She was having tea and cinnamon toast, alone at a small round table on the balcony of Rauscher’s Confiserie. Four debutantes2 clattered3 in. She had felt young and dissipated, had thought rather well of her black and leaf-green suit, but as she watched them, thin of ankle, soft under the chin, seventeen or eighteen at most, smoking cigarettes with the correct ennui4 and talking of “bedroom farces” and their desire to “run up to New York and see something racy,” she became old and rustic5 and plain, and desirous of retreating from these hard brilliant children to a life easier and more sympathetic. When they flickered6 out and one child gave orders to a chauffeur7, Carol was not a defiant8 philosopher but a faded government clerk from Gopher Prairie, Minnesota
She started dejectedly up Connecticut Avenue. She stopped, her heart stopped. Coming toward her were Harry9 and Juanita Haydock. She ran to them, she kissed Juanita, while Harry confided10, “Hadn’t expected to come to Washington — had to go to New York for some buying — didn’t have your address along — just got in this morning — wondered how in the world we could get hold of you.”
She was definitely sorry to hear that they were to leave at nine that evening, and she clung to them as long as she could. She took them to St. Mark’s for dinner. Stooped, her elbows on the table, she heard with excitement that “Cy Bogart had the ‘flu, but of course he was too gol-darn mean to die of it.”
“Will wrote me that Mr. Blausser has gone away. How did he get on?”
“Fine! Fine! Great loss to the town. There was a real public-spirited fellow, all right!”
She discovered that she now had no opinions whatever about Mr. Blausser, and she said sympathetically, “Will you keep up the town-boosting campaign?”
Harry fumbled11, “Well, we’ve dropped it just temporarily, but — sure you bet! Say, did the doc write you about the luck B. J. Gougerling had hunting ducks down in Texas?”
When the news had been told and their enthusiasm had slackened she looked about and was proud to be able to point out a senator, to explain the cleverness of the canopied12 garden. She fancied that a man with dinner-coat and waxed mustache glanced superciliously13 at Harry’s highly form-fitting bright- brown suit and Juanita’s tan silk frock, which was doubtful at the seams. She glared back, defending her own, daring the world not to appreciate them.
Then, waving to them, she lost them down the long train shed. She stood reading the list of stations: Harrisburg, Pittsburg, Chicago. Beyond Chicago ——? She saw the lakes and stubble fields, heard the rhythm of insects and the creak of a buggy, was greeted by Sam Clark’s “Well, well, how’s the little lady?”
Nobody in Washington cared enough for her to fret14 about her sins as Sam did.
But that night they had at the flat a man just back from Finland.
II
She was on the Powhatan roof with the captain. At a table, somewhat vociferously15 buying improbable “soft drinks” for two fluffy16 girls, was a man with a large familiar back.
“Oh! I think I know him,” she murmured.
“Who? There? Oh, Bresnahan, Percy Bresnahan.”
“Yes. You’ve met him? What sort of a man is he?”
“He’s a good-hearted idiot. I rather like him, and I believe that as a salesman of motors he’s a wonder. But he’s a nuisance in the aeronautic17 section. Tries so hard to be useful but he doesn’t know anything — he doesn’t know anything. Rather pathetic: rich man poking18 around and trying to be useful. Do you want to speak to him?”
“No — no — I don’t think so.”
III
She was at a motion-picture show. The film was a highly advertised and abysmal19 thing smacking20 of simpering hair- dressers, cheap perfume, red-plush suites21 on the back streets of tenderloins, and complacent22 fat women chewing gum. It pretended to deal with the life of studios. The leading man did a portrait which was a masterpiece. He also saw visions in pipe-smoke, and was very brave and poor and pure. He had ringlets, and his masterpiece was strangely like an enlarged photograph.
Carol prepared to leave.
On the screen, in the role of a composer, appeared an actor called Eric Valour.
She was startled, incredulous, then wretched. Looking straight out at her, wearing a beret and a velvet23 jacket, was Erik Valborg.
He had a pale part, which he played neither well nor badly. She speculated, “I could have made so much of him ——” She did not finish her speculation25.
She went home and read Kennicott’s letters. They had seemed stiff and undetailed, but now there strode from them a personality, a personality unlike that of the languishing26 young man in the velvet jacket playing a dummy27 piano in a canvas room.
IV
Kennicott first came to see her in November, thirteen months after her arrival in Washington. When he announced that he was coming she was not at all sure that she wished to see him. She was glad that he had made the decision himself.
She had leave from the office for two days.
She watched him marching from the train, solid, assured, carrying his heavy suit-case, and she was diffident — he was such a bulky person to handle. They kissed each other questioningly, and said at the same time, “You’re looking fine; how’s the baby?” and “You’re looking awfully28 well, dear; how is everything?”
He grumbled29, “I don’t want to butt30 in on any plans you’ve made or your friends or anything, but if you’ve got time for it, I’d like to chase around Washington, and take in some restaurants and shows and stuff, and forget work for a while.”
She realized, in the taxicab, that he was wearing a soft gray suit, a soft easy hat, a flippant tie.
“Like the new outfit31? Got ’em in Chicago. Gosh, I hope they’re the kind you like.”
They spent half an hour at the flat, with Hugh. She was flustered32, but he gave no sign of kissing her again.
As he moved about the small rooms she realized that he had had his new tan shoes polished to a brassy luster33. There was a recent cut on his chin. He must have shaved on the train just before coming into Washington.
It was pleasant to feel how important she was, how many people she recognized, as she took him to the Capitol, as she told him (he asked and she obligingly guessed) how many feet it was to the top of the dome34, as she pointed35 out Senator LaFollette and the vice-president, and at lunch-time showed herself an habitue by leading him through the catacombs to the senate restaurant.
She realized that he was slightly more bald. The familiar way in which his hair was parted on the left side agitated36 her. She looked down at his hands, and the fact that his nails were as ill-treated as ever touched her more than his pleading shoe-shine.
“You’d like to motor down to Mount Vernon this afternoon, wouldn’t you?” she said.
It was the one thing he had planned. He was delighted that it seemed to be a perfectly37 well bred and Washingtonian thing to do.
He shyly held her hand on the way, and told her the news: they were excavating38 the basement for the new schoolbuilding, Vida “made him tired the way she always looked at the Maje,” poor Chet Dashaway had been killed in a motor accident out on the Coast. He did not coax39 her to like him. At Mount Vernon he admired the paneled library and Washington’s dental tools.
She knew that he would want oysters40, that he would have heard of Harvey’s apropos41 of Grant and Blaine, and she took him there. At dinner his hearty42 voice, his holiday enjoyment43 of everything, turned into nervousness in his desire to know a number of interesting matters, such as whether they still were married. But be did not ask questions, and be said nothing about her returning. He cleared his throat and observed, “Oh say, been trying out the old camera. Don’t you think these are pretty good?”
He tossed over to her thirty prints of Gopher Prairie and the country about. Without defense44, she was thrown into it. She remembered that he had lured45 her with photographs in courtship days; she made a note of his sameness, his satisfaction with the tactics which had proved good before; but she forgot it in the familiar places. She was seeing the sun- speckled ferns among birches on the shore of Minniemashie, wind-rippled miles of wheat, the porch of their own house where Hugh had played, Main Street where she knew every window and every face.
She handed them back, with praise for his photography, and he talked of lenses and time-exposures.
Dinner was over and they were gossiping of her friends at the flat, but an intruder was with them, sitting back, persistent46, inescapable. She could not endure it. She stammered47:
“I had you check your bag at the station because I wasn’t quite sure where you’d stay. I’m dreadfully sorry we haven’t room to put you up at the flat. We ought to have seen about a room for you before. Don’t you think you better call up the Willard or the Washington now?”
He peered at her cloudily. Without words he asked, without speech she answered, whether she was also going to the Willard or the Washington. But she tried to look as though she did not know that they were debating anything of the sort. She would have hated him had he been meek48 about it. But he was neither meek nor angry. However impatient he may have been with her blandness49 he said readily:
“Yes, guess I better do that. Excuse me a second. Then how about grabbing a taxi (Gosh, isn’t it the limit the way these taxi shuffers skin around a corner? Got more nerve driving than I have!) and going up to your flat for a while? Like to meet your friends — must be fine women — and I might take a look and see how Hugh sleeps. Like to know how he breathes. Don’t think he has adenoids, but I better make sure, eh?” He patted her shoulder.
At the flat they found her two housemates and a girl who had been to jail for suffrage50. Kennicott fitted in surprisingly. He laughed at the girl’s story of the humors of a hunger- strike; he told the secretary what to do when her eyes were tired from typing; and the teacher asked him — not as the husband of a friend but as a physician — whether there was “anything to this inoculation51 for colds.”
His colloquialisms52 seemed to Carol no more lax than their habitual53 slang.
Like an older brother he kissed her good-night in the midst of the company.
“He’s terribly nice,” said her housemates, and waited for confidences. They got none, nor did her own heart. She could find nothing definite to agonize54 about. She felt that she was no longer analyzing55 and controlling forces, but swept on by them.
He came to the flat for breakfast, and washed the dishes. That was her only occasion for spite. Back home he never thought of washing dishes!
She took him to the obvious “sights”— the Treasury56, the Monument, the Corcoran Gallery, the Pan–American Building, the Lincoln Memorial, with the Potomac beyond it and the Arlington hills and the columns of the Lee Mansion57. For all his willingness to play there was over him a melancholy58 which piqued59 her. His normally expressionless eyes had depths to them now, and strangeness. As they walked through Lafayette Square, looking past the Jackson statue at the lovely tranquil60 facade61 of the White House, he sighed, “I wish I’d had a shot at places like this. When I was in the U., I had to earn part of my way, and when I wasn’t doing that or studying, I guess I was roughhousing. My gang were a great bunch for bumming62 around and raising Cain. Maybe if I’d been caught early and sent to concerts and all that —— Would I have been what you call intelligent?”
“Oh, my dear, don’t be humble63! You are intelligent! For instance, you’re the most thorough doctor ——”
He was edging about something he wished to say. He pounced64 on it:
“You did like those pictures of G. P. pretty well, after all, didn’t you!”
“Yes, of course.”
“Wouldn’t be so bad to have a glimpse of the old town, would it!”
“No, it wouldn’t. Just as I was terribly glad to see the Haydocks. But please understand me! That doesn’t mean that I withdraw all my criticisms. The fact that I might like a glimpse of old friends hasn’t any particular relation to the question of whether Gopher Prairie oughtn’t to have festivals and lamb chops.”
Hastily, “No, no! Sure not. I und’stand.”
“But I know it must have been pretty tiresome65 to have to live with anybody as perfect as I was.”
He grinned. She liked his grin.
V
He was thrilled by old negro coachmen, admirals, aeroplanes, the building to which his income tax would eventually go, a Rolls–Royce, Lynnhaven oysters, the Supreme66 Court Room, a New York theatrical67 manager down for the try-out of a play, the house where Lincoln died, the cloaks of Italian officers, the barrows at which clerks buy their box-lunches at noon, the barges68 on the Chesapeake Canal, and the fact that District of Columbia cars had both District and Maryland licenses69.
She resolutely70 took him to her favorite white and green cottages and Georgian houses. He admitted that fanlights, and white shutters71 against rosy72 brick, were more homelike than a painty wooden box. He volunteered, “I see how you mean. They make me think of these pictures of an old-fashioned Christmas. Oh, if you keep at it long enough you’ll have Sam and me reading poetry and everything. Oh say, d’ I tell you about this fierce green Jack24 Elder’s had his machine painted?”
VI
They were at dinner.
He hinted, “Before you showed me those places today, I’d already made up my mind that when I built the new house we used to talk about, I’d fix it the way you wanted it. I’m pretty practical about foundations and radiation and stuff like that, but I guess I don’t know a whole lot about architecture.”
“My dear, it occurs to me with a sudden shock that I don’t either!”
“Well — anyway — you let me plan the garage and the plumbing73, and you do the rest, if you ever — I mean — if you ever want to.”
Doubtfully, “That’s sweet of you.”
“Look here, Carrie; you think I’m going to ask you to love me. I’m not. And I’m not going to ask you to come back to Gopher Prairie!”
She gaped74.
“It’s been a whale of a fight. But I guess I’ve got myself to see that you won’t ever stand G. P. unless you WANT to come back to it. I needn’t say I’m crazy to have you. But I won’t ask you. I just want you to know how I wait for you. Every mail I look for a letter, and when I get one I’m kind of scared to open it, I’m hoping so much that you’re coming back. Evenings —— You know I didn’t open the cottage down at the lake at all, this past summer. Simply couldn’t stand all the others laughing and swimming, and you not there. I used to sit on the porch, in town, and I— I couldn’t get over the feeling that you’d simply run up to the drug store and would be right back, and till after it got dark I’d catch myself watching, looking up the street, and you never came, and the house was so empty and still that I didn’t like to go in. And sometimes I fell asleep there, in my chair, and didn’t wake up till after midnight, and the house —— Oh, the devil! Please get me, Carrie. I just want you to know how welcome you’ll be if you ever do come. But I’m not asking you to.”
“You’re —— It’s awfully ——”
“‘Nother thing. I’m going to be frank. I haven’t always been absolutely, uh, absolutely, proper. I’ve always loved you more than anything else in the world, you and the kid. But sometimes when you were chilly75 to me I’d get lonely and sore, and pike out and —— Never intended ——”
She rescued him with a pitying, “It’s all right. Let’s forget it.”
“But before we were married you said if your husband ever did anything wrong, you’d want him to tell you.”
“Did I? I can’t remember. And I can’t seem to think. Oh, my dear, I do know how generously you’re trying to make me happy. The only thing is —— I can’t think. I don’t know what I think.”
“Then listen! Don’t think! Here’s what I want you to do! Get a two-weeks leave from your office. Weather’s beginning to get chilly here. Let’s run down to Charleston and Savannah and maybe Florida.
“A second honeymoon76?” indecisively.
“No. Don’t even call it that. Call it a second wooing. I won’t ask anything. I just want the chance to chase around with you. I guess I never appreciated how lucky I was to have a girl with imagination and lively feet to play with. So —— Could you maybe run away and see the South with me? If you wanted to, you could just — you could just pretend you were my sister and —— I’ll get an extra nurse for Hugh! I’ll get the best dog-gone nurse in Washington!”
VII
It was in the Villa77 Margherita, by the palms of the Charleston Battery and the metallic78 harbor, that her aloofness79 melted.
When they sat on the upper balcony, enchanted80 by the moon glitter, she cried, “Shall I go back to Gopher Prairie with you? Decide for me. I’m tired of deciding and undeciding.”
“No. You’ve got to do your own deciding. As a matter of fact, in spite of this honeymoon, I don’t think I want you to come home. Not yet.”
She could only stare.
“I want you to be satisfied when you get there. I’ll do everything I can to keep you happy, but I’ll make lots of breaks, so I want you to take time and think it over.”
She was relieved. She still had a chance to seize splendid indefinite freedoms. She might go — oh, she’d see Europe, somehow, before she was recaptured. But she also had a firmer respect for Kennicott. She had fancied that her life might make a story. She knew that there was nothing heroic or obviously dramatic in it, no magic of rare hours, nor valiant81 challenge, but it seemed to her that she was of some significance because she was commonplaceness, the ordinary life of the age, made articulate and protesting. It had not occurred to her that there was also a story of Will Kennicott, into which she entered only so much as he entered into hers; that he had bewilderments and concealments as intricate as her own, and soft treacherous82 desires for sympathy.
Thus she brooded, looking at the amazing sea, holding his hand.
VIII
She was in Washington; Kennicott was in Gopher Prairie, writing as dryly as ever about water-pipes and goose-hunting and Mrs. Fageros’s mastoid.
She was talking at dinner to a generalissima of suffrage. Should she return?
The leader spoke83 wearily:
“My dear, I’m perfectly selfish. I can’t quite visualize84 the needs of your husband, and it seems to me that your baby will do quite as well in the schools here as in your barracks at home.”
“Then you think I’d better not go back?” Carol sounded disappointed.
“It’s more difficult than that. When I say that I’m selfish I mean that the only thing I consider about women is whether they’re likely to prove useful in building up real political power for women. And you? Shall I be frank? Remember when I say ‘you’ I don’t mean you alone. I’m thinking of thousands of women who come to Washington and New York and Chicago every year, dissatisfied at home and seeking a sign in the heavens — women of all sorts, from timid mothers of fifty in cotton gloves, to girls just out of Vassar who organize strikes in their own fathers’ factories! All of you are more or less useful to me, but only a few of you can take my place, because I have one virtue85 (only one): I have given up father and mother and children for the love of God.
“Here’s the test for you: Do you come to ‘conquer the East,’ as people say, or do you come to conquer yourself?
“It’s so much more complicated than any of you know — so much more complicated than I knew when I put on Ground Grippers and started out to reform the world. The final complication in ‘conquering Washington’ or ‘conquering New York’ is that the conquerors86 must beyond all things not conquer! It must have been so easy in the good old days when authors dreamed only of selling a hundred thousand volumes, and sculptors87 of being feted in big houses, and even the Uplifters like me had a simple-hearted ambition to be elected to important offices and invited to go round lecturing. But we meddlers have upset everything. Now the one thing that is disgraceful to any of us is obvious success. The Uplifter who is very popular with wealthy patrons can be pretty sure that he has softened88 his philosophy to please them, and the author who is making lots of money — poor things, I’ve heard ’em apologizing for it to the shabby bitter-enders; I’ve seen ’em ashamed of the sleek89 luggage they got from movie rights.
“Do you want to sacrifice yourself in such a topsy-turvy world, where popularity makes you unpopular with the people you love, and the only failure is cheap success, and the only individualist is the person who gives up all his individualism to serve a jolly ungrateful proletariat which thumbs its nose at him?”
Carol smiled ingratiatingly, to indicate that she was indeed one who desired to sacrifice, but she sighed, “I don’t know; I’m afraid I’m not heroic. I certainly wasn’t out home. Why didn’t I do big effective ——”
“Not a matter of heroism90. Matter of endurance. Your Middlewest is double-Puritan — prairie Puritan on top of New England Puritan; bluff91 frontiersman on the surface, but in its heart it still has the ideal of Plymouth Rock in a sleet-storm. There’s one attack you can make on it, perhaps the only kind that accomplishes much anywhere: you can keep on looking at one thing after another in your home and church and bank, and ask why it is, and who first laid down the law that it had to be that way. If enough of us do this impolitely enough, then we’ll become civilized92 in merely twenty thousand years or so, instead of having to wait the two hundred thousand years that my cynical93 anthropologist94 friends allow. . . . Easy, pleasant, lucrative95 home-work for wives: asking people to define their jobs. That’s the most dangerous doctrine96 I know!”
Carol was mediating97, “I will go back! I will go on asking questions. I’ve always done it, and always failed at it, and it’s all I can do. I’m going to ask Ezra Stowbody why he’s opposed to the nationalization of railroads, and ask Dave Dyer why a druggist always is pleased when he’s called ‘doctor,’ and maybe ask Mrs. Bogart why she wears a widow’s veil that looks like a dead crow.”
The woman leader straightened. “And you have one thing. You have a baby to hug. That’s my temptation. I dream of babies — of a baby — and I sneak98 around parks to see them playing. (The children in Dupont Circle are like a poppy- garden.) And the antis call me ‘unsexed’!”
Carol was thinking, in panic, “Oughtn’t Hugh to have country air? I won’t let him become a yokel99. I can guide him away from street-corner loafing. . . . I think I can.”
On her way home: “Now that I’ve made a precedent100, joined the union and gone out on one strike and learned personal solidarity101, I won’t be so afraid. Will won’t always be resisting my running away. Some day I really will go to Europe with him. . .or without him.
“I’ve lived with people who are not afraid to go to jail. I could invite a Miles Bjornstam to dinner without being afraid of the Haydocks. . .I think I could.
“I’ll take back the sound of Yvette Guilbert’s songs and Elman’s violin. They’ll be only the lovelier against the thrumming of crickets in the stubble on an autumn day.
“I can laugh now and be serene102. . .I think I can.”
Though she should return, she said, she would not be utterly103 defeated. She was glad of her rebellion. The prairie was no longer empty land in the sun-glare; it was the living tawny104 beast which she had fought and made beautiful by fighting; and in the village streets were shadows of her desires and the sound of her marching and the seeds of mystery and greatness.
IX
Her active hatred105 of Gopher Prairie had run out. She saw it now as a toiling106 new settlement. With sympathy she remembered Kennicott’s defense of its citizens as “a lot of pretty good folks, working hard and trying to bring up their families the best they can.” She recalled tenderly the young awkwardness of Main Street and the makeshifts of the little brown cottages; she pitied their shabbiness and isolation107; had compassion108 for their assertion of culture, even as expressed in Thanatopsis papers, for their pretense109 of greatness, even as trumpeted110 in “boosting.” She saw Main Street in the dusty prairie sunset, a line of frontier shanties111 with solemn lonely people waiting for her, solemn and lonely as an old man who has outlived his friends. She remembered that Kennicott and Sam Clark had listened to her songs, and she wanted to run to them and sing.
“At last,” she rejoiced, “I’ve come to a fairer attitude toward the town. I can love it, now.”
She was, perhaps, rather proud of herself for having acquired so much tolerance112.
She awoke at three in the morning, after a dream of being tortured by Ella Stowbody and the Widow Bogart.
“I’ve been making the town a myth. This is how people keep up the tradition of the perfect home-town, the happy boyhood, the brilliant college friends. We forget so. I’ve been forgetting that Main Street doesn’t think it’s in the least lonely and pitiful. It thinks it’s God’s Own Country. It isn’t waiting for me. It doesn’t care.”
But the next evening she again saw Gopher Prairie as her home, waiting for her in the sunset, rimmed113 round with splendor114.
She did not return for five months more; five months crammed115 with greedy accumulation of sounds and colors to take back for the long still days.
She had spent nearly two years in Washington.
When she departed for Gopher Prairie, in June, her second baby was stirring within her.
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adventurous
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| adj.爱冒险的；惊心动魄的，惊险的，刺激的 | |
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debutantes
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| n.初进社交界的上流社会年轻女子( debutante的名词复数 ) | |
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clattered
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| 发出咔哒声（clatter的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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ennui
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| n.怠倦，无聊 | |
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rustic
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| adj.乡村的，有乡村特色的；n.乡下人，乡巴佬 | |
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flickered
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| （通常指灯光）闪烁，摇曳( flicker的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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chauffeur
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| n.(受雇于私人或公司的)司机；v.为…开车 | |
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defiant
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| adj.无礼的，挑战的 | |
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harry
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| vt.掠夺，蹂躏，使苦恼 | |
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confided
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| v.吐露（秘密，心事等）( confide的过去式和过去分词 )；（向某人）吐露（隐私、秘密等） | |
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fumbled
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| （笨拙地）摸索或处理（某事物）( fumble的过去式和过去分词 )； 乱摸，笨拙地弄； 使落下 | |
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canopied
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superciliously
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| adv.高傲地；傲慢地 | |
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fret
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| v.(使)烦恼；(使)焦急；(使)腐蚀，(使)磨损 | |
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vociferously
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| adv.喊叫地，吵闹地 | |
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fluffy
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| adj.有绒毛的，空洞的 | |
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aeronautic
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| adj.航空（学）的 | |
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poking
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| n. 刺，戳，袋 vt. 拨开，刺，戳 vi. 戳，刺，捅，搜索，伸出，行动散慢 | |
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abysmal
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| adj.无底的，深不可测的，极深的；糟透的，极坏的；完全的 | |
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smacking
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| 活泼的，发出响声的，精力充沛的 | |
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suites
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complacent
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| adj.自满的；自鸣得意的 | |
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velvet
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| n.丝绒，天鹅绒；adj.丝绒制的，柔软的 | |
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jack
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| n.插座，千斤顶，男人；v.抬起，提醒，扛举；n.（Jake）杰克 | |
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25
speculation
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| n.思索，沉思；猜测；投机 | |
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26
languishing
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| a. 衰弱下去的 | |
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27
dummy
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| n.假的东西；(哄婴儿的)橡皮奶头 | |
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awfully
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| adv.可怕地，非常地，极端地 | |
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29
grumbled
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| 抱怨( grumble的过去式和过去分词 )； 发牢骚； 咕哝； 发哼声 | |
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30
butt
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| n.笑柄；烟蒂；枪托；臀部；v.用头撞或顶 | |
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31
outfit
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| n.（为特殊用途的）全套装备，全套服装 | |
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32
flustered
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| adj.慌张的；激动不安的v.使慌乱，使不安( fluster的过去式和过去分词) | |
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33
luster
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| n.光辉；光泽，光亮；荣誉 | |
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34
dome
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| n.圆屋顶，拱顶 | |
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35
pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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36
agitated
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| adj.被鼓动的，不安的 | |
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37
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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38
excavating
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| v.挖掘( excavate的现在分词 )；开凿；挖出；发掘 | |
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39
coax
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| v.哄诱，劝诱，用诱哄得到，诱取 | |
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40
oysters
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| 牡蛎( oyster的名词复数 ) | |
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41
apropos
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| adv.恰好地；adj.恰当的；关于 | |
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42
hearty
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| adj.热情友好的；衷心的；尽情的，纵情的 | |
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43
enjoyment
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| n.乐趣；享有；享用 | |
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44
defense
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| n.防御，保卫；[pl.]防务工事；辩护，答辩 | |
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45
lured
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| 吸引，引诱（lure的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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46
persistent
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| adj.坚持不懈的，执意的；持续的 | |
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47
stammered
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| v.结巴地说出( stammer的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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48
meek
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| adj.温顺的，逆来顺受的 | |
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49
blandness
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| n.温柔，爽快 | |
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50
suffrage
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| n.投票，选举权，参政权 | |
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51
inoculation
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| n.接芽；预防接种 | |
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52
colloquialisms
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| n.俗话，白话，口语( colloquialism的名词复数 ) | |
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53
habitual
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| adj.习惯性的；通常的，惯常的 | |
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54
agonize
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| v.使受苦，使苦闷 | |
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55
analyzing
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| v.分析；分析( analyze的现在分词 )；分解；解释；对…进行心理分析n.分析 | |
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56
treasury
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| n.宝库；国库，金库；文库 | |
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57
mansion
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| n.大厦，大楼；宅第 | |
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melancholy
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| n.忧郁，愁思；adj.令人感伤（沮丧）的，忧郁的 | |
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piqued
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| v.伤害…的自尊心( pique的过去式和过去分词 )；激起（好奇心） | |
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tranquil
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| adj. 安静的, 宁静的, 稳定的, 不变的 | |
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facade
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| n.(建筑物的)正面，临街正面；外表 | |
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62
bumming
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| 发哼（声），蜂鸣声 | |
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63
humble
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| adj.谦卑的，恭顺的；地位低下的；v.降低，贬低 | |
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pounced
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| v.突然袭击( pounce的过去式和过去分词 )；猛扑；一眼看出；抓住机会（进行抨击） | |
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tiresome
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| adj.令人疲劳的，令人厌倦的 | |
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supreme
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| adj.极度的，最重要的；至高的，最高的 | |
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theatrical
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| adj.剧场的，演戏的；做戏似的，做作的 | |
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barges
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| 驳船( barge的名词复数 ) | |
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69
licenses
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| n.执照( license的名词复数 )v.批准，许可，颁发执照( license的第三人称单数 ) | |
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resolutely
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| adj.坚决地，果断地 | |
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71
shutters
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| 百叶窗( shutter的名词复数 )； （照相机的）快门 | |
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72
rosy
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| adj.美好的，乐观的，玫瑰色的 | |
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73
plumbing
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| n.水管装置；水暖工的工作；管道工程v.用铅锤测量（plumb的现在分词）；探究 | |
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74
gaped
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| v.目瞪口呆地凝视( gape的过去式和过去分词 )；张开，张大 | |
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75
chilly
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| adj.凉快的，寒冷的 | |
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76
honeymoon
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| n.蜜月（假期）；vi.度蜜月 | |
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77
villa
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| n.别墅，城郊小屋 | |
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78
metallic
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| adj.金属的；金属制的；含金属的；产金属的；像金属的 | |
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79
aloofness
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| 超然态度 | |
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80
enchanted
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| adj. 被施魔法的，陶醉的，入迷的 动词enchant的过去式和过去分词 | |
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valiant
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| adj.勇敢的，英勇的；n.勇士，勇敢的人 | |
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82
treacherous
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| adj.不可靠的，有暗藏的危险的；adj.背叛的，背信弃义的 | |
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83
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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84
visualize
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| vt.使看得见，使具体化，想象，设想 | |
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85
virtue
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| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
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86
conquerors
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| 征服者，占领者( conqueror的名词复数 ) | |
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87
sculptors
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| 雕刻家，雕塑家( sculptor的名词复数 )； [天]玉夫座 | |
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88
softened
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| （使）变软( soften的过去式和过去分词 )； 缓解打击； 缓和； 安慰 | |
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89
sleek
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| adj.光滑的，井然有序的；v.使光滑，梳拢 | |
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90
heroism
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| n.大无畏精神，英勇 | |
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91
bluff
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| v.虚张声势，用假象骗人；n.虚张声势，欺骗 | |
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92
civilized
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| a.有教养的，文雅的 | |
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93
cynical
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| adj.(对人性或动机)怀疑的，不信世道向善的 | |
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94
anthropologist
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| n.人类学家，人类学者 | |
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95
lucrative
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| adj.赚钱的，可获利的 | |
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96
doctrine
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| n.教义；主义；学说 | |
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97
mediating
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| 调停，调解，斡旋( mediate的现在分词 )； 居间促成； 影响…的发生； 使…可能发生 | |
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98
sneak
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| vt.潜行(隐藏,填石缝)；偷偷摸摸做；n.潜行；adj.暗中进行 | |
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99
yokel
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| n.乡下人；农夫 | |
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100
precedent
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| n.先例，前例；惯例；adj.在前的，在先的 | |
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101
solidarity
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| n.团结；休戚相关 | |
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102
serene
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| adj. 安详的，宁静的，平静的 | |
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103
utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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104
tawny
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| adj.茶色的，黄褐色的；n.黄褐色 | |
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105
hatred
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| n.憎恶，憎恨，仇恨 | |
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106
toiling
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| 长时间或辛苦地工作( toil的现在分词 )； 艰难缓慢地移动，跋涉 | |
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107
isolation
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| n.隔离，孤立，分解，分离 | |
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108
compassion
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| n.同情，怜悯 | |
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109
pretense
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| n.矫饰，做作，借口 | |
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110
trumpeted
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| 大声说出或宣告（trumpet的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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111
shanties
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| n.简陋的小木屋( shanty的名词复数 )；铁皮棚屋；船工号子；船歌 | |
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112
tolerance
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| n.宽容；容忍，忍受；耐药力；公差 | |
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113
rimmed
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| adj.有边缘的，有框的v.沿…边缘滚动；给…镶边 | |
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114
splendor
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| n.光彩；壮丽，华丽；显赫，辉煌 | |
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115
crammed
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| adj.塞满的，挤满的；大口地吃；快速贪婪地吃v.把…塞满；填入；临时抱佛脚( cram的过去式) | |
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