‘You are Romola de’ Bardi, the wife of Tito Melema.’
She knew the voice: it had vibrated through her more than once before; and because she knew it, she did not turn round or look up. She sat shaken by awe5, and yet inwardly rebelling against the awe. It was one of those black-skirted monks7 who was daring to speak to her, and interfere8 with her privacy: that was all. And yet she was shaken, as if that destiny which men thought of as a sceptred deity9 had come to her, and grasped her with fingers of flesh.
‘You are fleeing from Florence in disguise. I have a command from God to stop you. You are not permitted to flee.’
Romola’s anger at the intrusion mounted higher at these imperative10 words. She would not turn round to look at the speaker, whose examining gaze she resented. Sitting quite motionless, she said —
‘What right have you to speak to me, or to hinder me?’
‘The right of a messenger. You have put on a religious garb11, and you have no religious purpose. You have sought the garb as a disguise. But you were not suffered to pass me without being discerned. It was declared to me who you were: it is declared to me that you are seeking to escape from the lot God has laid upon you. You wish your true name and your true place in life to be hidden, that you may choose for yourself a new name and a new place, and have no rule but your own will. And I have a command to call you back. My daughter, you must return to your place.’
Romola’s mind rose in stronger rebellion with every sentence. She was the more determined12 not to show any sign of submission13, because the consciousness of being inwardly shaken made her dread14 lest she should fall into irresolution15. She spoke16 with more irritation17 than before.
‘I will not return. I acknowledge no right of priests and monks to interfere with my actions. You have no power over me.’
‘I know — I know you have been brought up in scorn of obedience18. But it is not the poor monk6 who claims to interfere with you: it is the truth that commands you. And you cannot escape it. Either you must obey it, and it will lead you; or you must disobey it, and it will hang on you with the weight of a chain which you will drag for ever. But you will obey it, my daughter. Your old servant will return to you with the mules19; my companion is gone to fetch him; and you will go back to Florence.’
She started up with anger in her eyes, and faced the speaker. It was Fra Girolamo: she knew that well enough before. She was nearly as tall as he was, and their faces were almost on a level. She had started up with defiant20 words ready to burst from her lips, but they fell back again without utterance21. She had met Fra Girolamo’s calm glance, and the impression from it was so new to her, that her anger sank ashamed as something irrelevant22.
There was nothing transcendent in Savonarola’s face. It was not beautiful. It was strong-featured, and owed all its refinement23 to habits of mind and rigid24 discipline of the body. The source of the impression his glance produced on Romola was the sense it conveyed to her of interest in her and care for her apart from any personal feeling. It was the first time she had encountered a gaze in which simple human fellowship expressed itself as a strongly-felt bond. Such a glance is half the vocation25 of the priest or spiritual guide of men, and Romola felt it impossible again to question his authority to speak to her. She stood silent, looking at him. And he spoke again.
‘You assert your freedom proudly, my daughter. But who is so base as the debtor26 that thinks himself free?’
There was a sting in those words, and Romola’s countenance27 changed as if a subtle pale flash had gone over it.
‘And you are flying from your debts: the debt of a Florentine woman; the debt of a wife. You are turning your back on the lot that has been appointed for you — you are going to choose another. But can man or woman choose duties? No more than they can choose their birthplace or their father and mother. My daughter, you are fleeing from the presence of God into the wilderness28.’
As the anger melted from Romola’s mind, it had given place to a new presentiment29 of the strength there might be in submission, if this man, at whom she was beginning to look with a vague reverence30, had some valid31 law to show her. But no — it was impossible; he could not know what determined her. Yet she could not again simply refuse to be guided; she was constrained32 to plead; and in her new need to be reverent33 while she resisted, the title which she had never given him before came to her lips without forethought.
‘My father, you cannot know the reasons which compel me to go. None can know them but myself. None can judge for me. I have been driven by great sorrow. I am resolved to go.’
‘I know enough, my daughter: my mind has been so far illuminated34 concerning you, that I know enough. You are not happy in your married life; but I am not a confessor, and I seek to know nothing that should be reserved for the seal of confession35. I have a divine warrant to stop you, which does not depend on such knowledge. You were warned by a message from heaven, delivered in my presence — you were warned before marriage, when you might still have lawfully36 chosen to be free from the marriage-bond. But you chose the bond; and in wilfully38 breaking it — I speak to you as a pagan, if the holy mystery of matrimony is not sacred to you — you are breaking a pledge. Of what wrongs will you complain, my daughter, when you yourself are committing one of the greatest wrongs a woman and a citizen can be guilty of — withdrawing in secrecy39 and disguise from a pledge which you have given in the face of God and your fellowmen? Of what wrongs will you complain, when you yourself are breaking the simplest law that lies at the foundation of the trust which binds40 man to man — faithfulness to the spoken word? This, then, is the wisdom you have gained by scorning the mysteries of the Church? — not to see the bare duty of integrity, where the Church would have taught you to see, not integrity only, but religion.’
The blood had rushed to Romola’s face, and she shrank as if she had been stricken. ‘I would not have put on a disguise,’ she began; but she could not go on, — she was too much shaken by the suggestion in the Frate’s words of a possible affinity41 between her own conduct and Tito’s.
‘And to break that pledge you fly from Florence: Florence, where there are the only men and women in the world to whom you owe the debt of a fellow-citizen.’
‘I should never have quitted Florence,’ said Romola, tremulously, ‘as long as there was any hope of my fulfilling a duty to my father there.’
‘And do you own no tie but that of a child to her father in the flesh? Your life has been spent in blindness, my daughter. You have lived with those who sit on a hill aloof42, and look down on the life of their fellow-men. I know their vain discourse43. It is of what has been in the times which they fill with their own fancied wisdom, while they scorn God’s work in the present. And doubtless you were taught how there were pagan women who felt what it was to live for the Republic; yet you have never felt that you, a Florentine woman, should live for Florence. If your own people are wearing a yoke44, will you slip from under it, instead of struggling with them to lighten it? There is hunger and misery45 in our streets, yet you say, “I care not; I have my own sorrows; I will go away, if peradventure I can ease them.” The servants of God are struggling after a law of justice, peace, and charity, that the hundred thousand citizens among whom you were born may be governed righteously; but you think no more of this than if you were a bird, that may spread its wings and fly whither it will in search of food to its liking46. And yet you have scorned the teaching of the Church, my daughter. As if you, a wilful37 wanderer, following your own blind choice, were not below the humblest Florentine woman who stretches forth47 her hands with her own people, and craves48 a blessing49 for them; and feels a close sisterhood with the neighbour who kneels beside her and is not of her own blood; and thinks of the mighty50 purpose that God has for Florence; and waits and endures because the promised work is great, and she feels herself little.’
‘I was not going away to ease and self-indulgence,’ said Romola, raising her head again, with a prompting to vindicate51 herself. ‘I was going away to hardship. I expect no joy: it is gone from my life.’
‘You are seeking your own will, my daughter. You are seeking some good other than the law you are bound to obey. But how will you find good? It is not a thing of choice: it is a river that flows from the foot of the Invisible Throne, and flows by the path of obedience. I say again, man cannot choose his duties. You may choose to forsake52 your duties, and choose not to have the sorrow they bring. But you will go forth; and what will you find, my daughter? Sorrow without duty — bitter herbs, and no bread with them.
‘But if you knew,’ said Romola, clasping her hands and pressing them tight, as she looked pleadingly at Fra Girolamo; ‘if you knew what it was to me — how impossible it seemed to me to bear it.’
‘My daughter,’ he said, pointing to the cord round Romola’s neck, ‘you carry something within your mantle53; draw it forth, and look at it.’
Romola gave a slight start, but her impulse now was to do just what Savonarola told her. Her self-doubt was grappled by a stronger will and a stronger conviction than her own. She drew forth the crucifix. Still pointing towards it, he said —
‘There, my daughter, is the image of a Supreme54 Offering, made by Supreme Love, because the need of man was great.’
He paused, and she held the crucifix trembling — trembling under a sudden impression of the wide distance between her present and her past self. What a length of road she had travelled through since she first took that crucifix from the Frate’s hands! Had life as many secrets before her still as it had for her then, in her young blindness? It was a thought that helped all other subduing55 influences — and at the sound of Fra Girolamo’s voice again, Romola, with a quick involuntary movement, pressed the crucifix against her mantle and looked at him with more submission than before.
‘Conform your life to that image, my daughter; make your sorrow an offering: and when the fire of Divine charity burns within you, and you behold56 the need of your fellow-men by the light of that flame, you will not call your offering great. You have carried yourself proudly, as one who held herself not of common blood or of common thoughts; but you have been as one unborn to the true life of man. What! you say your love for your father no longer tells you to stay in Florence? Then, since that tie is snapped, you are without a law, without religion: you are no better than a beast of the field when she is robbed of her young. If the yearning57 of a fleshly love is gone, you are without love, without obligation. See, then, my daughter, how you are below the life of the believer who worships that image of the Supreme Offering, and feels the glow of a common life with the lost multitude for whom that offering was made, and beholds58 the history of the world as the history of a great redemption in which he is himself a fellow-worker, in his own place and among his own people! If you held that faith, my beloved daughter, you would not be a wanderer flying from suffering and blindly seeking the good of a freedom which is lawlessness. You would feel that Florence was the home of your soul as well as your birthplace, because you would see the work that was given you to do there. If you forsake your place, who will fill it? You ought to be in your place now, helping59 in the great work by which God will purify Florence, and raise it to be the guide of the nations. What! the earth is full of iniquity60 — full of groans61 — the light is still struggling with a mighty darkness, and you say “I cannot bear my bonds; I will burst them asunder62; I will go where no man claims me”? My daughter, every bond of your life is a debt: the right lies in the payment of that debt; it can lie nowhere else. In vain will you wander over the earth; you will be wandering for ever away from the right.’
Romola was inwardly struggling with strong forces: that immense personal influence of Savonarola, which came from the energy of his emotions and beliefs; and her consciousness, surmounting63 all prejudice, that his words implied a higher law than any she had yet obeyed. But the resisting thoughts were not yet overborne.
‘How, then, could Dino be right? He broke ties. He forsook64 his place.’
‘That was a special vocation. He was constrained to depart, else he could not have attained65 the higher life. It would have been stifled66 within him.’
‘And I too,’ said Romola, raising her hands to her brow, and speaking in a tone of anguish67, as if she were being dragged to some torture. ‘Father, you may be wrong.’
‘Ask your conscience, my daughter. You have no vocation such as your brother had. You are a wife. You seek to break your ties in self-will and anger, not because the higher life calls upon you to renounce68 them. The higher life begins for us, my daughter, when we renounce our own will to bow before a Divine law. That seems hard to you. It is the portal of wisdom, and freedom, and blessedness. And the symbol of it hangs before you. That wisdom is the religion of the Cross. And you stand aloof from it: you are a pagan; you have been taught to say, “I am as the wise men who lived before the time when the Jew of Nazareth was crucified.” And that is your wisdom! To be as the dead whose eyes are closed, and whose ear is deaf to the work of God that has been since their time. What has your dead wisdom done for you, my daughter? It has left you without a heart for the neighbours among whom you dwell, without care for the great work by which Florcnce is to be regenerated69 and the world made holy; it has left you without a share in the Divine life which quenches70 the sense of suffering Self in the ardours of an ever-growing love. And now, when the sword has pierced your soul, you say, “I will go away; I cannot bear my sorrow.” And you think nothing of the sorrow and the wrong that are within the walls of the city where you dwell: you would leave your place empty, when it ought to be filled with your pity and your labour. If there is wickedness in the streets, your steps should shine with the light of purity; if there is a cry of anguish, you, my daughter, because you know the meaning of the cry, should be there to still it. My beloved daughter, sorrow has come to teach you a new worship: the sign of it hangs before you.’
Romola’s mind was still torn by conflict. She foresaw that she should obey Savonarola and go back: his words had come to her as if they were an interpretation71 of that revulsion from self-satisfied ease, and of that new fellowship with suffering, which had already been awakened72 in her. His arresting voice had brought a new condition into her life which made it seem impossible to her that she could go on her way as if she had not heard it; yet she shrank as one who sees the path she must take, but sees, too, that the hot lava73 lies there. And the instinctive74 shrinking from a return to her husband brought doubts. She turned away her eyes from Fra Girolamo, and stood for a minute or two with her hands hanging clasped before her, like a statue. At last she spoke, as if the words were being wrung75 from her, still looking on the ground.
‘My husband . . . he is not . . . my love is gone! ’
‘My daughter, there is the bond of a higher love. Marriage is not carnal only, made for selfish delight. See what that thought leads you to! It leads you to wander away in a false garb from all the obligations of your place and name. That would not have been, if you had learned that it is a sacramental vow76, from which none but God can release you. My daughter, your life is not as a grain of sand, to be blown by the winds; it is a thing of flesh and blood, that dies if it be sundered77. Your husband is not a malefactor78?’
Romola started. ‘Heaven forbid! No, I accuse him of nothing.’
‘I did not suppose he was a malefactor. I meant, that if he were a malefactor, your place would be in the prison beside him. My daughter, if the cross comes to you as a wife, you must carry it as a wife. You may say, “I will forsake my husband,” but you cannot cease to be a wife.’
‘Yet if — oh, how could I bear —’ Romola had involuntarily begun to say something which she sought to banish79 from her mind again.
‘Make your marriage-sorrows an offering too, my daughter: an offering to the great work by which sin and sorrow are being made to cease. The end is sure, and is already beginning. Here in Florence it is beginning, and the eyes of faith behold it. And it may be our blessedness to die for it: to die daily by the crucifixion of our selfish will — to die at last by laying our bodies on the altar. My daughter, you are a child of Florence; fulfil the duties of that great inheritance. Live for Florence — for your own people, whom God is preparing to bless the earth. Bear the anguish and the smart. The iron is sharp — I know, I know — it rends80 the tender flesh. The draught81 is bitterness on the lips. But there is rapture82 in the cup — there is the vision which makes all life below it dross83 for ever. Come, my daughter, come back to your place!’
While Savonarola spoke with growing intensity84, his arms tightly folded before him still, as they had been from the first, but his face alight as from an inward flame, Romola felt herself surrounded and possessed85 by the glow of his passionate86 faith. The chill doubts all melted away; she was subdued87 by the sense of something unspeakably great to which she was being called by a strong being who roused a new strength within herself. In a voice that was like a low, prayerful cry, she said —
‘Father, I will be guided. Teach me! I will go back.’
Almost unconsciously she sank on her knees. Savonarola stretched out his hands over her; but feeling would no longer pass through the channel of speech, and he was silent.
点击收听单词发音
1 cypress | |
n.柏树 | |
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2 conspired | |
密谋( conspire的过去式和过去分词 ); 搞阴谋; (事件等)巧合; 共同导致 | |
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3 solitude | |
n. 孤独; 独居,荒僻之地,幽静的地方 | |
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4 gulf | |
n.海湾;深渊,鸿沟;分歧,隔阂 | |
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5 awe | |
n.敬畏,惊惧;vt.使敬畏,使惊惧 | |
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6 monk | |
n.和尚,僧侣,修道士 | |
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7 monks | |
n.修道士,僧侣( monk的名词复数 ) | |
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8 interfere | |
v.(in)干涉,干预;(with)妨碍,打扰 | |
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9 deity | |
n.神,神性;被奉若神明的人(或物) | |
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10 imperative | |
n.命令,需要;规则;祈使语气;adj.强制的;紧急的 | |
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11 garb | |
n.服装,装束 | |
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12 determined | |
adj.坚定的;有决心的 | |
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13 submission | |
n.服从,投降;温顺,谦虚;提出 | |
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14 dread | |
vt.担忧,忧虑;惧怕,不敢;n.担忧,畏惧 | |
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15 irresolution | |
n.不决断,优柔寡断,犹豫不定 | |
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16 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 | |
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17 irritation | |
n.激怒,恼怒,生气 | |
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18 obedience | |
n.服从,顺从 | |
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19 mules | |
骡( mule的名词复数 ); 拖鞋; 顽固的人; 越境运毒者 | |
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20 defiant | |
adj.无礼的,挑战的 | |
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21 utterance | |
n.用言语表达,话语,言语 | |
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22 irrelevant | |
adj.不恰当的,无关系的,不相干的 | |
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23 refinement | |
n.文雅;高尚;精美;精制;精炼 | |
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24 rigid | |
adj.严格的,死板的;刚硬的,僵硬的 | |
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25 vocation | |
n.职业,行业 | |
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26 debtor | |
n.借方,债务人 | |
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27 countenance | |
n.脸色,面容;面部表情;vt.支持,赞同 | |
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28 wilderness | |
n.杳无人烟的一片陆地、水等,荒漠 | |
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29 presentiment | |
n.预感,预觉 | |
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30 reverence | |
n.敬畏,尊敬,尊严;Reverence:对某些基督教神职人员的尊称;v.尊敬,敬畏,崇敬 | |
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31 valid | |
adj.有确实根据的;有效的;正当的,合法的 | |
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32 constrained | |
adj.束缚的,节制的 | |
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33 reverent | |
adj.恭敬的,虔诚的 | |
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34 illuminated | |
adj.被照明的;受启迪的 | |
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35 confession | |
n.自白,供认,承认 | |
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36 lawfully | |
adv.守法地,合法地;合理地 | |
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37 wilful | |
adj.任性的,故意的 | |
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38 wilfully | |
adv.任性固执地;蓄意地 | |
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39 secrecy | |
n.秘密,保密,隐蔽 | |
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40 binds | |
v.约束( bind的第三人称单数 );装订;捆绑;(用长布条)缠绕 | |
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41 affinity | |
n.亲和力,密切关系 | |
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42 aloof | |
adj.远离的;冷淡的,漠不关心的 | |
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43 discourse | |
n.论文,演说;谈话;话语;vi.讲述,著述 | |
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44 yoke | |
n.轭;支配;v.给...上轭,连接,使成配偶 | |
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45 misery | |
n.痛苦,苦恼,苦难;悲惨的境遇,贫苦 | |
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46 liking | |
n.爱好;嗜好;喜欢 | |
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47 forth | |
adv.向前;向外,往外 | |
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48 craves | |
渴望,热望( crave的第三人称单数 ); 恳求,请求 | |
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49 blessing | |
n.祈神赐福;祷告;祝福,祝愿 | |
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50 mighty | |
adj.强有力的;巨大的 | |
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51 vindicate | |
v.为…辩护或辩解,辩明;证明…正确 | |
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52 forsake | |
vt.遗弃,抛弃;舍弃,放弃 | |
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53 mantle | |
n.斗篷,覆罩之物,罩子;v.罩住,覆盖,脸红 | |
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54 supreme | |
adj.极度的,最重要的;至高的,最高的 | |
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55 subduing | |
征服( subdue的现在分词 ); 克制; 制服; 色变暗 | |
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56 behold | |
v.看,注视,看到 | |
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57 yearning | |
a.渴望的;向往的;怀念的 | |
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58 beholds | |
v.看,注视( behold的第三人称单数 );瞧;看呀;(叙述中用于引出某人意外的出现)哎哟 | |
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59 helping | |
n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的,辅助的 | |
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60 iniquity | |
n.邪恶;不公正 | |
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61 groans | |
n.呻吟,叹息( groan的名词复数 );呻吟般的声音v.呻吟( groan的第三人称单数 );发牢骚;抱怨;受苦 | |
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62 asunder | |
adj.分离的,化为碎片 | |
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63 surmounting | |
战胜( surmount的现在分词 ); 克服(困难); 居于…之上; 在…顶上 | |
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64 forsook | |
forsake的过去式 | |
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65 attained | |
(通常经过努力)实现( attain的过去式和过去分词 ); 达到; 获得; 达到(某年龄、水平、状况) | |
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66 stifled | |
(使)窒息, (使)窒闷( stifle的过去式和过去分词 ); 镇压,遏制; 堵 | |
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67 anguish | |
n.(尤指心灵上的)极度痛苦,烦恼 | |
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68 renounce | |
v.放弃;拒绝承认,宣布与…断绝关系 | |
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69 regenerated | |
v.新生,再生( regenerate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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70 quenches | |
解(渴)( quench的第三人称单数 ); 终止(某事物); (用水)扑灭(火焰等); 将(热物体)放入水中急速冷却 | |
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71 interpretation | |
n.解释,说明,描述;艺术处理 | |
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72 awakened | |
v.(使)醒( awaken的过去式和过去分词 );(使)觉醒;弄醒;(使)意识到 | |
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73 lava | |
n.熔岩,火山岩 | |
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74 instinctive | |
adj.(出于)本能的;直觉的;(出于)天性的 | |
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75 wrung | |
绞( wring的过去式和过去分词 ); 握紧(尤指别人的手); 把(湿衣服)拧干; 绞掉(水) | |
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76 vow | |
n.誓(言),誓约;v.起誓,立誓 | |
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77 sundered | |
v.隔开,分开( sunder的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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78 malefactor | |
n.罪犯 | |
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79 banish | |
vt.放逐,驱逐;消除,排除 | |
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80 rends | |
v.撕碎( rend的第三人称单数 );分裂;(因愤怒、痛苦等而)揪扯(衣服或头发等);(声音等)刺破 | |
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81 draught | |
n.拉,牵引,拖;一网(饮,吸,阵);顿服药量,通风;v.起草,设计 | |
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82 rapture | |
n.狂喜;全神贯注;着迷;v.使狂喜 | |
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83 dross | |
n.渣滓;无用之物 | |
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84 intensity | |
n.强烈,剧烈;强度;烈度 | |
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85 possessed | |
adj.疯狂的;拥有的,占有的 | |
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86 passionate | |
adj.热情的,热烈的,激昂的,易动情的,易怒的,性情暴躁的 | |
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87 subdued | |
adj. 屈服的,柔和的,减弱的 动词subdue的过去式和过去分词 | |
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