He was always a queer chap, Neave; years older than you and me, of course — and even when I first knew him, in my raw Roman days, he gave me an extraordinary sense of age and experience. I don’t think I’ve ever known any one who was at once so intelligent and so simple. It’s the precise combination that results in romance; and poor little Neave was romantic.
He told me once how he’d come to Rome. He was originaire of Mystic, Connecticut — and he wanted to get as far away from it as possible. Rome seemed as far as anything on the same planet could be; and after he’d worried his way through Harvard — with shifts and shavings that you and I can’t imagine — he contrived2 to get sent to Switzerland as tutor to a chap who’d failed in his examinations. With only the Alps between, he wasn’t likely to turn back; and he got another fellow to take his pupil home, and struck out on foot for the seven hills.
I’m telling you these early details merely to give you a notion of the man’s idealism. There was a cool persistency4 and a headlong courage in his dash for Rome that one wouldn’t have guessed in the little pottering chap we used to know. Once on the spot, he got more tutoring, managed to make himself a name for coaxing5 balky youths to take their fences, and was finally able to take up the more congenial task of expounding6 “the antiquities” to cultured travellers. I call it more congenial — but how it must have seared his soul! Fancy unveiling the sacred scars of Time to ladies who murmur7: “Was this actually the spot —?” while they absently feel for their hatpins! He used to say that nothing kept him at it but the exquisite8 thought of accumulating the lire for his collection. For the Neave collection, my dear fellow, began early, began almost with his Roman life, began in a series of little nameless odds9 and ends, broken trinkets, torn embroideries10, the amputated extremities11 of maimed marbles: things that even the rag-picker had pitched away when he sifted12 his haul. But they weren’t nameless or meaningless to Neave; his strength lay in his instinct for identifying, putting together, seeing significant relations. He was a regular Cuvier of bric-a-brac. And during those early years, when he had time to brood over trifles and note imperceptible differences, he gradually sharpened his instinct, and made it into the delicate and redoubtable14 instrument it is. Before he had a thousand francs’ worth of anticaglie to his name he began to be known as an expert, and the big dealers16 were glad to consult him. But we’re getting no nearer the Daunt17 Diana . . .
Well, some fifteen years ago, in London, I ran across Neave at Christie’s. He was the same little man we’d known, effaced18, bleached19, indistinct, like a poor “impression” — as unnoticeable as one of his own early finds, yet, like them, with a quality, if one had an eye for it. He told me he still lived in Rome, and had contrived, by fierce self-denial, to get a few decent bits together — “piecemeal, little by little, with fasting and prayer; and I mean the fasting literally20!” he said.
He had run over to London for his annual “look-round” — I fancy one or another of the big collectors usually paid his journey — and when we met he was on his way to see the Daunt collection. You know old Daunt was a surly brute21, and the things weren’t easily seen; but he had heard Neave was in London, and had sent — yes, actually sent! — for him to come and give his opinion on a few bits, including the Diana. The little man bore himself discreetly22, but you can imagine his pride. In his exultation23 he asked me to come with him — “Oh, I’ve the grandes et petites entrees24, my dear fellow: I’ve made my conditions — ” and so it happened that I saw the first meeting between Humphrey Neave and his fate.
For that collection was his fate: or, one may say, it was embodied25 in the Diana who was queen and goddess of the realm. Yes — I shall always be glad I was with Neave when he had his first look at the Diana. I see him now, blinking at her through his white lashes26, and stroking his seedy wisp of a moustache to hide a twitch27 of the muscles. It was all very quiet, but it was the coup28 de foudre. I could see that by the way his hands trembled when he turned away and began to examine the other things. You remember Neave’s hands — thin, sallow, dry, with long inquisitive29 fingers thrown out like antennae30? Whatever they hold — bronze or lace, hard enamel31 or brittle32 glass — they have an air of conforming themselves to the texture33 of the thing, and sucking out of it, by every finger-tip, the mysterious essence it has secreted34. Well, that day, as he moved about among Daunt’s treasures, the Diana followed him everywhere. He didn’t look back at her — he gave himself to the business he was there for — but whatever he touched, he felt her. And on the threshold he turned and gave her his first free look — the kind of look that says: “You’re mine.“
It amused me at the time — the idea of little Neave making eyes at any of Daunt’s belongings35. He might as well have coquetted with the Kohinoor. And the same idea seemed to strike him; for as we turned away from the big house in Belgravia he glanced up at it and said, with a bitterness I’d never heard in him: “Good Lord! To think of that lumpy fool having those things to handle! Did you notice his stupid stumps36 of fingers? I suppose he blunted them gouging37 nuggets out of the gold fields. And in exchange for the nuggets he gets all that in a year — only has to hold out his callous38 palm to have that great ripe sphere of beauty drop into it! That’s my idea of heaven — to have a great collection drop into one’s hand, as success, or love, or any of the big shining things, drop suddenly on some men. And I’ve had to worry along for nearly fifty years, saving and paring, and haggling39 and intriguing40, to get here a bit and there a bit — and not one perfection in the lot! It’s enough to poison a man’s life.”
The outbreak was so unlike Neave that I remember every word of it: remember, too, saying in answer: “But, look here, Neave, you wouldn’t take Daunt’s hands for yours, I imagine?”
He stared a moment and smiled. “Have all that, and grope my way through it like a blind cave fish? What a question! But the sense that it’s always the blind fish that live in that kind of aquarium41 is what makes anarchists42, sir!” He looked back from the corner of the square, where we had paused while he delivered himself of this remarkable43 metaphor44. “God, I’d like to throw a bomb at that place, and be in at the looting!”
And with that, on the way home, he unpacked45 his grievance46 — pulled the bandage off the wound, and showed me the ugly mark it had made on his little white soul.
It wasn’t the struggling, stinting47, self-denying that galled48 him — it was the inadequacy49 of the result. It was, in short, the old tragedy of the discrepancy50 between a man’s wants and his power to gratify them. Neave’s taste was too exquisite for his means — was like some strange, delicate, capricious animal, that he cherished and pampered51 and couldn’t satisfy.
“Don’t you know those little glittering lizards52 that die if they’re not fed on some wonderful tropical fly? Well, my taste’s like that, with one important difference — if it doesn’t get its fly, it simply turns and feeds on me. Oh, it doesn’t die, my taste — worse luck! It gets larger and stronger and more fastidious, and takes a bigger bite of me — that’s all.”
That was all. Year by year, day by day, he had made himself into this delicate register of perceptions and sensations — as far above the ordinary human faculty53 of appreciation54 as some scientific registering instrument is beyond the rough human senses — only to find that the beauty which alone could satisfy him was unattainable — that he was never to know the last deep identification which only possession can give. He had trained himself in short, to feel, in the rare great thing — such an utterance55 of beauty as the Daunt Diana, say — a hundred elements of perfection, a hundred reasons why, imperceptible, inexplicable56 even, to the average “artistic” sense; he had reached this point by a long austere57 process of discrimination and rejection58, the renewed great refusals of the intelligence which perpetually asks more, which will make no pact59 with its self of yesterday, and is never to be beguiled60 from its purpose by the wiles61 of the next-best-thing. Oh, it’s a poignant62 case, but not a common one; for the next-best-thing usually wins . . .
You see, the worst of Neave’s state was the fact of his not being a mere3 collector, even the collector raised to his highest pitch of efficiency. The whole thing was blent in him with poetry — his imagination had romanticized the acquisitive instinct, as the religious feeling of the Middle Ages turned passion into love. And yet his could never be the abstract enjoyment63 of the philosopher who says: “This or that object is really mine because I’m capable of appreciating it.” Neave wanted what he appreciated — wanted it with his touch and his sight as well as with his imagination.
It was hardly a year afterward that, coming back from a long tour in India, I picked up a London paper and read the amazing headline: “Mr. Humphrey Neave buys the Daunt collection” . . . I rubbed my eyes and read again. Yes, it could only be our old friend Humphrey. “An American living in Rome . . . one of our most discerning collectors”; there was no mistaking the description. I clapped on my hat and bolted out to see the first dealer15 I could find; and there I had the incredible details. Neave had come into a fortune — two or three million dollars, amassed64 by an uncle who had a corset-factory, and who had attained65 wealth as the creator of the Mystic Super-straight. (Corset-factory sounds odd, by the way, doesn’t it? One had fancied that the corset was a personal, a highly specialized66 garment, more or less shaped on the form it was to modify; but, after all, the Tanagras were all made from two or three moulds — and so, I suppose, are the ladies who wear the Mystic Super-straight.)
The uncle had a son, and Neave had never dreamed of seeing a penny of the money; but the son died suddenly, and the father followed, leaving a codicil67 that gave everything to our friend. Humphrey had to go out to “realize” on the corset-factory; and his description of that . . . Well, he came back with his money in his pocket, and the day he landed old Daunt went to smash. It all fitted in like a Chinese puzzle. I believe Neave drove straight from Euston to Daunt House: at any rate, within two months the collection was his, and at a price that made the trade sit up. Trust old Daunt for that!
I was in Rome the following spring, and you’d better believe I looked him up. A big porter glared at me from the door of the Palazzo Neave: I had almost to produce my passport to get in. But that wasn’t Neave’s fault — the poor fellow was so beset68 by people clamouring to see his collection that he had to barricade69 himself, literally. When I had mounted the state Scalone, and come on him, at the end of half a dozen echoing saloons, in the farthest, smallest reduit of the vast suite70, I received the same welcome that he used to give us in his little den13 over the wine shop.
“Well — so you’ve got her?” I said. For I’d caught sight of the Diana in passing, against the bluish blur71 of an old verdure — just the background for her poised72 loveliness. Only I rather wondered why she wasn’t in the room where he sat.
He smiled. “Yes, I’ve got her,” he returned, more calmly than I had expected.
“And all the rest of the loot?”
“Yes. I had to buy the lump.”
“Had to? But you wanted to, didn’t you? You used to say it was your idea of heaven — to stretch out your hand and have a great ripe sphere of beauty drop into it. I’m quoting your own words, by the way.”
Neave blinked and stroked his seedy moustache. “Oh, yes. I remember the phrase. It’s true — it is the last luxury.” He paused, as if seeking a pretext73 for his lack of warmth. “The thing that bothered me was having to move. I couldn’t cram74 all the stuff into my old quarters.”
“Well, I should say not! This is rather a better setting.”
He got up. “Come and take a look round. I want to show you two or three things — new attributions I’ve made. I’m doing the catalogue over.”
The interest of showing me the things seemed to dispel75 the vague apathy76 I had felt in him. He grew keen again in detailing his redistribution of values, and above all in convicting old Daunt and his advisers77 of their repeated aberrations78 of judgment79. “The miracle is that he should have got such things, knowing as little as he did what he was getting. And the egregious80 asses81 who bought for him were no better, were worse in fact, since they had all sorts of humbugging wrong reasons for admiring what old Daunt simply coveted82 because it belonged to some other rich man.”
Never had Neave had so wondrous83 a field for the exercise of his perfected faculty; and I saw then how in the real, the great collector’s appreciations84 the keenest scientific perception is suffused85 with imaginative sensibility, and how it’s to the latter undefinable quality that in the last resort he trusts himself.
Nevertheless, I still felt the shadow of that hovering86 apathy, and he knew I felt it, and was always breaking off to give me reasons for it. For one thing, he wasn’t used to his new quarters — hated their bigness and formality; then the requests to show his things drove him mad. “The women — oh, the women!” he wailed87, and interrupted himself to describe a heavy-footed German Princess who had marched past his treasures as if she were inspecting a cavalry88 regiment89, applying an unmodulated Mugneeficent to everything from the engraved90 gems91 to the Hercules torso.
“Not that she was half as bad as the other kind,” he added, as if with a last effort at optimism. “The kind who discriminate92 and say: ‘I’m not sure if it’s Botticelli or Cellini I mean, but one of that school, at any rate.’ And the worst of all are the ones who know — up to a certain point: have the schools, and the dates and the jargon93 pat, and yet wouldn’t know a Phidias if it stood where they hadn’t expected it.”
He had all my sympathy, poor Neave; yet these were trials inseparable from the collector’s lot, and not always without their secret compensations. Certainly they did not wholly explain my friend’s attitude; and for a moment I wondered if it were due to some strange disillusionment as to the quality of his treasures. But no! the Daunt collection was almost above criticism; and as we passed from one object to another I saw there was no mistaking the genuineness of Neave’s pride in his possessions. The ripe sphere of beauty was his, and he had found no flaw in it as yet . . .
A year later came the amazing announcement — the Daunt collection was for sale. At first we all supposed it was a case of weeding out (though how old Daunt would have raged at the thought of anybody’s weeding his collection!) But no — the catalogue corrected that idea. Every stick and stone was to go under the hammer. The news ran like wildfire from Rome to Berlin, from Paris to London and New York. Was Neave ruined, then? Wrong again — the dealers nosed that out in no time. He was simply selling because he chose to sell; and in due time the things came up at Christie’s.
But you may be sure the trade had found an answer to the riddle94; and the answer was that, on close inspection95, Neave had found the collection less impeccable than he had supposed. It was a preposterous96 answer — but then there was no other. Neave, by this time, was pretty generally recognized as having the subtlest flair97 of any collector in Europe, and if he didn’t choose to keep the Daunt collection it could be only because he had reason to think he could do better.
In a flash this report had gone the rounds and the buyers were on their guard. I had run over to London to see the thing through, and it was the queerest sale I ever was at. Some of the things held their own, but a lot — and a few of the best among them — went for half their value. You see, they’d been locked up in old Daunt’s house for nearly twenty years, and hardly shown to any one, so that the whole younger generation of dealers and collectors knew of them only by hearsay98. Then you know the effect of suggestion in such cases. The undefinable sense we were speaking of is a ticklish99 instrument, easily thrown out of gear by a sudden fall of temperature; and the sharpest experts grow shy and self-distrustful when the cold current of depreciation100 touches them. The sale was a slaughter101 — and when I saw the Daunt Diana fall at the wink102 of a little third-rate brocanteur from Vienna I turned sick at the folly103 of my kind.
For my part, I had never believed that Neave had sold the collection because he’d “found it out”; and within a year my incredulity was justified104. As soon as the things were put in circulation they were known for the marvels105 they are. There was hardly a poor bit in the lot; and my wonder grew at Neave’s madness. All over Europe, dealers began to be fighting for the spoils; and all kinds of stuff were palmed off on the unsuspecting as fragments of the Daunt collection!
Meanwhile, what was Neave doing? For a long time I didn’t hear, and chance kept me from returning to Rome. But one day, in Paris, I ran across a dealer who had captured for a song one of the best Florentine bronzes in the Daunt collection — a marvellous plaquette106 of Donatello’s. I asked him what had become of it, and he said with a grin: “I sold it the other day,” naming a price that staggered me.
“Ye gods! Who paid you that for it?”
His grin broadened, and he answered: “Neave.”
“ Neave? Humphrey Neave?”
“Didn’t you know he was buying back his things?”
“Nonsense!”
“He is, though. Not in his own name — but he’s doing it.”
And he was, do you know — and at prices that would have made a sane107 man shudder108! A few weeks later I ran across his tracks in London, where he was trying to get hold of a Penicaud enamel — another of his scattered109 treasures. Then I hunted him down at his hotel, and had it out with him.
“Look here, Neave, what are you up to?”
He wouldn’t tell me at first: stared and laughed and denied. But I took him off to dine, and after dinner, while we smoked, I happened to mention casually110 that I had a pull over the man who had the Penicaud — and at that he broke down and confessed.
“Yes, I’m buying them back, Finney — it’s true.” He laughed nervously111, twitching112 his moustache. And then he let me have the story.
“You know how I’d hungered and thirsted for the real thing — you quoted my own phrase to me once, about the ‘ripe sphere of beauty.’ So when I got my money, and Daunt lost his, almost at the same moment, I saw the hand of Providence113 in it. I knew that, even if I’d been younger, and had more time, I could never hope, nowadays, to form such a collection as that. There was the ripe sphere, within reach; and I took it. But when I got it, and began to live with it, I found out my mistake. It was a mariage de convenance — there’d been no wooing, no winning. Each of my little old bits — the rubbish I chucked out to make room for Daunt’s glories — had its own personal history, the drama of my relation to it, of the discovery, the struggle, the capture, the first divine moment of possession. There was a romantic secret between us. And then I had absorbed its beauties one by one, they had become a part of my imagination, they held me by a hundred threads of far-reaching association. And suddenly I had expected to create this kind of intense personal tie between myself and a roomful of new cold alien presences — things staring at me vacantly from the depths of unknown pasts! Can you fancy a more preposterous hope? Why, my other things, my own things, had wooed me as passionately114 as I wooed them: there was a certain little bronze, a little Venus Callipyge, who had drawn115 me, drawn me, drawn me, imploring116 me to rescue her from her unspeakable surroundings in a vulgar bric-a-brac shop at Biarritz, where she shrank out of sight among sham117 Sevres and Dutch silver, as one has seen certain women — rare, shy, exquisite — made almost invisible by the vulgar splendours surrounding them. Well! that little Venus, who was just a specious118 seventeenth century attempt at the ‘antique,’ but who had penetrated119 me with her pleading grace, touched me by the easily guessed story of her obscure, anonymous120 origin, was more to me imaginatively — yes! more than the cold bought beauty of the Daunt Diana . . . ”
“The Daunt Diana!” I broke in. “Hold up, Neave — the Daunt Diana?”
He smiled contemptuously. “A professional beauty, my dear fellow — expected every head to be turned when she came into a room.”
“Oh, Neave,” I groaned121.
“Yes, I know. You’re thinking of what we felt that day we first saw her in London. Many a poor devil has sold his soul as the result of such a first sight! Well, I sold her instead. Do you want the truth about her? Elle etait bete a pleurer.”
He laughed, and stood up with a little shrug122 of disenchantment.
“And so you’re impenitent123?” I paused. “And yet you’re buying some of the things back?”
Neave laughed again, ironically. “I knew you’d find me out and call me to account. Well, yes: I’m buying back.” He stood before me half sheepish, half defiant124. “I’m buying back because there’s nothing else as good in the market. And because I’ve a queer feeling that, this time, they’ll be mine. But I’m ruining myself at the game!” he confessed.
It was true: Neave was ruining himself. And he’s gone on ruining himself ever since, till now the job’s nearly done. Bit by bit, year by year, he has gathered in his scattered treasures, at higher prices than the dealers ever dreamed of getting. There are fabulous125 details in the story of his quest. Now and then I ran across him, and was able to help him recover a fragment; and it was wonderful to see his delight in the moment of reunion. Finally, about two years ago, we met in Paris, and he told me he had got back all the important pieces except the Diana.
“The Diana? But you told me you didn’t care for her.”
“Didn’t care?” He leaned across the restaurant table that divided us. “Well, no, in a sense I didn’t. I wanted her to want me, you see; and she didn’t then! Whereas now she’s crying to me to come to her. You know where she is?” he broke off.
Yes, I knew: in the centre of Mrs. Willy P. Goldmark’s yellow and gold drawing-room, under a thousand-candle-power chandelier, with reflectors aimed at her from every point of the compass. I had seen her wincing126 and shivering there in her outraged127 nudity at one of the Goldmark “crushes.”
“But you can’t get her, Neave,” I objected.
“No, I can’t get her,” he said.
Well, last month I was in Rome, for the first time in six or seven years, and of course I looked about for Neave. The Palazzo Neave was let to some rich Russians, and the splendid new porter didn’t know where the proprietor128 lived. But I got on his trail easily enough, and it led me to a strange old place in the Trastevere, an ancient crevassed black palace turned tenement129 house, and fluttering with pauper130 clothes-lines. I found Neave under the leads, in two or three cold rooms that smelt131 of the cuisine132 of all his neighbours: a poor shrunken little figure, seedier and shabbier than ever, yet more alive than when we had made the tour of his collection in the Palazzo Neave.
The collection was around him again, not displayed in tall cabinets and on marble tables, but huddled133 on shelves, perched on chairs, crammed134 in corners, putting the gleam of bronze, the opalescence135 of old glass, the pale lustre136 of marble, into all the angles of his low dim rooms. There they were, the proud presences that had stared at him down the vistas137 of Daunt House, and shone in cold transplanted beauty under his own painted cornices: there they were, gathered in humble138 promiscuity139 about his bent140 shabby figure, like superb wild creatures tamed to become the familiars of some harmless old wizard.
As we went from bit to bit, as he lifted one piece after another, and held it to the light of his low windows, I saw in his hands the same tremor141 of sensation that I had noticed when he first examined the same objects at Daunt House. All his life was in his finger-tips, and it seemed to communicate life to the exquisite things he touched. But you’ll think me infected by his mysticism if I tell you they gained new beauty while he held them . . .
We went the rounds slowly and reverently142; and then, when I supposed our inspection was over, and was turning to take my leave, he opened a door I had not noticed, and showed me into a slit143 of a room beyond. It was a mere monastic cell, scarcely large enough for his narrow iron bed and the chest which probably held his few clothes; but there, in a niche144 of the bare wall, facing the foot of the bed — there stood the Daunt Diana.
I gasped145 at the sight and turned to him; and he looked back at me without speaking.
“In the name of magic, Neave, how did you do it?”
He smiled as if from the depths of some secret rapture146. “Call it magic, if you like; but I ruined myself doing it,” he said.
I stared at him in silence, breathless with the madness and the wonder of it; and suddenly, red to the ears, he flung out his boyish confession147. “I lied to you that day in London — the day I said I didn’t care for her. I always cared — always worshipped — always wanted her. But she wasn’t mine then, and I knew it, and she knew it . . . and now at last we understand each other.” He looked at me shyly, and then glanced about the bare cold cell. “The setting isn’t worthy148 of her, I know; she was meant for glories I can’t give her; but beautiful things, my dear Finney, like beautiful spirits, live in houses not made with hands . . . ”
His face shone with extraordinary sweetness as he spoke149; and I saw he’d got hold of the secret we’re all after. No, the setting isn’t worthy of her, if you like. The rooms are as shabby and mean as those we used to see him in years ago over the wine shop. I’m not sure they’re not shabbier and meaner. But she rules there at last, she shines and hovers150 there above him, and there at night, I doubt not, steals down from her cloud to give him the Latmian kiss.
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afterward
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| adv.后来；以后 | |
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contrived
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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persistency
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| n. 坚持(余辉, 时间常数) | |
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coaxing
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| v.哄，用好话劝说( coax的现在分词 )；巧言骗取；哄劝，劝诱；“锻炼”效应 | |
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expounding
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murmur
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exquisite
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odds
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embroideries
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extremities
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sifted
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den
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redoubtable
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dealer
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dealers
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daunt
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effaced
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bleached
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literally
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brute
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discreetly
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24
entrees
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| n.入场权( entree的名词复数 )；主菜 | |
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25
embodied
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| v.表现( embody的过去式和过去分词 )；象征；包括；包含 | |
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26
lashes
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| n.鞭挞( lash的名词复数 )；鞭子；突然猛烈的一击；急速挥动v.鞭打( lash的第三人称单数 )；煽动；紧系；怒斥 | |
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27
twitch
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| v.急拉，抽动，痉挛，抽搐；n.扯，阵痛，痉挛 | |
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28
coup
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| n.政变；突然而成功的行动 | |
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29
inquisitive
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| adj.求知欲强的，好奇的，好寻根究底的 | |
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30
antennae
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| n.天线；触角 | |
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31
enamel
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| n.珐琅，搪瓷，瓷釉；(牙齿的)珐琅质 | |
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32
brittle
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| adj.易碎的；脆弱的；冷淡的；(声音)尖利的 | |
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33
texture
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| n.(织物)质地；(材料)构造；结构；肌理 | |
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34
secreted
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| v.（尤指动物或植物器官）分泌( secrete的过去式和过去分词 )；隐匿，隐藏 | |
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35
belongings
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| n.私人物品，私人财物 | |
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36
stumps
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| （被砍下的树的）树桩( stump的名词复数 )； 残肢； （板球三柱门的）柱； 残余部分 | |
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37
gouging
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| n.刨削[槽]v.凿( gouge的现在分词 )；乱要价；（在…中）抠出…；挖出… | |
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38
callous
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| adj.无情的，冷淡的，硬结的，起老茧的 | |
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39
haggling
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| v.讨价还价( haggle的现在分词 ) | |
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40
intriguing
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| adj.有趣的；迷人的v.搞阴谋诡计(intrigue的现在分词)；激起…的好奇心 | |
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41
aquarium
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| n.水族馆，养鱼池，玻璃缸 | |
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42
anarchists
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| 无政府主义者( anarchist的名词复数 ) | |
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43
remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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44
metaphor
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| n.隐喻，暗喻 | |
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45
unpacked
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| v.从（包裹等）中取出（所装的东西），打开行李取出( unpack的过去式和过去分词 )；拆包；解除…的负担；吐露（心事等） | |
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46
grievance
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| n.怨愤，气恼，委屈 | |
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47
stinting
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| v.限制，节省（stint的现在分词形式） | |
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48
galled
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| v.使…擦痛( gall的过去式和过去分词 )；擦伤；烦扰；侮辱 | |
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49
inadequacy
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| n.无法胜任，信心不足 | |
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50
discrepancy
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| n.不同；不符；差异；矛盾 | |
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51
pampered
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| adj.饮食过量的，饮食奢侈的v.纵容，宠，娇养( pamper的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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52
lizards
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| n.蜥蜴( lizard的名词复数 ) | |
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53
faculty
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| n.才能；学院，系；(学院或系的)全体教学人员 | |
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54
appreciation
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| n.评价；欣赏；感谢；领会，理解；价格上涨 | |
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55
utterance
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| n.用言语表达，话语，言语 | |
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56
inexplicable
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| adj.无法解释的，难理解的 | |
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57
austere
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| adj.艰苦的；朴素的，朴实无华的；严峻的 | |
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58
rejection
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| n.拒绝，被拒，抛弃，被弃 | |
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59
pact
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| n.合同，条约，公约，协定 | |
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60
beguiled
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| v.欺骗( beguile的过去式和过去分词 )；使陶醉；使高兴；消磨（时间等） | |
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61
wiles
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| n.（旨在欺骗或吸引人的）诡计，花招；欺骗，欺诈( wile的名词复数 ) | |
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62
poignant
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| adj.令人痛苦的，辛酸的，惨痛的 | |
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63
enjoyment
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| n.乐趣；享有；享用 | |
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64
amassed
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| v.积累，积聚( amass的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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65
attained
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| （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
specialized
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| adj.专门的，专业化的 | |
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67
codicil
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| n.遗嘱的附录 | |
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68
beset
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| v.镶嵌；困扰，包围 | |
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69
barricade
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| n.路障，栅栏，障碍；vt.设路障挡住 | |
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70
suite
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| n.一套(家具)；套房；随从人员 | |
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71
blur
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| n.模糊不清的事物；vt.使模糊，使看不清楚 | |
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72
poised
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| a.摆好姿势不动的 | |
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73
pretext
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| n.借口，托词 | |
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74
cram
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| v.填塞，塞满，临时抱佛脚，为考试而学习 | |
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75
dispel
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| vt.驱走，驱散，消除 | |
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76
apathy
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| n.漠不关心，无动于衷；冷淡 | |
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77
advisers
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| 顾问，劝告者( adviser的名词复数 )； （指导大学新生学科问题等的）指导教授 | |
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78
aberrations
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| n.偏差( aberration的名词复数 )；差错；脱离常规；心理失常 | |
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79
judgment
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| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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80
egregious
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| adj.非常的，过分的 | |
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81
asses
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| n. 驴，愚蠢的人，臀部 adv. (常用作后置)用于贬损或骂人 | |
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82
coveted
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| adj.令人垂涎的；垂涎的，梦寐以求的v.贪求，觊觎(covet的过去分词)；垂涎；贪图 | |
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83
wondrous
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| adj.令人惊奇的，奇妙的；adv.惊人地；异乎寻常地；令人惊叹地 | |
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84
appreciations
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| n.欣赏( appreciation的名词复数 )；感激；评定；（尤指土地或财产的）增值 | |
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85
suffused
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| v.（指颜色、水气等）弥漫于，布满( suffuse的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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86
hovering
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| 鸟( hover的现在分词 )； 靠近（某事物）； （人）徘徊； 犹豫 | |
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87
wailed
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| v.哭叫，哀号( wail的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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88
cavalry
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| n.骑兵；轻装甲部队 | |
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89
regiment
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| n.团，多数，管理；v.组织，编成团，统制 | |
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90
engraved
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| 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） | |
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91
gems
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| growth； economy； management； and customer satisfaction 增长 | |
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92
discriminate
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| v.区别，辨别，区分；有区别地对待 | |
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93
jargon
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| n.术语，行话 | |
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94
riddle
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| n.谜，谜语，粗筛；vt.解谜，给…出谜，筛，检查，鉴定，非难，充满于；vi.出谜 | |
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95
inspection
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| n.检查，审查，检阅 | |
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96
preposterous
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| adj.荒谬的，可笑的 | |
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97
flair
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| n.天赋，本领，才华；洞察力 | |
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98
hearsay
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| n.谣传，风闻 | |
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99
ticklish
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| adj.怕痒的；问题棘手的；adv.怕痒地；n.怕痒，小心处理 | |
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100
depreciation
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| n.价值低落，贬值，蔑视，贬低 | |
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101
slaughter
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| n.屠杀，屠宰；vt.屠杀，宰杀 | |
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102
wink
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| n.眨眼，使眼色，瞬间；v.眨眼，使眼色，闪烁 | |
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103
folly
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| n.愚笨，愚蠢，蠢事，蠢行，傻话 | |
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104
justified
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| a.正当的，有理的 | |
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105
marvels
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| n.奇迹( marvel的名词复数 )；令人惊奇的事物（或事例）；不平凡的成果；成就v.惊奇，对…感到惊奇( marvel的第三人称单数 ) | |
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106
plaquette
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| 小匾，小饰板，金属印模 | |
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107
sane
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| adj.心智健全的，神志清醒的，明智的，稳健的 | |
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108
shudder
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| v.战粟，震动，剧烈地摇晃；n.战粟，抖动 | |
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109
scattered
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| adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的 | |
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110
casually
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| adv.漠不关心地，无动于衷地，不负责任地 | |
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111
nervously
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| adv.神情激动地，不安地 | |
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112
twitching
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| n.颤搐 | |
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113
providence
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| n.深谋远虑，天道，天意；远见；节约；上帝 | |
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114
passionately
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| ad.热烈地，激烈地 | |
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115
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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116
imploring
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| 恳求的，哀求的 | |
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117
sham
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| n./adj.假冒(的)，虚伪(的) | |
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118
specious
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| adj.似是而非的；adv.似是而非地 | |
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119
penetrated
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| adj. 击穿的，鞭辟入里的 动词penetrate的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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120
anonymous
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| adj.无名的；匿名的；无特色的 | |
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121
groaned
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| v.呻吟( groan的过去式和过去分词 )；发牢骚；抱怨；受苦 | |
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122
shrug
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| v.耸肩(表示怀疑、冷漠、不知等) | |
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123
impenitent
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| adj.不悔悟的，顽固的 | |
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124
defiant
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| adj.无礼的，挑战的 | |
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125
fabulous
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| adj.极好的；极为巨大的；寓言中的，传说中的 | |
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126
wincing
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| 赶紧避开，畏缩( wince的现在分词 ) | |
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127
outraged
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| a.震惊的，义愤填膺的 | |
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128
proprietor
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| n.所有人；业主；经营者 | |
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129
tenement
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| n.公寓；房屋 | |
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130
pauper
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| n.贫民，被救济者，穷人 | |
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131
smelt
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| v.熔解，熔炼；n.银白鱼，胡瓜鱼 | |
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132
cuisine
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| n.烹调，烹饪法 | |
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133
huddled
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| 挤在一起（huddle的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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134
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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135
opalescence
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| n.乳白光，蛋白色光；乳光 | |
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136
lustre
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| n.光亮，光泽；荣誉 | |
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137
vistas
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| 长条形景色( vista的名词复数 )； 回顾； 展望； （未来可能发生的）一系列情景 | |
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138
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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139
promiscuity
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| n.混杂，混乱；（男女的）乱交 | |
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140
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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141
tremor
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| n.震动，颤动，战栗，兴奋，地震 | |
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142
reverently
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| adv.虔诚地 | |
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143
slit
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| n.狭长的切口；裂缝；vt.切开，撕裂 | |
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144
niche
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| n.壁龛；合适的职务(环境、位置等) | |
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145
gasped
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| v.喘气( gasp的过去式和过去分词 )；喘息；倒抽气；很想要 | |
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146
rapture
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| n.狂喜；全神贯注；着迷；v.使狂喜 | |
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147
confession
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| n.自白，供认，承认 | |
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148
worthy
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| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
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149
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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150
hovers
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| 鸟( hover的第三人称单数 )； 靠近（某事物）； （人）徘徊； 犹豫 | |
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