“Won’t you take me into your shop?” she asked. “I don’t want to order anything; I only want to inquire after your ’ealth; and isn’t this rather an awkward place to talk?” She made her way further in, without waiting for permission, seeing that her startled hostess had not yet guessed.
“The show-room is on the right hand,” said Miss Pynsent, with her professional manner, which was intended, evidently, to mark a difference. She spoke11 as if on the other side, where the horizon was bounded by the partition of the next house, there were labyrinths13 of apartments. Passing in after her guest she found the young lady already spread out upon the sofa, the everlasting14 sofa, in the right-hand corner as you faced the window, covered with a light, shrunken shroud15 of a strange yellow stuff, the tinge16 of which revealed years of washing, and surmounted17 by a coloured print of Rebekah at the Well, balancing, in the opposite quarter, with a portrait of the Empress of the French, taken from an illustrated18 newspaper and framed and glazed19 in the manner of 1853. Millicent looked about her, asking herself what Miss Pynsent had to show and acting20 perfectly the part of the most brilliant figure the place had ever contained. The old implements21 were there on the table: the pincushions and needle-books; the pink measuring-tape with which, as children, she and Hyacinth used to take each other’s height; and the same collection of fashion-plates (she could see in a minute), crumpled22, sallow and fly-blown. The little dressmaker bristled23, as she used to do, with needles and pins (they were stuck all over the front of her dress), but there were no rustling24 fabrics25 tossed in heaps about the room – nothing but the skirt of a shabby dress (it might have been her own), which she was evidently repairing and had flung upon the table when she came to the door. Miss Henning speedily arrived at the conclusion that her hostess’s business had not increased, and felt a kind of good-humoured, luxurious26 scorn of a person who knew so little what was to be got out of London. It was Millicent’s belief that she herself was already perfectly acquainted with the resources of the metropolis27.
“Now tell me, how is Hyacinth? I should like so much to see him,” she remarked, extending a pair of large protrusive28 feet and supporting herself on the sofa by her hands.
“Hyacinth?” Miss Pynsent repeated, with majestic29 blankness, as if she had never heard of such a person. She felt that the girl was cruelly, scathingly, well dressed; she couldn’t imagine who she was, nor with what design she could have presented herself.
“Perhaps you call him Mr Robinson, to-day – you always wanted him to hold himself so high. But to his face, at any rate, I’ll call him as I used to: you see if I don’t!”
“Bless my soul, you must be the little ’Enning!” Miss Pynsent exclaimed, planted before her and going now into every detail.
“Well, I’m glad you have made up your mind. I thought you’d know me directly. I had a call to make in this part, and it came into my ’ead to look you up. I don’t like to lose sight of old friends.”
“I never knew you – you’ve improved so,” Miss Pynsent rejoined, with a candour justified30 by her age and her consciousness of respectability.
“Well, you haven’t changed; you were always calling me something horrid31.”
“I dare say it doesn’t matter to you now, does it?” said the dressmaker, seating herself, but quite unable to take up her work, absorbed as she was in the examination of her visitor.
“Oh, I’m all right now,” Miss Henning replied, with the air of one who had nothing to fear from human judgments32.
“You were a pretty child – I never said the contrary to that; but I had no idea you’d turn out like this. You’re too tall for a woman,” Miss Pynsent added, much divided between an old prejudice and a new appreciation34.
“Well, I enjoy beautiful ’ealth,” said the young lady; “every one thinks I’m twenty.” She spoke with a certain artless pride in her bigness and her bloom, and as if, to show her development, she would have taken off her jacket or let you feel her upper arm. She was very handsome, with a shining, bold, good-natured eye, a fine, free, facial oval, an abundance of brown hair, and a smile which showed the whiteness of her teeth. Her head was set upon a fair, strong neck, and her tall young figure was rich in feminine curves. Her gloves, covering her wrists insufficiently35, showed the redness of those parts, in the interstices of the numerous silver bracelets36 that encircled them, and Miss Pynsent made the observation that her hands were not more delicate than her feet. She was not graceful37, and even the little dressmaker, whose preference for distinguished38 forms never deserted39 her, indulged in the mental reflection that she was common, for all her magnificence; but there was something about her indescribably fresh, successful and satisfying. She was, to her blunt, expanded finger-tips, a daughter of London, of the crowded streets and hustling40 traffic of the great city; she had drawn41 her health and strength from its dingy42 courts and foggy thoroughfares, and peopled its parks and squares and crescents with her ambitions; it had entered into her blood and her bone, the sound of her voice and the carriage of her head; she understood it by instinct and loved it with passion; she represented its immense vulgarities and curiosities, its brutality43 and its knowingness, its good-nature and its impudence44, and might have figured, in an allegorical procession, as a kind of glorified45 townswoman, a nymph of the wilderness46 of Middlesex, a flower of the accumulated parishes, the genius of urban civilisation47, the muse48 of cockneyism. The restrictions49 under which Miss Pynsent regarded her would have cost the dressmaker some fewer scruples50 if she had guessed the impression she made upon Millicent, and how the whole place seemed to that prosperous young lady to smell of poverty and failure. Her childish image of Miss Pynsent had represented her as delicate and dainty, with round loops of hair fastened on her temples by combs, and associations of brilliancy arising from the constant manipulation of precious stuffs – tissues at least which Millicent regarded with envy. But the little woman before her was bald and white and pinched; she looked shrunken and sickly and insufficiently nourished; her small eyes were sharp and suspicious, and her hideous51 cap did not disguise her meagreness. Miss Henning thanked her stars, as she had often done before, that she had not been obliged to get her living by drudging over needlework year after year in that undiscoverable street, in a dismal52 little room where nothing had been changed for ages; the absence of change had such an exasperating53 effect upon her vigorous young nature. She reflected with complacency upon her good fortune in being attached to a more exciting, a more dramatic, department of the dressmaking business, and noticed that though it was already November there was no fire in the neatly-kept grate beneath the chimney-piece, on which a design, partly architectural, partly botanical, executed in the hair of Miss Pynsent’s parents, was flanked by a pair of vases, under glass, containing muslin flowers.
If she thought Miss Pynsent’s eyes suspicious it must be confessed that this lady felt very much upon her guard in the presence of so unexpected and undesired a reminder54 of one of the least honourable55 episodes in the annals of Lomax Place. Miss Pynsent esteemed56 people in proportion to their success in constituting a family circle – in cases, that is, when the materials were under their hand. This success, among the various members of the house of Henning, had been of the scantiest57, and the domestic broils58 in the establishment adjacent to her own, whose vicissitudes59 she was able to follow, as she sat at her window at work, by simply inclining an ear to the thin partition behind her – these scenes, amid which the crash of crockery and the imprecations of the wounded were frequently audible, had long been the scandal of a humble60 but harmonious61 neighbourhood. Mr Henning was supposed to occupy a place of confidence in a brush-factory, while his wife, at home, occupied herself with the washing and mending of a considerable brood, mainly of sons. But economy and sobriety, and indeed a virtue62 more important still, had never presided at their councils. The freedom and frequency of Mrs Henning’s relations with a stove-polisher in the Euston Road were at least not a secret to a person who lived next door and looked up from her work so often that it was a wonder it was always finished so quickly. The little Hennings, unwashed and unchidden, spent most of their time either in pushing each other into the gutter63 or in running to the public-house at the corner for a pennyworth of gin, and the borrowing propensities64 of their elders were a theme for exclamation65. There was no object of personal or domestic use which Mrs Henning had not at one time or another endeavoured to elicit66 from the dressmaker; beginning with a mattress67, on an occasion when she was about to take to her bed for a considerable period, and ending with a flannel68 petticoat and a pewter teapot. Lomax Place had, eventually, from its over-peeping windows and doorways69, been present at the seizure70, by a long-suffering landlord, of the chattels71 of this interesting family and at the ejectment of the whole insolvent72 group, who departed in a straggling, jeering73, unabashed, cynical74 manner, carrying with them but little of the sympathy of the street. Millicent, whose childish intimacy75 with Hyacinth Robinson Miss Pynsent had always viewed with vague anxiety – she thought the girl a ‘nasty little thing’, and was afraid she would teach the innocent orphan76 low ways – Millicent, with her luxuriant tresses, her precocious77 beauty, her staring, mocking manner on the doorstep, was at this time twelve years of age. She vanished with her vanishing companions; Lomax Place saw them turn the corner, and returned to its occupations with a conviction that they would make shipwreck78 on the outer reefs. But neither spar nor splinter floated back to their former haunts, and they were engulfed79 altogether in the fathomless80 deeps of the town. Miss Pynsent drew a long breath; it was her conviction that none of them would come to any good, and Millicent least of all.
When, therefore, this young lady reappeared, with all the signs of accomplished81 survival, she could not fail to ask herself whether, under a specious82 seeming, the phenomenon did not simply represent the triumph of vice83. She was alarmed, but she would have given her silver thimble to know the girl’s history, and between her alarm and her curiosity she passed an uncomfortable half-hour. She felt that the familiar, mysterious creature was playing with her; revenging herself for former animadversions, for having been snubbed and miscalled by a peering little spinster who now could make no figure beside her. If it was not the triumph of vice it was at least the triumph of impertinence, as well as of youth, health, and a greater acquaintance with the art of dress than Miss Pynsent could boast, for all her ridiculous signboards. She perceived, or she believed she perceived, that Millicent wanted to scare her, to make her think she had come after Hyacinth; that she wished to inveigle84, to corrupt85 him. I should be sorry to impute86 to Miss Henning any motive87 more complicated than the desire to amuse herself, of a Saturday afternoon, by a ramble88 which her vigorous legs had no occasion to deprecate; but it must be confessed that when it occurred to her that Miss Pynsent regarded her as a ravening89 wolf and her early playmate as an unspotted lamb, she laughed out, in her hostess’s anxious face, irrelevantly90 and good-humouredly, without deigning91 to explain. But what, indeed, had she come for, if she had not come after Hyacinth? It was not for the love of the dressmaker’s pretty ways. She remembered the boy and some of their tender passages, and in the wantonness of her full-blown freedom – her attachment92, also, to any tolerable pretext93 for wandering through the streets of London and gazing into shop-windows – she had said to herself that she would dedicate an afternoon to the pleasures of memory, would revisit the scenes of her childhood. She considered that her childhood had ended with the departure of her family from Lomax Place. If the tenants94 of that obscure locality never learned what their banished95 fellows went through, Millicent retained a deep impression of those horrible intermediate years. The family, as a family, had gone down-hill, to the very bottom; and in her humbler moments Millicent sometimes wondered what lucky star had checked her own descent, and indeed enabled her to mount the slope again. In her humbler moments, I say, for as a general thing she was provided with an explanation of any good fortune that might befall her. What was more natural than that a girl should do well when she was at once so handsome and so clever? Millicent thought with compassion96 of the young persons whom a niggardly97 fate had endowed with only one of these advantages. She was good-natured, but she had no idea of gratifying Miss Pynsent’s curiosity; it seemed to her quite a sufficient kindness to stimulate98 it.
She told the dressmaker that she had a high position at a great haberdasher’s in the neighbourhood of Buckingham Palace; she was in the department for jackets and mantles99; she put on all these articles to show them off to the customers, and on her person they appeared to such advantage that nothing she took up ever failed to go off. Miss Pynsent could imagine, from this, how highly her services were prized. She had had a splendid offer from another establishment, in Oxford100 Street, and she was just thinking whether she should accept it. “We have to be beautifully dressed, but I don’t care, because I like to look nice,” she remarked to her hostess, who at the end of half an hour, very grave, behind the clumsy glasses which she had been obliged to wear of late years, seemed still not to know what to make of her. On the subject of her family, of her history during the interval101 that was to be accounted for, the girl was large and vague, and Miss Pynsent saw that the domestic circle had not even a shadow of sanctity for her. She stood on her own feet, and she stood very firm. Her staying so long, her remaining over the half-hour, proved to the dressmaker that she had come for Hyacinth; for poor Amanda gave her as little information as was decent, told her nothing that would encourage or attract. She simply mentioned that Mr Robinson (she was careful to speak of him in that manner) had given his attention to bookbinding, and had served an apprenticeship102 at an establishment where they turned out the best work of that kind that was to be found in London.
“A bookbindery? Laws!” said Miss Henning. “Do you mean they get them up for the shops? Well, I always thought he would have something to do with books.” Then she added, “But I didn’t think he would ever follow a trade.”
“A trade?” cried Miss Pynsent. “You should hear Mr Robinson speak of it. He considers it one of the fine arts.”
Millicent smiled, as if she knew how people often considered things, and remarked that very likely it was tidy, comfortable work, but she couldn’t believe there was much to be seen in it. “Perhaps you will say there is more than there is here,” she went on, finding at last an effect of irritation103, of reprehension104, an implication of aggressive respectability, in the image of the patient dressmaker, sitting for so many years in her close, brown little den10, with the foggy familiarities of Lomax Place on the other side of the pane105. Millicent liked to think that she herself was strong, and she was not strong enough for that.
This allusion106 to her shrunken industry seemed to Miss Pynsent very cruel; but she reflected that it was natural one should be insulted if one talked to a vulgar girl. She judged this young lady in the manner of a person who was not vulgar herself, and if there was a difference between them she was right in feeling it to be in her favour. Miss Pynsent’s ‘cut’, as I have intimated, was not truly fashionable, and in the application of gimp and the distribution of ornament she was not to be trusted; but, morally, she had the best taste in the world. “I haven’t so much work as I used to have, if that’s what you mean. My eyes are not so good, and my health has failed with advancing years.”
I know not to what extent Millicent was touched by the dignity of this admission, but she replied, without embarrassment107, that what Miss Pynsent wanted was a smart young assistant, some nice girl with a pretty taste, who would brighten up the business and give her new ideas. “I can see you have got the same old ones, always: I can tell that by the way you have stuck the braid on that dress;” and she directed a poke12 of her neat little umbrella to the drapery in the dressmaker’s lap. She continued to patronise and exasperate108 her, and to offer her consolation109 and encouragement with the heaviest hand that had ever been applied110 to Miss Pynsent’s sensitive surface. Poor Amanda ended by gazing at her as if she were a public performer of some kind, a ballad-singer or a conjurer, and went so far as to ask herself whether the hussy could be (in her own mind) the ‘nice girl’ who was to regild the tarnished111 sign. Miss Pynsent had had assistants, in the past – she had even, once, for a few months, had a ‘forewoman’; and some of these damsels had been precious specimens112, whose misdemeanours lived vividly113 in her memory. Never, all the same, in her worst hour of delusion114, had she trusted her interests to such an extravagant115 baggage as this. She was quickly reassured116 as to Millicent’s own views, perceiving more and more that she was a tremendous highflyer, who required a much larger field of action than the musty bower117 she now honoured, heaven only knew why, with her presence. Miss Pynsent held her tongue, as she always did, when the sorrow of her life had been touched, the thought of the slow, inexorable decline on which she had entered that day, nearly ten years before, when her hesitations118 and scruples resolved themselves into a hideous mistake. The deep conviction of error, on that unspeakably important occasion, had ached and throbbed119 within her ever since like an incurable120 disease. She had sown in her boy’s mind the seeds of shame and rancour; she had made him conscious of his stigma121, of his exquisitely122 vulnerable spot, and condemned123 him to know that for him the sun would never shine as it shone for most others. By the time he was sixteen years old she had learned – or believed she had learned – the judgment33 he passed upon her, and at that period she had lived through a series of horrible months, an ordeal124 in which every element of her old prosperity perished. She cried her eyes out, on coming to a sense of her aberration125, blinded and weakened herself with weeping, so that for a moment it seemed as if she should never be able to touch a needle again. She lost all interest in her work, and that artistic126 imagination which had always been her pride deserted her, together with the reputation of keeping the tidiest lodgings127 in Lomax Place. A couple of commercial gentlemen and a Welsh plumber128, of religious tendencies, who for several years had made her establishment their home, withdrew their patronage129 on the ground that the airing of her beds was not what it used to be, and disseminated130 cruelly this injurious legend. She ceased to notice or to care how sleeves were worn, and on the question of flounces and gores131 her mind was a blank. She fell into a grievous debility, and then into a long, low, languid fever, during which Hyacinth tended her with a devotion which only made the wrong she had done him seem more bitter, and in which, so soon as she was able to hold up her head a little, Mr Vetch came and sat with her through the dull hours of convalescence132. She re-established to a certain extent, after a while, her connection, so far as the letting of her rooms was concerned (from the other department of her activity the tide had ebbed133 apparently134 forever); but nothing was the same again, and she knew it was the beginning of the end. So it had gone on, and she watched the end approach; she felt it was very near indeed when a child she had seen playing in the gutters135 came to flaunt136 it over her in silk and lace. She gave a low, inaudible sigh of relief when at last Millicent got up and stood before her, smoothing the glossy137 cylinder138 of her umbrella.
“Mind you give my love to Hyacinth,” the girl said, with an assurance which showed all her insensibility to tacit protests. “I don’t care if you do guess that if I have stopped so long it was in the hope he would be dropping in to his tea. You can tell him I sat an hour, on purpose, if you like; there’s no shame in my wanting to see my little friend. He may know I call him that!” Millicent continued, with her show-room laugh, as Miss Pynsent judged it to be; conferring these permissions, successively, as if they were great indulgences. “Do give him my love, and tell him I hope he’ll come and see me. I see you won’t tell him anything. I don’t know what you’re afraid of; but I’ll leave my card for him, all the same.” She drew forth139 a little bright-coloured pocket-book, and it was with amazement140 that Miss Pynsent saw her extract from it a morsel141 of engraved142 pasteboard – so monstrous143 did it seem that one of the squalid little Hennings should have lived to display this emblem144 of social consideration. Millicent enjoyed the effect she produced as she laid the card on the table, and gave another ringing peal145 of merriment at the sight of her hostess’s half-angry, half-astonished look. “What do you think I want to do with him? I could swallow him at a single bite!” she cried.
Poor Amanda gave no second glance at the document on the table, though she had perceived it contained, in the corner, her visitor’s address, which Millicent had amused herself, ingeniously, with not mentioning: she only got up, laying down her work with a trembling hand, so that she should be able to see Miss Henning well out of the house. “You needn’t think I shall put myself out to keep him in the dark. I shall certainly tell him you have been here, and exactly how you strike me.”
“Of course you’ll say something nasty – like you used to when I was a child. You let me ’ave it then, you know!”
“Ah, well,” said Miss Pynsent, nettled146 at being reminded of an acerbity147 which the girl’s present development caused to appear ridiculously ineffectual, “you are very different now, when I think what you’ve come from.”
“What I’ve come from?” Millicent threw back her head, and opened her eyes very wide, while all her feathers and ribbons nodded. “Did you want me to stick fast in this low place for the rest of my days? You have had to stay in it yourself, so you might speak civilly of it.” She coloured, and raised her voice, and looked magnificent in her scorn. “And pray what have you come from yourself, and what has he come from – the mysterious ‘Mr Robinson’, that used to be such a puzzle to the whole Place? I thought perhaps I might clear it up, but you haven’t told me that yet!”
Miss Pynsent turned straight away, covering her ears with her hands. “I have nothing to tell you! Leave my room – leave my house!” she cried, with a trembling voice.
点击
收听单词发音
收听单词发音 |
1
tattered
|
|
| adj.破旧的，衣衫破的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
2
streaks
|
|
| n.（与周围有所不同的）条纹( streak的名词复数 )；（通常指不好的）特征（倾向）；（不断经历成功或失败的）一段时期v.快速移动( streak的第三人称单数 )；使布满条纹 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
3
resolute
|
|
| adj.坚决的，果敢的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
4
preposterous
|
|
| adj.荒谬的，可笑的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
5
fascination
|
|
| n.令人着迷的事物，魅力，迷恋 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
6
ornament
|
|
| v.装饰，美化；n.装饰，装饰物 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
7
specimen
|
|
| n.样本，标本 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
8
admiration
|
|
| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
9
perfectly
|
|
| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
10
den
|
|
| n.兽穴；秘密地方；安静的小房间，私室 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
11
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： |
|
|
|
|
12
poke
|
|
| n.刺，戳，袋；vt.拨开，刺，戳；vi.戳，刺，捅，搜索，伸出，行动散慢 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
13
labyrinths
|
|
| 迷宫( labyrinth的名词复数 )； （文字，建筑）错综复杂的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
14
everlasting
|
|
| adj.永恒的，持久的，无止境的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
15
shroud
|
|
| n.裹尸布，寿衣；罩，幕；vt.覆盖，隐藏 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
16
tinge
|
|
| vt.(较淡)着色于，染色；使带有…气息；n.淡淡色彩，些微的气息 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
17
surmounted
|
|
| 战胜( surmount的过去式和过去分词 )； 克服（困难）； 居于…之上； 在…顶上 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
18
illustrated
|
|
| adj. 有插图的，列举的 动词illustrate的过去式和过去分词 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
19
glazed
|
|
| adj.光滑的，像玻璃的；上过釉的；呆滞无神的v.装玻璃( glaze的过去式)；上釉于，上光；（目光）变得呆滞无神 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
20
acting
|
|
| n.演戏，行为，假装；adj.代理的，临时的，演出用的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
21
implements
|
|
| n.工具( implement的名词复数 )；家具；手段；[法律]履行（契约等）v.实现( implement的第三人称单数 )；执行；贯彻；使生效 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
22
crumpled
|
|
| adj. 弯扭的, 变皱的 动词crumple的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
23
bristled
|
|
| adj. 直立的，多刺毛的 动词bristle的过去式和过去分词 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
24
rustling
|
|
| n. 瑟瑟声，沙沙声 adj. 发沙沙声的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
25
fabrics
|
|
| 织物( fabric的名词复数 )； 布； 构造； （建筑物的）结构（如墙、地面、屋顶）：质地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
26
luxurious
|
|
| adj.精美而昂贵的；豪华的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
27
metropolis
|
|
| n.首府；大城市 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
28
protrusive
|
|
| adj.伸出的，突出的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
29
majestic
|
|
| adj.雄伟的，壮丽的，庄严的，威严的，崇高的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
30
justified
|
|
| a.正当的，有理的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
31
horrid
|
|
| adj.可怕的；令人惊恐的；恐怖的；极讨厌的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
32
judgments
|
|
| 判断( judgment的名词复数 )； 鉴定； 评价； 审判 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
33
judgment
|
|
| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
34
appreciation
|
|
| n.评价；欣赏；感谢；领会，理解；价格上涨 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
35
insufficiently
|
|
| adv.不够地，不能胜任地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
36
bracelets
|
|
| n.手镯，臂镯( bracelet的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
37
graceful
|
|
| adj.优美的，优雅的；得体的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
38
distinguished
|
|
| adj.卓越的，杰出的，著名的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
39
deserted
|
|
| adj.荒芜的，荒废的，无人的，被遗弃的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
40
hustling
|
|
| 催促（hustle的现在分词形式） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
41
drawn
|
|
| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
42
dingy
|
|
| adj.昏暗的，肮脏的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
43
brutality
|
|
| n.野蛮的行为，残忍，野蛮 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
44
impudence
|
|
| n.厚颜无耻；冒失；无礼 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
45
glorified
|
|
| 美其名的，变荣耀的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
46
wilderness
|
|
| n.杳无人烟的一片陆地、水等，荒漠 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
47
civilisation
|
|
| n.文明，文化，开化，教化 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
48
muse
|
|
| n.缪斯（希腊神话中的女神），创作灵感 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
49
restrictions
|
|
| 约束( restriction的名词复数 )； 管制； 制约因素； 带限制性的条件（或规则） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
50
scruples
|
|
| n.良心上的不安( scruple的名词复数 )；顾虑，顾忌v.感到于心不安，有顾忌( scruple的第三人称单数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
51
hideous
|
|
| adj.丑陋的，可憎的，可怕的，恐怖的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
52
dismal
|
|
| adj.阴沉的，凄凉的，令人忧郁的，差劲的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
53
exasperating
|
|
| adj. 激怒的 动词exasperate的现在分词形式 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
54
reminder
|
|
| n.提醒物，纪念品；暗示，提示 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
55
honourable
|
|
| adj.可敬的；荣誉的，光荣的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
56
esteemed
|
|
| adj.受人尊敬的v.尊敬( esteem的过去式和过去分词 )；敬重；认为；以为 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
57
scantiest
|
|
| adj.（大小或数量）不足的，勉强够的( scanty的最高级 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
58
broils
|
|
| v.（用火）烤（焙、炙等）( broil的第三人称单数 )；使卷入争吵；使混乱；被烤（或炙） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
59
vicissitudes
|
|
| n.变迁，世事变化；变迁兴衰( vicissitude的名词复数 )；盛衰兴废 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
60
humble
|
|
| adj.谦卑的，恭顺的；地位低下的；v.降低，贬低 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
61
harmonious
|
|
| adj.和睦的，调和的，和谐的，协调的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
62
virtue
|
|
| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
63
gutter
|
|
| n.沟，街沟，水槽，檐槽，贫民窟 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
64
propensities
|
|
| n.倾向，习性( propensity的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
65
exclamation
|
|
| n.感叹号，惊呼，惊叹词 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
66
elicit
|
|
| v.引出,抽出,引起 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
67
mattress
|
|
| n.床垫，床褥 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
68
flannel
|
|
| n.法兰绒；法兰绒衣服 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
69
doorways
|
|
| n.门口，门道( doorway的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
70
seizure
|
|
| n.没收；占有；抵押 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
71
chattels
|
|
| n.动产，奴隶( chattel的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
72
insolvent
|
|
| adj.破产的，无偿还能力的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
73
jeering
|
|
| adj.嘲弄的，揶揄的v.嘲笑( jeer的现在分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
74
cynical
|
|
| adj.(对人性或动机)怀疑的，不信世道向善的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
75
intimacy
|
|
| n.熟悉，亲密，密切关系，亲昵的言行 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
76
orphan
|
|
| n.孤儿；adj.无父母的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
77
precocious
|
|
| adj.早熟的；较早显出的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
78
shipwreck
|
|
| n.船舶失事，海难 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
79
engulfed
|
|
| v.吞没，包住( engulf的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
80
fathomless
|
|
| a.深不可测的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
81
accomplished
|
|
| adj.有才艺的；有造诣的；达到了的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
82
specious
|
|
| adj.似是而非的；adv.似是而非地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
83
vice
|
|
| n.坏事；恶习；[pl.]台钳，老虎钳；adj.副的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
84
inveigle
|
|
| v.诱骗 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
85
corrupt
|
|
| v.贿赂，收买；adj.腐败的，贪污的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
86
impute
|
|
| v.归咎于 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
87
motive
|
|
| n.动机，目的；adv.发动的，运动的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
88
ramble
|
|
| v.漫步，漫谈，漫游；n.漫步，闲谈，蔓延 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
89
ravening
|
|
| a.贪婪而饥饿的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
90
irrelevantly
|
|
| adv.不恰当地，不合适地；不相关地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
91
deigning
|
|
| v.屈尊，俯就( deign的现在分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
92
attachment
|
|
| n.附属物，附件；依恋；依附 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
93
pretext
|
|
| n.借口，托词 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
94
tenants
|
|
| n.房客( tenant的名词复数 )；佃户；占用者；占有者 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
95
banished
|
|
| v.放逐，驱逐( banish的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
96
compassion
|
|
| n.同情，怜悯 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
97
niggardly
|
|
| adj.吝啬的，很少的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
98
stimulate
|
|
| vt.刺激，使兴奋；激励，使…振奋 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
99
mantles
|
|
| vt.&vi.覆盖（mantle的第三人称单数形式） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
100
Oxford
|
|
| n.牛津（英国城市） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
101
interval
|
|
| n.间隔，间距；幕间休息，中场休息 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
102
apprenticeship
|
|
| n.学徒身份；学徒期 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
103
irritation
|
|
| n.激怒，恼怒，生气 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
104
reprehension
|
|
| n.非难，指责 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
|
105
pane
|
|
| n.窗格玻璃，长方块 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
106
allusion
|
|
| n.暗示，间接提示 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
107
embarrassment
|
|
| n.尴尬；使人为难的人(事物)；障碍；窘迫 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
108
exasperate
|
|
| v.激怒，使（疾病）加剧，使恶化 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
109
consolation
|
|
| n.安慰，慰问 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
110
applied
|
|
| adj.应用的；v.应用，适用 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
111
tarnished
|
|
| （通常指金属）（使）失去光泽，（使）变灰暗( tarnish的过去式和过去分词 )； 玷污，败坏 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
112
specimens
|
|
| n.样品( specimen的名词复数 )；范例；（化验的）抽样；某种类型的人 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
113
vividly
|
|
| adv.清楚地，鲜明地，生动地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
114
delusion
|
|
| n.谬见，欺骗，幻觉，迷惑 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
115
extravagant
|
|
| adj.奢侈的；过分的；(言行等)放肆的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
116
reassured
|
|
| adj.使消除疑虑的；使放心的v.再保证，恢复信心( reassure的过去式和过去分词) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
117
bower
|
|
| n.凉亭，树荫下凉快之处；闺房；v.荫蔽 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
118
hesitations
|
|
| n.犹豫( hesitation的名词复数 )；踌躇；犹豫（之事或行为）；口吃 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
119
throbbed
|
|
| 抽痛( throb的过去式和过去分词 )； （心脏、脉搏等）跳动 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
120
incurable
|
|
| adj.不能医治的，不能矫正的，无救的；n.不治的病人，无救的人 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
121
stigma
|
|
| n.耻辱，污名；(花的)柱头 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
122
exquisitely
|
|
| adv.精致地；强烈地；剧烈地；异常地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
123
condemned
|
|
| adj. 被责难的, 被宣告有罪的 动词condemn的过去式和过去分词 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
124
ordeal
|
|
| n.苦难经历，（尤指对品格、耐力的）严峻考验 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
125
aberration
|
|
| n.离开正路，脱离常规，色差 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
126
artistic
|
|
| adj.艺术(家)的，美术(家)的；善于艺术创作的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
127
lodgings
|
|
| n. 出租的房舍, 寄宿舍 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
128
plumber
|
|
| n.(装修水管的)管子工 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
129
patronage
|
|
| n.赞助，支援，援助；光顾，捧场 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
130
disseminated
|
|
| 散布，传播( disseminate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
131
gores
|
|
| n.（动物）用角撞伤，用牙刺破( gore的名词复数 )v.（动物）用角撞伤，用牙刺破( gore的第三人称单数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
132
convalescence
|
|
| n.病后康复期 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
133
ebbed
|
|
| （指潮水）退( ebb的过去式和过去分词 )； 落； 减少； 衰落 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
134
apparently
|
|
| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
135
gutters
|
|
| （路边）排水沟( gutter的名词复数 )； 阴沟； （屋顶的）天沟； 贫贱的境地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
136
flaunt
|
|
| vt.夸耀，夸饰 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
137
glossy
|
|
| adj.平滑的；有光泽的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
138
cylinder
|
|
| n.圆筒，柱(面)，汽缸 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
139
forth
|
|
| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
140
amazement
|
|
| n.惊奇，惊讶 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
141
morsel
|
|
| n.一口，一点点 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
142
engraved
|
|
| v.在（硬物）上雕刻（字，画等）( engrave的过去式和过去分词 )；将某事物深深印在（记忆或头脑中） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
143
monstrous
|
|
| adj.巨大的；恐怖的；可耻的，丢脸的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
144
emblem
|
|
| n.象征，标志；徽章 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
145
peal
|
|
| n.钟声；v.鸣响 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
146
nettled
|
|
| v.拿荨麻打，拿荨麻刺（nettle的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
147
acerbity
|
|
| n.涩，酸，刻薄 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
| 欢迎访问英文小说网 |