes   

v.将（手臂等）靠在某人（某物）上( repose的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• Below this stone reposes the mortal remains of his father. 在此石块下长眠的是他的父亲的遗体。 来自辞典例句
• His body reposes in the local church. 他的遗体安放在当地教堂里。 来自辞典例句

139 feudal   

adj.封建的，封地的，领地的

参考例句：

• Feudal rulers ruled over the country several thousand years.封建统治者统治这个国家几千年。
• The feudal system lasted for two thousand years in China.封建制度在中国延续了两千年之久。

140 liking   

n.爱好；嗜好；喜欢

参考例句：

• The word palate also means taste or liking.Palate这个词也有“口味”或“嗜好”的意思。
• I must admit I have no liking for exaggeration.我必须承认我不喜欢夸大其词。

141 raucous   

adj.(声音)沙哑的，粗糙的

参考例句：

• I heard sounds of raucous laughter upstairs.我听见楼上传来沙哑的笑声。
• They heard a bottle being smashed,then more raucous laughter.他们听见酒瓶摔碎的声音，然后是一阵更喧闹的笑声。

142 pottery   

n.陶器，陶器场

参考例句：

• My sister likes to learn art pottery in her spare time.我妹妹喜欢在空余时间学习陶艺。
• The pottery was left to bake in the hot sun.陶器放在外面让炎热的太阳烘晒焙干。

143 flake   

v.使成薄片；雪片般落下；n.薄片

参考例句：

• Drain the salmon,discard the skin,crush the bones and flake the salmon with a fork.将鲑鱼沥干，去表皮，粉碎鱼骨并用餐叉子将鱼肉切成小薄片状。
• The paint's beginning to flake.油漆开始剥落了。

144 solitary   

adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士

参考例句：

• I am rather fond of a solitary stroll in the country.我颇喜欢在乡间独自徜徉。
• The castle rises in solitary splendour on the fringe of the desert.这座城堡巍然耸立在沙漠的边际，显得十分壮美。

145 glacier   

n.冰川，冰河

参考例句：

• The glacier calved a large iceberg.冰河崩解而形成一个大冰山。
• The upper surface of glacier is riven by crevasses.冰川的上表面已裂成冰隙。

146 thighs   

n.股，大腿( thigh的名词复数 )；食用的鸡（等的）腿

参考例句：

• He's gone to London for skin grafts on his thighs. 他去伦敦做大腿植皮手术了。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The water came up to the fisherman's thighs. 水没到了渔夫的大腿。 来自《简明英汉词典》

147 intoxicated   

喝醉的，极其兴奋的

参考例句：

• She was intoxicated with success. 她为成功所陶醉。
• They became deeply intoxicated and totally disoriented. 他们酩酊大醉，东南西北全然不辨。

148 swirl   

v.(使)打漩，(使)涡卷；n.漩涡，螺旋形

参考例句：

• The car raced roughly along in a swirl of pink dust.汽车在一股粉红色尘土的漩涡中颠簸着快速前进。
• You could lie up there,watching the flakes swirl past.你可以躺在那儿，看着雪花飘飘。

149 consul   

n.领事；执政官

参考例句：

• A consul's duty is to help his own nationals.领事的职责是帮助自己的同胞。
• He'll hold the post of consul general for the United States at Shanghai.他将就任美国驻上海总领事(的职务)。

150 chaos   

n.混乱，无秩序

参考例句：

• After the failure of electricity supply the city was in chaos.停电后，城市一片混乱。
• The typhoon left chaos behind it.台风后一片混乱。

151 stilted   

adj.虚饰的；夸张的

参考例句：

• All too soon the stilted conversation ran out.很快这种做作的交谈就结束了。
• His delivery was stilted and occasionally stumbling.他的发言很生硬，有时还打结巴。

152 doorways   

n.门口，门道( doorway的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The houses belched people; the doorways spewed out children. 从各家茅屋里涌出一堆一堆的人群，从门口蹦出一群一群小孩。 来自辞典例句
• He rambled under the walls and doorways. 他就顺着墙根和门楼遛跶。 来自辞典例句

153 defiance   

n.挑战，挑衅，蔑视，违抗

参考例句：

• He climbed the ladder in defiance of the warning.他无视警告爬上了那架梯子。
• He slammed the door in a spirit of defiance.他以挑衅性的态度把门砰地一下关上。

154 bosom   

n.胸，胸部；胸怀；内心；adj.亲密的

参考例句：

• She drew a little book from her bosom.她从怀里取出一本小册子。
• A dark jealousy stirred in his bosom.他内心生出一阵恶毒的嫉妒。

155 devious   

adj.不坦率的，狡猾的；迂回的，曲折的

参考例句：

• Susan is a devious person and we can't depend on her.苏姗是个狡猾的人，我们不能依赖她。
• He is a man who achieves success by devious means.他这个人通过不正当手段获取成功。

156 enigma   

n.谜，谜一样的人或事

参考例句：

• I've known him for many years,but he remains something of an enigma to me.我与他相识多年，他仍然难以捉摸。
• Even after all the testimonies,the murder remained a enigma.即使听完了所有的证词，这件谋杀案仍然是一个谜。

157 propeller   

n.螺旋桨，推进器

参考例句：

• The propeller started to spin around.螺旋桨开始飞快地旋转起来。
• A rope jammed the boat's propeller.一根绳子卡住了船的螺旋桨。

158 eucalyptus   

n.桉树，桉属植物

参考例句：

• Eucalyptus oil is good for easing muscular aches and pains.桉树油可以很好地缓解肌肉的疼痛。
• The birds rustled in the eucalyptus trees.鸟在桉树弄出沙沙的响声。

159 bent   

n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的

参考例句：

• He was fully bent upon the project.他一心扑在这项计划上。
• We bent over backward to help them.我们尽了最大努力帮助他们。

160 sockets   

n.套接字，使应用程序能够读写与收发通讯协定(protocol)与资料的程序( Socket的名词复数 )；孔( socket的名词复数 )；（电器上的）插口；托座；凹穴

参考例句：

• All new PCs now have USB sockets. 新的个人计算机现在都有通用串行总线插孔。
• Make sure the sockets in your house are fingerproof. 确保你房中的插座是防触电的。 来自超越目标英语 第4册

161 comatose   

adj.昏睡的，昏迷不醒的

参考例句：

• Those in extreme fear can be put into a comatose type state.那些极端恐惧的人可能会被安放进一种昏迷状态。
• The doctors revived the comatose man.这个医生使这个昏睡的苏醒了。

162 interrogated   

v.询问( interrogate的过去式和过去分词 )；审问；（在计算机或其他机器上）查询

参考例句：

• He was interrogated by the police for over 12 hours. 他被警察审问了12个多小时。
• Two suspects are now being interrogated in connection with the killing. 与杀人案有关的两名嫌疑犯正在接受审讯。 来自《简明英汉词典》

163 interrogating   

n.询问技术v.询问( interrogate的现在分词 )；审问；（在计算机或其他机器上）查询

参考例句：

• She was no longer interrogating but lecturing. 她已经不是在审问而是在教训人了。 来自辞典例句
• His face remained blank, interrogating, slightly helpless. 他的面部仍然没有表情，只带有询问的意思，还有点无可奈何。 来自辞典例句

164 villas   

别墅，公馆( villa的名词复数 )； （城郊）住宅

参考例句：

• Magnificent villas are found throughout Italy. 在意大利到处可看到豪华的别墅。
• Rich men came down from wealthy Rome to build sea-side villas. 有钱人从富有的罗马来到这儿建造海滨别墅。

165 cholera   

n.霍乱

参考例句：

• The cholera outbreak has been contained.霍乱的发生已被控制住了。
• Cholera spread like wildfire through the camps.霍乱在营地里迅速传播。

166 rambled   

（无目的地）漫游( ramble的过去式和过去分词 )； （喻）漫谈； 扯淡； 长篇大论

参考例句：

• We rambled through the woods. 我们漫步走过树林。
• She rambled on at great length but she didn't get to the heart of the matter. 她夹七夹八地说了许多话也没说到点子上。

167 traitor   

n.叛徒，卖国贼

参考例句：

• The traitor was finally found out and put in prison.那个卖国贼终于被人发现并被监禁了起来。
• He was sold out by a traitor and arrested.他被叛徒出卖而被捕了。

168 knight   

n.骑士，武士；爵士

参考例句：

• He was made an honourary knight.他被授予荣誉爵士称号。
• A knight rode on his richly caparisoned steed.一个骑士骑在装饰华丽的马上。

169 oasis   

n.（沙漠中的）绿洲，宜人的地方

参考例句：

• They stopped for the night at an oasis.他们在沙漠中的绿洲停下来过夜。
• The town was an oasis of prosperity in a desert of poverty.该镇是贫穷荒漠中的一块繁荣的“绿洲”。

170 interspersed   

adj.[医]散开的；点缀的v.intersperse的过去式和过去分词

参考例句：

• Lectures will be interspersed with practical demonstrations. 讲课中将不时插入实际示范。
• The grass was interspersed with beds of flowers. 草地上点缀着许多花坛。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》

171 sullen   

adj.愠怒的，闷闷不乐的，(天气等)阴沉的

参考例句：

• He looked up at the sullen sky.他抬头看了一眼阴沉的天空。
• Susan was sullen in the morning because she hadn't slept well.苏珊今天早上郁闷不乐，因为昨晚没睡好。

172 crabbed   

adj.脾气坏的；易怒的；（指字迹）难辨认的；（字迹等）难辨认的v.捕蟹( crab的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• His mature composi tions are generally considered the more cerebral and crabbed. 他成熟的作品一般被认为是触动理智的和难于理解的。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
• He met a crabbed, cantankerous director. 他碰上了一位坏脾气、爱争吵的主管。 来自辞典例句

173 zigzagging   

v.弯弯曲曲地走路，曲折地前进( zigzag的现在分词 )；盘陀

参考例句：

• She walked along, zigzagging with her head back. 她回头看着，弯弯扭扭地向前走去。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• We followed the path zigzagging up the steep slope. 我们沿着小径曲曲折折地爬上陡坡。 来自互联网

174 tunes   

n.曲调，曲子( tune的名词复数 )v.调音( tune的第三人称单数 )；调整；（给收音机、电视等）调谐；使协调

参考例句：

• a potpourri of tunes 乐曲集锦
• When things get a bit too much, she simply tunes out temporarily. 碰到事情太棘手时，她干脆暂时撒手不管。 来自《简明英汉词典》

175 tune   

n.调子；和谐，协调；v.调音，调节，调整

参考例句：

• He'd written a tune,and played it to us on the piano.他写了一段曲子，并在钢琴上弹给我们听。
• The boy beat out a tune on a tin can.那男孩在易拉罐上敲出一首曲子。

176 subconsciously   

ad.下意识地，潜意识地

参考例句：

• In choosing a partner we are subconsciously assessing their evolutionary fitness to be a mother of children or father provider and protector. 在选择伴侣的时候，我们会在潜意识里衡量对方将来是否会是称职的母亲或者父亲，是否会是合格的一家之主。
• Lao Yang thought as he subconsciously tightened his grasp on the rifle. 他下意识地攥紧枪把想。 来自汉英文学 - 散文英译

177 traction   

n.牵引；附着摩擦力

参考例句：

• I'll show you how the traction is applied.我会让你看如何做这种牵引。
• She's injured her back and is in traction for a month.她背部受伤，正在作一个月的牵引治疗。

178 brace   

n. 支柱,曲柄,大括号; v. 绷紧,顶住,(为困难或坏事)做准备

参考例句：

• My daughter has to wear a brace on her teeth. 我的女儿得戴牙套以矫正牙齿。
• You had better brace yourself for some bad news. 有些坏消息,你最好做好准备。

179 braced   

adj.拉牢的v.支住( brace的过去式和过去分词 )；撑牢；使自己站稳；振作起来

参考例句：

• They braced up the old house with balks of timber. 他们用梁木加固旧房子。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The house has a wooden frame which is braced with brick. 这幢房子是木结构的砖瓦房。 来自《简明英汉词典》

180 chisel   

n.凿子；v.用凿子刻，雕，凿

参考例句：

• This chisel is useful for getting into awkward spaces.这凿子在要伸入到犄角儿里时十分有用。
• Camille used a hammer and chisel to carve out a figure from the marble.卡米尔用锤子和凿子将大理石雕刻出一个人像。

181 wavelength   

n.波长

参考例句：

• The authorities were unable to jam this wavelength.当局无法干扰这一波长。
• Radio One has broadcast on this wavelength for years.广播1台已经用这个波长广播多年了。

182 unearthed   

出土的（考古）

参考例句：

• Many unearthed cultural relics are set forth in the exhibition hall. 展览馆里陈列着许多出土文物。
• Some utensils were in a state of decay when they were unearthed. 有些器皿在出土时已经残破。

183 jumbled   

adj.混乱的；杂乱的

参考例句：

• Books, shoes and clothes were jumbled together on the floor. 书、鞋子和衣服胡乱堆放在地板上。
• The details of the accident were all jumbled together in his mind. 他把事故细节记得颠三倒四。

184 detour   

n.绕行的路，迂回路；v.迂回，绕道

参考例句：

• We made a detour to avoid the heavy traffic.我们绕道走，避开繁忙的交通。
• He did not take the direct route to his home,but made a detour around the outskirts of the city.他没有直接回家，而是绕到市郊兜了个圈子。

185 indirectly   

adv.间接地，不直接了当地

参考例句：

• I heard the news indirectly.这消息我是间接听来的。
• They were approached indirectly through an intermediary.通过一位中间人，他们进行了间接接触。

186 flicked   

（尤指用手指或手快速地）轻击( flick的过去式和过去分词 )； （用…）轻挥； （快速地）按开关； 向…笑了一下（或瞥了一眼等）

参考例句：

• She flicked the dust off her collar. 她轻轻弹掉了衣领上的灰尘。
• I idly picked up a magazine and flicked through it. 我漫不经心地拿起一本杂志翻看着。

187 descant   

v.详论，絮说；n.高音部

参考例句：

• You need not descant upon my shortcomings.你不必絮说我的缺点。
• An elderly woman,arms crossed,sang the descant.一位双臂交叉的老妇人演唱了高音部。

188 negate   

vt.否定，否认；取消，使无效

参考例句：

• Our actions often negate our principles.我们的行为时常与我们所信奉的原则背道而弛。
• Mass advertising could negate the classical theory of supply and demand.大宗广告可以否定古典经济学的供求理论。

189 satchel   

n.(皮或帆布的)书包

参考例句：

• The school boy opened the door and flung his satchel in.那个男学生打开门，把他的书包甩了进去。
• She opened her satchel and took out her father's gloves.打开书箱，取出了她父亲的手套来。

190 swerve   

v.突然转向，背离；n．转向，弯曲，背离

参考例句：

• Nothing will swerve him from his aims.什么也不能使他改变目标。
• Her car swerved off the road into a 6ft high brick wall.她的车突然转向冲出了马路，撞向6英尺高的一面砖墙。

191 impasse   

n.僵局；死路

参考例句：

• The government had reached an impasse.政府陷入绝境。
• Negotiations seemed to have reached an impasse.谈判似乎已经陷入僵局。

192 crouched   

v.屈膝，蹲伏( crouch的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• He crouched down beside her. 他在她的旁边蹲了下来。
• The lion crouched ready to pounce. 狮子蹲下身，准备猛扑。

193 tributaries   

n. 支流

参考例句：

• In such areas small tributaries or gullies will not show. 在这些地区，小的支流和冲沟显示不出来。
• These tributaries are subsequent streams which erode strike valley. 这些支流系即为蚀出走向谷的次生河。

194 swerved   

v.（使）改变方向，改变目的( swerve的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• She swerved sharply to avoid a cyclist. 她猛地急转弯，以躲开一个骑自行车的人。
• The driver has swerved on a sudden to avoid a file of geese. 为了躲避一队鹅，司机突然来个急转弯。 来自《简明英汉词典》

195 erased   

v.擦掉( erase的过去式和过去分词 )；抹去；清除

参考例句：

• He erased the wrong answer and wrote in the right one. 他擦去了错误答案，写上了正确答案。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He removed the dogmatism from politics; he erased the party line. 他根除了政治中的教条主义，消除了政党界限。 来自《简明英汉词典》

196 choreographed   

v.设计舞蹈动作( choreograph的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• There was some carefully choreographed flag-waving as the President drove by. 总统的车经过时，人们按精心编排的动作挥舞着旗帜。
• Achim had choreographed the dance in Act II himself. 阿希姆自己设计了第2幕的舞蹈动作。 来自辞典例句

197 touching   

adj.动人的，使人感伤的

参考例句：

• It was a touching sight.这是一幅动人的景象。
• His letter was touching.他的信很感人。

198 rustle   

v.沙沙作响；偷盗(牛、马等)；n.沙沙声声

参考例句：

• She heard a rustle in the bushes.她听到灌木丛中一阵沙沙声。
• He heard a rustle of leaves in the breeze.他听到树叶在微风中发出的沙沙声。

199 sewers   

n.阴沟，污水管，下水道( sewer的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The sewers discharge out at sea. 下水道的污水排入海里。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• Another municipal waste problem is street runoff into storm sewers. 有关都市废水的另外一个问题是进入雨水沟的街道雨水。 来自英汉非文学 - 环境法 - 环境法

200 cello   

n.大提琴

参考例句：

• The cello is a member of the violin family.大提琴是提琴家族的一员。
• She plays a melodious cello.她拉着一手悦耳的大提琴。

201 plunging   

adj.跳进的，突进的v.颠簸( plunge的现在分词 )；暴跌；骤降；突降

参考例句：

• War broke out again, plunging the people into misery and suffering. 战祸复发，生灵涂炭。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• He is plunging into an abyss of despair. 他陷入了绝望的深渊。 来自《简明英汉词典》

202 torrent   

n.激流，洪流；爆发，(话语等的)连发

参考例句：

• The torrent scoured a channel down the hillside. 急流沿着山坡冲出了一条沟。
• Her pent-up anger was released in a torrent of words.她压抑的愤怒以滔滔不绝的话爆发了出来。

203 naive   

adj.幼稚的，轻信的；天真的

参考例句：

• It's naive of you to believe he'll do what he says.相信他会言行一致，你未免太单纯了。
• Don't be naive.The matter is not so simple.你别傻乎乎的。事情没有那么简单。

204 innocence   

n.无罪；天真；无害

参考例句：

• There was a touching air of innocence about the boy.这个男孩有一种令人感动的天真神情。
• The accused man proved his innocence of the crime.被告人经证实无罪。

205 coaxed   

v.哄，用好话劝说( coax的过去式和过去分词 )；巧言骗取；哄劝，劝诱

参考例句：

• She coaxed the horse into coming a little closer. 她哄着那匹马让它再靠近了一点。
• I coaxed my sister into taking me to the theatre. 我用好话哄姐姐带我去看戏。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

206 solitude   

n. 孤独; 独居,荒僻之地,幽静的地方

参考例句：

• People need a chance to reflect on spiritual matters in solitude. 人们需要独处的机会来反思精神上的事情。
• They searched for a place where they could live in solitude. 他们寻找一个可以过隐居生活的地方。

207 enveloped   

v.包围，笼罩，包住( envelop的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• She was enveloped in a huge white towel. 她裹在一条白色大毛巾里。
• Smoke from the burning house enveloped the whole street. 燃烧着的房子冒出的浓烟笼罩了整条街。 来自《简明英汉词典》

208 crumpling   

压皱，弄皱( crumple的现在分词 )； 变皱

参考例句：

• His crumpling body bent low from years of carrying heavy loads. 由于经年累月的负重，他那皱巴巴的身子被压得弯弯的。
• This apparently took the starch out of the fast-crumpling opposition. 这显然使正在迅速崩溃的反对党泄了气。

209 elastic   

n.橡皮圈，松紧带；adj.有弹性的；灵活的

参考例句：

• Rubber is an elastic material.橡胶是一种弹性材料。
• These regulations are elastic.这些规定是有弹性的。

210 rattle   

v.飞奔，碰响；激怒；n.碰撞声；拨浪鼓

参考例句：

• The baby only shook the rattle and laughed and crowed.孩子只是摇着拨浪鼓，笑着叫着。
• She could hear the rattle of the teacups.她听见茶具叮当响。

211 caterpillar   

n.毛虫，蝴蝶的幼虫

参考例句：

• A butterfly is produced by metamorphosis from a caterpillar.蝴蝶是由毛虫脱胎变成的。
• A caterpillar must pass through the cocoon stage to become a butterfly.毛毛虫必须经过茧的阶段才能变成蝴蝶。

212 plummet   

vi.(价格、水平等)骤然下跌；n.铅坠；重压物

参考例句：

• Mengniu and Yili have seen their shares plummet since the incident broke.自事件发生以来，蒙牛和伊利的股票大幅下跌。
• Even if rice prices were to plummet,other brakes on poverty alleviation remain.就算大米价格下跌，其它阻止导致贫困的因素仍然存在。

213 dismantled   

拆开( dismantle的过去式和过去分词 )； 拆卸； 废除； 取消

参考例句：

• The plant was dismantled of all its equipment and furniture. 这家工厂的设备和家具全被拆除了。
• The Japanese empire was quickly dismantled. 日本帝国很快被打垮了。

214 shuffling   

adj. 慢慢移动的, 滑移的 动词shuffle的现在分词形式

参考例句：

• Don't go shuffling along as if you were dead. 别像个死人似地拖着脚走。 来自英汉文学 - 嘉莉妹妹
• Some one was shuffling by on the sidewalk. 外面的人行道上有人拖着脚走过。 来自英汉文学 - 嘉莉妹妹

215 endearment   

n.表示亲爱的行为

参考例句：

• This endearment indicated the highest degree of delight in the old cooper.这个称呼是老箍桶匠快乐到了极点的表示。
• To every endearment and attention he continued listless.对于每一种亲爱的表示和每一种的照顾，他一直漫不在意。

216 spun   

v.纺，杜撰，急转身

参考例句：

• His grandmother spun him a yarn at the fire.他奶奶在火炉边给他讲故事。
• Her skilful fingers spun the wool out to a fine thread.她那灵巧的手指把羊毛纺成了细毛线。

217 lyrics   

n.歌词

参考例句：

• music and lyrics by Rodgers and Hart 由罗杰斯和哈特作词作曲
• The book contains lyrics and guitar tablatures for over 100 songs. 这本书有100多首歌的歌词和吉他奏法谱。

218 courteously   

adv.有礼貌地，亲切地

参考例句：

• He courteously opened the door for me.他谦恭有礼地为我开门。
• Presently he rose courteously and released her.过了一会，他就很客气地站起来，让她走开。

219 stymied   

n.被侵袭的v.妨碍，阻挠( stymie的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• Relief efforts have been stymied in recent weeks by armed gunmen. 最近几周的救援工作一直受到武装分子的阻挠。 来自辞典例句
• I was completely stymied by her refusal to help. 由于她拒不相助， 我完全陷入了困境。 来自互联网

220 gliding   

v. 滑翔 adj. 滑动的

参考例句：

• Swans went gliding past. 天鹅滑行而过。
• The weather forecast has put a question mark against the chance of doing any gliding tomorrow. 天气预报对明天是否能举行滑翔表示怀疑。

221 drawn   

v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的

参考例句：

• All the characters in the story are drawn from life.故事中的所有人物都取材于生活。
• Her gaze was drawn irresistibly to the scene outside.她的目光禁不住被外面的风景所吸引。

222 prologue   

n.开场白，序言；开端，序幕

参考例句：

• A poor wedding is a prologue to misery.不幸的婚姻是痛苦的开始。
• The prologue to the novel is written in the form of a newspaper account.这本小说的序言是以报纸报道的形式写的。

223 alcove   

n.凹室

参考例句：

• The bookcase fits neatly into the alcove.书架正好放得进壁凹。
• In the alcoves on either side of the fire were bookshelves.火炉两边的凹室里是书架。

224 scent   

n.气味，香味，香水，线索，嗅觉；v.嗅，发觉

参考例句：

• The air was filled with the scent of lilac.空气中弥漫着丁香花的芬芳。
• The flowers give off a heady scent at night.这些花晚上散发出醉人的芳香。

225 scooped   

v.抢先报道( scoop的过去式和过去分词 )；（敏捷地）抱起；抢先获得；用铲[勺]等挖（洞等）

参考例句：

• They scooped the other newspapers by revealing the matter. 他们抢先报道了这件事。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The wheels scooped up stones which hammered ominously under the car. 车轮搅起的石块，在车身下发出不吉祥的锤击声。 来自《简明英汉词典》

226 exhaustion   

n.耗尽枯竭，疲惫，筋疲力尽，竭尽，详尽无遗的论述

参考例句：

• She slept the sleep of exhaustion.她因疲劳而酣睡。
• His exhaustion was obvious when he fell asleep standing.他站着睡着了，显然是太累了。

227 civilian   

adj.平民的，民用的，民众的

参考例句：

• There is no reliable information about civilian casualties.关于平民的伤亡还没有确凿的信息。
• He resigned his commission to take up a civilian job.他辞去军职而从事平民工作。

228 manor   

n.庄园，领地

参考例句：

• The builder of the manor house is a direct ancestor of the present owner.建造这幢庄园的人就是它现在主人的一个直系祖先。
• I am not lord of the manor,but its lady.我并非此地的领主，而是这儿的女主人。

229 blueprints   

n.蓝图，设计图( blueprint的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Have the blueprints been worked out? 蓝图搞好了吗？ 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• BluePrints description of a distributed component of the system design and best practice guidelines. BluePrints描述了一个分布式组件体系的最佳练习和设计指导方针。 来自互联网

230 rogue   

n.流氓；v.游手好闲

参考例句：

• The little rogue had his grandpa's glasses on.这淘气鬼带上了他祖父的眼镜。
• They defined him as a rogue.他们确定他为骗子。

231 descants   

n.多声部音乐中的上方声部( descant的名词复数 )

参考例句：

232 irritation   

n.激怒，恼怒，生气

参考例句：

• He could not hide his irritation that he had not been invited.他无法掩饰因未被邀请而生的气恼。
• Barbicane said nothing,but his silence covered serious irritation.巴比康什么也不说，但是他的沉默里潜伏着阴郁的怒火。

233 pinpoint   

vt.准确地确定；用针标出…的精确位置

参考例句：

• It is difficult to pinpoint when water problems of the modern age began.很难准确地指出，现代用水的问题是什么时候出现的。
• I could pinpoint his precise location on a map.我能在地图上指明他的准确位置。

234 villains   

n.恶棍( villain的名词复数 )；罪犯；（小说、戏剧等中的）反面人物；淘气鬼

参考例句：

• The impression of villains was inescapable. 留下恶棍的印象是不可避免的。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Some villains robbed the widow of the savings. 有几个歹徒将寡妇的积蓄劫走了。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》

235 mentor   

n.指导者，良师益友；v.指导

参考例句：

• He fed on the great ideas of his mentor.他以他导师的伟大思想为支撑。
• He had mentored scores of younger doctors.他指导过许多更年轻的医生。

236 flattened   

[医]（水）平扁的，弄平的

参考例句：

• She flattened her nose and lips against the window. 她把鼻子和嘴唇紧贴着窗户。
• I flattened myself against the wall to let them pass. 我身体紧靠着墙让他们通过。

237 squatted   

v.像动物一样蹲下( squat的过去式和过去分词 )；非法擅自占用（土地或房屋）；为获得其所有权；而占用某片公共用地。

参考例句：

• He squatted down beside the footprints and examined them closely. 他蹲在脚印旁仔细地观察。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He squatted in the grass discussing with someone. 他蹲在草地上与一个人谈话。 来自《简明英汉词典》

238 celebrated   

adj.有名的，声誉卓著的

参考例句：

• He was soon one of the most celebrated young painters in England.不久他就成了英格兰最负盛名的年轻画家之一。
• The celebrated violinist was mobbed by the audience.观众团团围住了这位著名的小提琴演奏家。

239 glided   

v.滑动( glide的过去式和过去分词 )；掠过；（鸟或飞机 ） 滑翔

参考例句：

• The President's motorcade glided by. 总统的车队一溜烟开了过去。
• They glided along the wall until they were out of sight. 他们沿着墙壁溜得无影无踪。 来自《简明英汉词典》

240 sipped   

v.小口喝，呷，抿( sip的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• He sipped his coffee pleasurably. 他怡然地品味着咖啡。
• I sipped the hot chocolate she had made. 我小口喝着她调制的巧克力热饮。 来自辞典例句

241 percolate   

v.过滤，渗透

参考例句：

• The rain will percolate through the soil.雨水渗入土中。
• New fashions took a long time to percolate down.新时尚要很长时间才能在大众中流行起来。

242 sane   

adj.心智健全的，神志清醒的，明智的，稳健的

参考例句：

• He was sane at the time of the murder.在凶杀案发生时他的神志是清醒的。
• He is a very sane person.他是一个很有头脑的人。

243 growl   

v.（狗等）嗥叫，（炮等）轰鸣；n.嗥叫，轰鸣

参考例句：

• The dog was biting,growling and wagging its tail.那条狗在一边撕咬一边低声吼叫，尾巴也跟着摇摆。
• The car growls along rutted streets.汽车在车辙纵横的街上一路轰鸣。

244 tarpaulin   

n.涂油防水布，防水衣，防水帽

参考例句：

• The pool furniture was folded,stacked,and covered with a tarpaulin.游泳池的设备都已经折叠起来，堆在那里，还盖上了防水布。
• The pool furniture was folded,stacked,and covered with a tarpaulin.游泳池的设备都已经折叠起来，堆在那里，还盖上了防水布。

245 pointed   

adj.尖的，直截了当的

参考例句：

• He gave me a very sharp pointed pencil.他给我一支削得非常尖的铅笔。
• She wished to show Mrs.John Dashwood by this pointed invitation to her brother.她想通过对达茨伍德夫人提出直截了当的邀请向她的哥哥表示出来。

246 treacherous   

adj.不可靠的，有暗藏的危险的；adj.背叛的，背信弃义的

参考例句：

• The surface water made the road treacherous for drivers.路面的积水对驾车者构成危险。
• The frozen snow was treacherous to walk on.在冻雪上行走有潜在危险。

247 awareness   

n.意识，觉悟，懂事，明智

参考例句：

• There is a general awareness that smoking is harmful.人们普遍认识到吸烟有害健康。
• Environmental awareness has increased over the years.这些年来人们的环境意识增强了。

248 darted   

v.投掷，投射( dart的过去式和过去分词 )；向前冲，飞奔

参考例句：

• The lizard darted out its tongue at the insect. 蜥蜴伸出舌头去吃小昆虫。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The old man was displeased and darted an angry look at me. 老人不高兴了，瞪了我一眼。 来自《简明英汉词典》

249 silhouette   

n.黑色半身侧面影，影子，轮廓；v.描绘成侧面影，照出影子来，仅仅显出轮廓

参考例句：

• I could see its black silhouette against the evening sky.我能看到夜幕下它黑色的轮廓。
• I could see the silhouette of the woman in the pickup.我可以见到小卡车的女人黑色半身侧面影。

250 enraged   

使暴怒( enrage的过去式和过去分词 )； 歜； 激愤

参考例句：

• I was enraged to find they had disobeyed my orders. 发现他们违抗了我的命令，我极为恼火。
• The judge was enraged and stroke the table for several times. 大法官被气得连连拍案。

251 hog   

n.猪；馋嘴贪吃的人；vt.把…占为己有，独占

参考例句：

• He is greedy like a hog.他像猪一样贪婪。
• Drivers who hog the road leave no room for other cars.那些占着路面的驾驶员一点余地都不留给其他车辆。

252 snips   

n.（剪金属板的）铁剪，铁铗；剪下之物( snip的名词复数 )；一点点；零星v.剪( snip的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• With a few quick snips of the shears he pruned the bush. 他用大剪刀几下子就把灌木给修剪好了。 来自辞典例句
• Pick up the snips of cloth and thread from the floor. 拾起地板上的布片和线头。 来自辞典例句

253 motes   

n.尘埃( mote的名词复数 )；斑点

参考例句：

• In those warm beams the motes kept dancing up and down. 只见温暖的光芒里面，微细的灰尘在上下飞扬。 来自辞典例句
• So I decided to take lots of grammar motes in every class. 因此我决定每堂课多做些语法笔记。 来自互联网

254 coffin   

n.棺材，灵柩

参考例句：

• When one's coffin is covered,all discussion about him can be settled.盖棺论定。
• The coffin was placed in the grave.那口棺材已安放到坟墓里去了。

255 ravaged   

毁坏( ravage的过去式和过去分词 )； 蹂躏； 劫掠； 抢劫

参考例句：

• a country ravaged by civil war 遭受内战重创的国家
• The whole area was ravaged by forest fires. 森林火灾使整个地区荒废了。

256 intimacy   

n.熟悉，亲密，密切关系，亲昵的言行

参考例句：

• His claims to an intimacy with the President are somewhat exaggerated.他声称自己与总统关系密切，这有点言过其实。
• I wish there were a rule book for intimacy.我希望能有个关于亲密的规则。

257 camouflages   

v.隐蔽( camouflage的第三人称单数 )；掩盖；伪装，掩饰

参考例句：

• The newest wrinkle in the $2.5 billion cosmetics business is a lotion that camouflages creases. 二十五亿化妆品生意中最新的一招是一种能够掩饰皱纹的润肤液。 来自辞典例句
• The block glue color camouflages very likely when uses black tape. 胶条颜色很像伪装时使用的黑色胶带。 来自互联网

258 phantoms   

n.鬼怪，幽灵( phantom的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• They vanished down the stairs like two phantoms. 他们像两个幽灵似的消失在了楼下。 来自辞典例句
• The horrible night that he had passed had left phantoms behind it. 他刚才度过的恐布之夜留下了种种错觉。 来自辞典例句

259 mythical   

adj.神话的；虚构的；想像的

参考例句：

• Undeniably,he is a man of mythical status.不可否认，他是一个神话般的人物。
• Their wealth is merely mythical.他们的财富完全是虚构的。

260 rumours   

n.传闻( rumour的名词复数 )；风闻；谣言；谣传

参考例句：

• The rumours were completely baseless. 那些谣传毫无根据。
• Rumours of job losses were later confirmed. 裁员的传言后来得到了证实。

261 flicker   

vi./n.闪烁，摇曳，闪现

参考例句：

• There was a flicker of lights coming from the abandoned house.这所废弃的房屋中有灯光闪烁。
• At first,the flame may be a small flicker,barely shining.开始时，光辉可能是微弱地忽隐忽现，几乎并不灿烂。

262 sculpted   

adj.经雕塑的

参考例句：

• a display of animals sculpted in ice 冰雕动物展
• The ladies had their hair sculpted by the leading coiffeur of the day. 女士们的发型都是当代有名的理发师做的。

263 mirage   

n.海市蜃楼，幻景

参考例句：

• Perhaps we are all just chasing a mirage.也许我们都只是在追逐一个幻想。
• Western liberalism was always a mirage.西方自由主义永远是一座海市蜃楼。

264 supplementary   

adj.补充的，附加的

参考例句：

• There is a supplementary water supply in case the rain supply fails.万一主水源断了，我们另外有供水的地方。
• A supplementary volume has been published containing the index.附有索引的增补卷已经出版。

265 vistas   

长条形景色( vista的名词复数 )； 回顾； 展望； （未来可能发生的）一系列情景

参考例句：

• This new job could open up whole new vistas for her. 这项新工作可能给她开辟全新的前景。
• The picture is small but It'shows broad vistas. 画幅虽然不大，所表现的天地却十分广阔。

266 perch   

n.栖木，高位，杆；v.栖息，就位，位于

参考例句：

• The bird took its perch.鸟停歇在栖木上。
• Little birds perch themselves on the branches.小鸟儿栖歇在树枝上。

267 belligerent   

adj.好战的，挑起战争的；n.交战国，交战者

参考例句：

• He had a belligerent aspect.他有种好斗的神色。
• Our government has forbidden exporting the petroleum to the belligerent countries.我们政府已经禁止向交战国输出石油。

268 obsessed   

adj.心神不宁的,鬼迷心窍的,沉迷的

参考例句：

• He's obsessed by computers. 他迷上了电脑。
• The fear of death obsessed him throughout his old life. 他晚年一直受着死亡恐惧的困扰。

269 seduce   

vt.勾引，诱奸，诱惑，引诱

参考例句：

• She has set out to seduce Stephen.她已经开始勾引斯蒂芬了。
• Clever advertising would seduce more people into smoking.巧妙策划的广告会引诱更多的人吸烟。

270 filthy   

adj.卑劣的；恶劣的，肮脏的

参考例句：

• The whole river has been fouled up with filthy waste from factories.整条河都被工厂的污秽废物污染了。
• You really should throw out that filthy old sofa and get a new one.你真的应该扔掉那张肮脏的旧沙发，然后再去买张新的。

271 dodge   

v.闪开，躲开，避开；n.妙计，诡计

参考例句：

• A dodge behind a tree kept her from being run over.她向树后一闪，才没被车从身上辗过。
• The dodge was coopered by the police.诡计被警察粉碎了。

272 orchards   

（通常指围起来的）果园( orchard的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• They turned the hills into orchards and plains into granaries. 他们把山坡变成了果园，把平地变成了粮仓。
• Some of the new planted apple orchards have also begun to bear. 有些新开的苹果园也开始结苹果了。

273 prune   

n.酶干；vt.修剪，砍掉，削减；vi.删除

参考例句：

• Will you prune away the unnecessary adjectives in the passage?把这段文字中不必要的形容词删去好吗？
• It is our job to prune the side branches of these trees.我们的工作就是修剪这些树的侧枝。

274 belongings   

n.私人物品，私人财物

参考例句：

• I put a few personal belongings in a bag.我把几件私人物品装进包中。
• Your personal belongings are not dutiable.个人物品不用纳税。

275 jug   

n.(有柄，小口，可盛水等的)大壶，罐，盂

参考例句：

• He walked along with a jug poised on his head.他头上顶着一个水罐，保持着平衡往前走。
• She filled the jug with fresh water.她将水壶注满了清水。

276 mildew   

n.发霉；v.（使）发霉

参考例句：

• The interior was dark and smelled of mildew.里面光线很暗，霉味扑鼻。
• Mildew may form in this weather.这种天气有可能发霉。

277 permanently   

adv.永恒地，永久地，固定不变地

参考例句：

• The accident left him permanently scarred.那次事故给他留下了永久的伤疤。
• The ship is now permanently moored on the Thames in London.该船现在永久地停泊在伦敦泰晤士河边。

278 planks   

（厚）木板( plank的名词复数 )； 政纲条目，政策要点

参考例句：

• The house was built solidly of rough wooden planks. 这房子是用粗木板牢固地建造的。
• We sawed the log into planks. 我们把木头锯成了木板。

279 scythed   

v.（长柄）大镰刀( scythe的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• the scent of newly scythed grass 新割下的草散发的清香
• He's scythed half the orchard. 他已经将半个果园的草割除。 来自辞典例句

280 pivot   

v.在枢轴上转动；装枢轴，枢轴；adj.枢轴的

参考例句：

• She is the central pivot of creation and represents the feminine aspect in all things.她是创造的中心枢轴，表现出万物的女性面貌。
• If a spring is present,the hand wheel will pivot on the spring.如果有弹簧，手轮的枢轴会装在弹簧上。

281 withers   

马肩隆

参考例句：

• The girl's pitiful history would wring one's withers. 这女孩子的经历令人心碎。
• "I will be there to show you," and so Mr. Withers withdrew. “我会等在那里，领你去看房间的，"威瑟斯先生这样说着，退了出去。 来自英汉文学 - 嘉莉妹妹

282 backwards   

adv.往回地，向原处，倒，相反，前后倒置地

参考例句：

• He turned on the light and began to pace backwards and forwards.他打开电灯并开始走来走去。
• All the girls fell over backwards to get the party ready.姑娘们迫不及待地为聚会做准备。

283 scentless   

adj.无气味的，遗臭已消失的

参考例句：

284 savory   

adj.风味极佳的，可口的，味香的

参考例句：

• She placed a huge dish before him of savory steaming meat.她将一大盘热气腾腾、美味可口的肉放在他面前。
• He doesn't have a very savory reputation.他的名誉不太好。

285 funnel   

n.漏斗；烟囱；v.汇集

参考例句：

• He poured the petrol into the car through a funnel.他用一个漏斗把汽油灌入汽车。
• I like the ship with a yellow funnel.我喜欢那条有黄烟囱的船。

286 immortal   

adj.不朽的；永生的，不死的；神的

参考例句：

• The wild cocoa tree is effectively immortal.野生可可树实际上是不会死的。
• The heroes of the people are immortal!人民英雄永垂不朽！

287 virtuous   

adj.有品德的，善良的，贞洁的，有效力的

参考例句：

• She was such a virtuous woman that everybody respected her.她是个有道德的女性，人人都尊敬她。
• My uncle is always proud of having a virtuous wife.叔叔一直为娶到一位贤德的妻子而骄傲。

288 ointments   

n.软膏( ointment的名词复数 )；扫兴的人；煞风景的事物；药膏

参考例句：

• The firm has been dispensing ointments. 本公司配制药膏。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Antibiotic ointments are useful for concurrent bacterial infections. 抗菌素软膏对伴发的细菌感染是有用的。 来自辞典例句

289 craves   

渴望，热望( crave的第三人称单数 )； 恳求，请求

参考例句：

• The tree craves calm but the wind will not drop. 树欲静而风不止。
• Victory would give him a passport to the riches he craves. 胜利将使他有机会获得自己梦寐以求的财富。

290 pollen   

n.[植]花粉

参考例句：

• Hummingbirds have discovered that nectar and pollen are very nutritious.蜂鸟发现花蜜和花粉是很有营养的。
• He developed an allergy to pollen.他对花粉过敏。

291 ornaments   

n.装饰( ornament的名词复数 )；点缀；装饰品；首饰v.装饰，点缀，美化( ornament的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• The shelves were chock-a-block with ornaments. 架子上堆满了装饰品。
• Playing the piano sets up resonance in those glass ornaments. 一弹钢琴那些玻璃饰物就会产生共振。 来自《简明英汉词典》

292 thermos   

n.保湿瓶，热水瓶

参考例句：

• Can I borrow your thermos?我可以借用你的暖水瓶吗？
• It's handy to have the thermos here.暖瓶放在这儿好拿。

293 collapsing   

压扁[平]，毁坏，断裂

参考例句：

• Rescuers used props to stop the roof of the tunnel collapsing. 救援人员用支柱防止隧道顶塌陷。
• The rocks were folded by collapsing into the center of the trough. 岩石由于坍陷进入凹槽的中心而发生褶皱。

294 gasps   

v.喘气( gasp的第三人称单数 )；喘息；倒抽气；很想要

参考例句：

• He leant against the railing, his breath coming in short gasps. 他倚着栏杆，急促地喘气。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• My breaths were coming in gasps. 我急促地喘起气来。 来自《简明英汉词典》

295 twilight   

n.暮光，黄昏；暮年，晚期，衰落时期

参考例句：

• Twilight merged into darkness.夕阳的光辉融于黑暗中。
• Twilight was sweet with the smell of lilac and freshly turned earth.薄暮充满紫丁香和新翻耕的泥土的香味。

296 remarkable   

adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的

参考例句：

• She has made remarkable headway in her writing skills.她在写作技巧方面有了长足进步。
• These cars are remarkable for the quietness of their engines.这些汽车因发动机没有噪音而不同凡响。

297 density   

n.密集，密度，浓度

参考例句：

• The population density of that country is 685 per square mile.那个国家的人口密度为每平方英里685人。
• The region has a very high population density.该地区的人口密度很高。

298 purely   

adv.纯粹地，完全地

参考例句：

• I helped him purely and simply out of friendship.我帮他纯粹是出于友情。
• This disproves the theory that children are purely imitative.这证明认为儿童只会单纯地模仿的理论是站不住脚的。

299 ballroom   

n.舞厅

参考例句：

• The boss of the ballroom excused them the fee.舞厅老板给他们免费。
• I go ballroom dancing twice a week.我一个星期跳两次交际舞。

300 flaring   

a.火焰摇曳的，过份艳丽的

参考例句：

• A vulgar flaring paper adorned the walls. 墙壁上装饰着廉价的花纸。
• Goebbels was flaring up at me. 戈塔尔当时已对我面呈愠色。

301 sieve   

n.筛，滤器，漏勺

参考例句：

• We often shake flour through a sieve.我们经常用筛子筛面粉。
• Finally,it is like drawing water with a sieve.到头来，竹篮打水一场空。