1
The second operation upon Marcus Karenin was performed at the new station for surgical1 work at Paran, high in the Himalayas above the Sutlej Gorge2, where it comes down out of Thibet.
It is a place of such wildness and beauty as no other scenery in the world affords. The granite3 terrace which runs round the four sides of the low block of laboratories looks out in every direction upon mountains. Far below in the hidden depths of a shadowy blue cleft4, the river pours down in its tumultuous passage to the swarming5 plains of India. No sound of its roaring haste comes up to those serenities. Beyond that blue gulf6, in which whole forests of giant deodars seem no more than small patches of moss7, rise vast precipices8 of many-coloured rock, fretted9 above, lined by snowfalls, and jagged into pinnacles10. These are the northward11 wall of a towering wilderness12 of ice and snow which clambers southward higher and wilder and vaster to the culminating summits of our globe, to Dhaulagiri and Everest. Here are cliffs of which no other land can show the like, and deep chasms13 in which Mt. Blanc might be plunged14 and hidden. Here are icefields as big as inland seas on which the tumbled boulders15 lie so thickly that strange little flowers can bloom among them under the untempered sunshine. To the northward, and blocking out any vision of the uplands of Thibet, rises that citadel16 of porcelain17, that gothic pile, the Lio Porgyul, walls, towers, and peaks, a clear twelve thousand feet of veined and splintered rock above the river. And beyond it and eastward18 and westward19 rise peaks behind peaks, against the dark blue Himalayan sky. Far away below to the south the clouds of the Indian rains pile up abruptly20 and are stayed by an invisible hand.
Hither it was that with a dreamlike swiftness Karenin flew high over the irrigations of Rajputana and the towers and cupolas of the ultimate Delhi; and the little group of buildings, albeit21 the southward wall dropped nearly five hundred feet, seemed to him as he soared down to it like a toy lost among these mountain wildernesses22. No road came up to this place; it was reached only by flight.
His pilot descended23 to the great courtyard, and Karenin assisted by his secretary clambered down through the wing fabric24 and made his way to the officials who came out to receive him.
In this place, beyond infections and noise and any distractions25, surgery had made for itself a house of research and a healing fastness. The building itself would have seemed very wonderful to eyes accustomed to the flimsy architecture of an age when power was precious. It was made of granite, already a little roughened on the outside by frost, but polished within and of a tremendous solidity. And in a honeycomb of subtly lit apartments, were the spotless research benches, the operating tables, the instruments of brass26, and fine glass and platinum27 and gold. Men and women came from all parts of the world for study or experimental research. They wore a common uniform of white and ate at long tables together, but the patients lived in an upper part of the buildings, and were cared for by nurses and skilled attendants. . . .
The first man to greet Karenin was Ciana, the scientific director of the institution. Beside him was Rachel Borken, the chief organiser. ‘You are tired?’ she asked, and old Karenin shook his head.
‘Cramped,’ he said. ‘I have wanted to visit such a place as this.’
He spoke29 as if he had no other business with them.
There was a little pause.
‘How many scientific people have you got here now?’ he asked.
‘Just three hundred and ninety-two,’ said Rachel Borken.
‘And the patients and attendants and so on?’
‘Two thousand and thirty.’
‘I shall be a patient,’ said Karenin. ‘I shall have to be a patient. But I should like to see things first. Presently I will be a patient.’
‘You will come to my rooms?’ suggested Ciana.
‘And then I must talk to this doctor of yours,’ said Karenin. ‘But I would like to see a bit of this place and talk to some of your people before it comes to that.’
He winced30 and moved forward.
‘I have left most of my work in order,’ he said.
‘You have been working hard up to now?’ asked Rachel Borken.
‘Yes. And now I have nothing more to do — and it seems strange. . . . And it’s a bother, this illness and having to come down to oneself. This doorway31 and the row of windows is well done; the gray granite and just the line of gold, and then those mountains beyond through that arch. It’s very well done. . . . ’
2
Karenin lay on the bed with a soft white rug about him, and Fowler, who was to be his surgeon sat on the edge of the bed and talked to him. An assistant was seated quietly in the shadow behind the bed. The examination had been made, and Karenin knew what was before him. He was tired but serene32.
‘So I shall die,’ he said, ‘unless you operate?’
Fowler assented34. ‘And then,’ said Karenin, smiling, ‘probably I shall die.’
‘Not certainly.’
‘Even if I do not die; shall I be able to work?’
‘There is just a chance. . . . ’
‘So firstly I shall probably die, and if I do not, then perhaps I shall be a useless invalid35?’
‘I think if you live, you may be able to go on — as you do now.’
‘Well, then, I suppose I must take the risk of it. Yet couldn’t you, Fowler, couldn’t you drug me and patch me instead of all this — vivisection? A few days of drugged and active life — and then the end?’
Fowler thought. ‘We are not sure enough yet to do things like that,’ he said.
‘But a day is coming when you will be certain.’
Fowler nodded.
‘You make me feel as though I was the last of deformity — Deformity is uncertainty36 — inaccuracy. My body works doubtfully, it is not even sure that it will die or live. I suppose the time is not far off when such bodies as mine will no longer be born into the world.’
‘You see,’ said Fowler, after a little pause, ‘it is necessary that spirits such as yours should be born into the world.’
‘I suppose,’ said Karenin, ‘that my spirit has had its use. But if you think that is because my body is as it is I think you are mistaken. There is no peculiar38 virtue39 in defect. I have always chafed40 against — all this. If I could have moved more freely and lived a larger life in health I could have done more. But some day perhaps you will be able to put a body that is wrong altogether right again. Your science is only beginning. It’s a subtler thing than physics and chemistry, and it takes longer to produce its miracles. And meanwhile a few more of us must die in patience.’
‘Fine work is being done and much of it,’ said Fowler. ‘I can say as much because I have nothing to do with it. I can understand a lesson, appreciate the discoveries of abler men and use my hands, but those others, Pigou, Masterton, Lie, and the others, they are clearing the ground fast for the knowledge to come. Have you had time to follow their work?’
Karenin shook his head. ‘But I can imagine the scope of it,’ he said.
‘We have so many men working now,’ said Fowler. ‘I suppose at present there must be at least a thousand thinking hard, observing, experimenting, for one who did so in nineteen hundred.’
‘Not counting those who keep the records?’
‘Not counting those. Of course, the present indexing of research is in itself a very big work, and it is only now that we are getting it properly done. But already we are feeling the benefit of that. Since it ceased to be a paid employment and became a devotion we have had only those people who obeyed the call of an aptitude41 at work upon these things. Here — I must show you it to-day, because it will interest you — we have our copy of the encyclopaedic index — every week sheets are taken out and replaced by fresh sheets with new results that are brought to us by the aeroplanes of the Research Department. It is an index of knowledge that grows continually, an index that becomes continually truer. There was never anything like it before.’
‘When I came into the education committee,’ said Karenin, ‘that index of human knowledge seemed an impossible thing. Research had produced a chaotic42 mountain of results, in a hundred languages and a thousand different types of publication . . . .’ He smiled at his memories. ‘How we groaned43 at the job!’
‘Already the ordering of that chaos44 is nearly done. You shall see.’
‘I have been so busy with my own work —— Yes, I shall be glad to see.’
The patient regarded the surgeon for a time with interested eyes.
‘You work here always?’ he asked abruptly.
‘No,’ said Fowler.
‘But mostly you work here?’
‘I have worked about seven years out of the past ten. At times I go away — down there. One has to. At least I have to. There is a sort of grayness comes over all this, one feels hungry for life, real, personal passionate45 life, love-making, eating and drinking for the fun of the thing, jostling crowds, having adventures, laughter — above all laughter ——’
‘Yes,’ said Karenin understandingly.
‘And then one day, suddenly one thinks of these high mountains again. . . . ’
‘That is how I would have lived, if it had not been for my — defects,’ said Karenin. ‘Nobody knows but those who have borne it the exasperation47 of abnormality. It will be good when you have nobody alive whose body cannot live the wholesome48 everyday life, whose spirit cannot come up into these high places as it wills.’
‘We shall manage that soon,’ said Fowler.
‘For endless generations man has struggled upward against the indignities49 of his body — and the indignities of his soul. Pains, incapacities, vile50 fears, black moods, despairs. How well I’ve known them. They’ve taken more time than all your holidays. It is true, is it not, that every man is something of a cripple and something of a beast? I’ve dipped a little deeper than most; that’s all. It’s only now when he has fully37 learnt the truth of that, that he can take hold of himself to be neither beast nor cripple. Now that he overcomes his servitude to his body, he can for the first time think of living the full life of his body. . . . Before another generation dies you’ll have the thing in hand. You’ll do as you please with the old Adam and all the vestiges51 from the brutes52 and reptiles53 that lurk54 in his body and spirit. Isn’t that so?’
‘You put it boldly,’ said Fowler.
Karenin laughed cheerfully at his caution. . . . ‘When,’ asked Karenin suddenly, ‘when will you operate?’
‘The day after to-morrow,’ said Fowler. ‘For a day I want you to drink and eat as I shall prescribe. And you may think and talk as you please.’
‘I should like to see this place.’
‘You shall go through it this afternoon. I will have two men carry you in a litter. And to-morrow you shall lie out upon the terrace. Our mountains here are the most beautiful in the world. . . . ’
3
The next morning Karenin got up early and watched the sun rise over the mountains, and breakfasted lightly, and then young Gardener, his secretary, came to consult him upon the spending of his day. Would he care to see people? Or was this gnawing55 pain within him too much to permit him to do that?
‘I’d like to talk,’ said Karenin. ‘There must be all sorts of lively-minded people here. Let them come and gossip with me. It will distract me — and I can’t tell you how interesting it makes everything that is going on to have seen the dawn of one’s own last day.’
‘Your last day!’
‘Fowler will kill me.’
‘But he thinks not.’
‘Fowler will kill me. If he does not he will not leave very much of me. So that this is my last day anyhow, the days afterwards if they come at all to me, will be refuse. I know. . . . ’
Gardener was about to speak when Karenin went on again.
‘I hope he kills me, Gardener. Don’t be — old-fashioned. The thing I am most afraid of is that last rag of life. I may just go on — a scarred salvage56 of suffering stuff. And then — all the things I have hidden and kept down or discounted or set right afterwards will get the better of me. I shall be peevish57. I may lose my grip upon my own egotism. It’s never been a very firm grip. No, no, Gardener, don’t say that! You know better, you’ve had glimpses of it. Suppose I came through on the other side of this affair, belittled58, vain, and spiteful, using the prestige I have got among men by my good work in the past just to serve some small invalid purpose. . . . ’
He was silent for a time, watching the mists among the distant precipices change to clouds of light, and drift and dissolve before the searching rays of the sunrise.
‘Yes,’ he said at last, ‘I am afraid of these anaesthetics and these fag ends of life. It’s life we are all afraid of. Death! — nobody minds just death. Fowler is clever — but some day surgery will know its duty better and not be so anxious just to save something . . . provided only that it quivers. I’ve tried to hold my end up properly and do my work. After Fowler has done with me I am certain I shall be unfit for work — and what else is there for me? . . . I know I shall not be fit for work. . . .
‘I do not see why life should be judged by its last trailing thread of vitality60. . . . I know it for the splendid thing it is — I who have been a diseased creature from the beginning. I know it well enough not to confuse it with its husks. Remember that, Gardener, if presently my heart fails me and I despair, and if I go through a little phase of pain and ingratitude61 and dark forgetfulness before the end. . . . Don’t believe what I may say at the last. . . . If the fabric is good enough the selvage doesn’t matter. It can’t matter. So long as you are alive you are just the moment, perhaps, but when you are dead then you are all your life from the first moment to the last. . . . ’
4
Presently, in accordance with his wish, people came to talk to him, and he could forget himself again. Rachel Borken sat for a long time with him and talked chiefly of women in the world, and with her was a girl named Edith Haydon who was already very well known as a cytologist. And several of the younger men who were working in the place and a patient named Kahn, a poet, and Edwards, a designer of plays and shows, spent some time with him. The talk wandered from point to point and came back upon itself, and became now earnest and now trivial as the chance suggestions determined62. But soon afterwards Gardener wrote down notes of things he remembered, and it is possible to put together again the outlook of Karenin upon the world and how he thought and felt about many of the principal things in life.
‘Our age,’ he said, ‘has been so far an age of scene-shifting. We have been preparing a stage, clearing away the setting of a drama that was played out and growing tiresome63. . . . If I could but sit out the first few scenes of the new spectacle. . . .
‘How encumbered64 the world had become! It was ailing59 as I am ailing with a growth of unmeaning things. It was entangled65, feverish66, confused. It was in sore need of release, and I suppose that nothing less than the violence of those bombs could have released it and made it a healthy world again. I suppose they were necessary. Just as everything turns to evil in a fevered body so everything seemed turning to evil in those last years of the old time. Everywhere there were obsolete67 organisations seizing upon all the new fine things that science was giving to the world, nationalities, all sorts of political bodies, the churches and sects68, proprietorship69, seizing upon those treat powers and limitless possibilities and turning them to evil uses. And they would not suffer open speech, they would not permit of education, they would let no one be educated to the needs of the new time. . . . You who are younger cannot imagine the mixture of desperate hope and protesting despair in which we who could believe in the possibilities of science lived in those years before atomic energy came. . . .
‘It was not only that the mass of people would not attend, would not understand, but that those who did understand lacked the power of real belief. They said the things, they saw the things, and the things meant nothing to them. . . .
‘I have been reading some old papers lately. It is wonderful how our fathers bore themselves towards science. They hated it. They feared it. They permitted a few scientific men to exist and work — a pitiful handful. . . . “Don’t find out anything about us,” they said to them; “don’t inflict70 vision upon us, spare our little ways of life from the fearful shaft71 of understanding. But do tricks for us, little limited tricks. Give us cheap lighting72. And cure us of certain disagreeable things, cure us of cancer, cure us of consumption, cure our colds and relieve us after repletion73. . . . ” We have changed all that, Gardener. Science is no longer our servant. We know it for something greater than our little individual selves. It is the awakening74 mind of the race, and in a little while —— In a little while —— I wish indeed I could watch for that little while, now that the curtain has risen. . . .
‘While I lie here they are clearing up what is left of the bombs in London,’ he said. ‘Then they are going to repair the ruins and make it all as like as possible to its former condition before the bombs fell. Perhaps they will dig out the old house in St John’s Wood to which my father went after his expulsion from Russia. . . . That London of my memories seems to me like a place in another world. For you younger people it must seem like a place that could never have existed.’
‘Is there much left standing46?’ asked Edith Haydon.
‘Square miles that are scarcely shaken in the south and north-west, they say; and most of the bridges and large areas of dock. Westminster, which held most of the government offices, suffered badly from the small bomb that destroyed the Parliament, there are very few traces of the old thoroughfare of Whitehall or the Government region thereabout, but there are plentiful75 drawings to scale of its buildings, and the great hole in the east of London scarcely matters. That was a poor district and very like the north and the south. . . . It will be possible to reconstruct most of it. . . . It is wanted. Already it becomes difficult to recall the old time — even for us who saw it.’
‘It seems very distant to me,’ said the girl.
‘It was an unwholesome world,’ reflected Karenin. ‘I seem to remember everybody about my childhood as if they were ill. They were ill. They were sick with confusion. Everybody was anxious about money and everybody was doing uncongenial things. They ate a queer mixture of foods, either too much or too little, and at odd hours. One sees how ill they were by their advertisements. All this new region of London they are opening up now is plastered with advertisements of pills. Everybody must have been taking pills. In one of the hotel rooms in the Strand76 they have found the luggage of a lady covered up by falling rubble77 and unburnt, and she was equipped with nine different sorts of pill and tabloid78. The pill-carrying age followed the weapon-carrying age. They are equally strange to us. People’s skins must have been in a vile state. Very few people were properly washed; they carried the filth79 of months on their clothes. All the clothes they wore were old clothes; our way of pulping81 our clothes again after a week or so of wear would have seemed fantastic to them. Their clothing hardly bears thinking about. And the congestion82 of them! Everybody was jostling against everybody in those awful towns. In an uproar83. People were run over and crushed by the hundred; every year in London the cars and omnibuses alone killed or disabled twenty thousand people, in Paris it was worse; people used to fall dead for want of air in the crowded ways. The irritation84 of London, internal and external, must have been maddening. It was a maddened world. It is like thinking of a sick child. One has the same effect of feverish urgencies and acute irrational85 disappointments.
‘All history,’ he said, ‘is a record of a childhood. . . .
‘And yet not exactly a childhood. There is something clean and keen about even a sick child — and something touching86. But so much of the old times makes one angry. So much they did seems grossly stupid, obstinately88, outrageously89 stupid, which is the very opposite to being fresh and young.
‘I was reading only the other day about Bismarck, that hero of nineteenth-century politics, that sequel to Napoleon, that god of blood and iron. And he was just a beery, obstinate87, dull man. Indeed, that is what he was, the commonest, coarsest man, who ever became great. I looked at his portraits, a heavy, almost froggish face, with projecting eyes and a thick moustache to hide a poor mouth. He aimed at nothing but Germany, Germany emphasised, indurated, enlarged; Germany and his class in Germany; beyond that he had no ideas, he was inaccessible90 to ideas; his mind never rose for a recorded instant above a bumpkin’s elaborate cunning. And he was the most influential91 man in the world, in the whole world, no man ever left so deep a mark on it, because everywhere there were gross men to resonate to the heavy notes he emitted. He trampled93 on ten thousand lovely things, and a kind of malice94 in these louts made it pleasant to them to see him trample92. No — he was no child; the dull, national aggressiveness he stood for, no childishness. Childhood is promise. He was survival.
‘All Europe offered its children to him, it sacrificed education, art, happiness and all its hopes of future welfare to follow the clatter95 of his sabre. The monstrous96 worship of that old fool’s “blood and iron” passed all round the earth. Until the atomic bombs burnt our way to freedom again . . . .’
‘One thinks of him now as one thinks of the megatherium,’ said one of the young men.
‘From first to last mankind made three million big guns and a hundred thousand complicated great ships for no other purpose but war.’
‘Were there no sane97 men in those days,’ asked the young man, ‘to stand against that idolatry?’
‘In a state of despair,’ said Edith Haydon.
‘He is so far off — and there are men alive still who were alive when Bismarck died!’ . . . said the young man. . . .
5
‘And yet it may be I am unjust to Bismarck,’ said Karenin, following his own thoughts. ‘You see, men belong to their own age; we stand upon a common stock of thought and we fancy we stand upon the ground. I met a pleasant man the other day, a Maori, whose great-grandfather was a cannibal. It chanced he had a daguerreotype98 of the old sinner, and the two were marvellously alike. One felt that a little juggling100 with time and either might have been the other. People are cruel and stupid in a stupid age who might be gentle and splendid in a gracious one. The world also has its moods. Think of the mental food of Bismarck’s childhood; the humiliations of Napoleon’s victories, the crowded, crowning victory of the Battle of the Nations. . . . Everybody in those days, wise or foolish, believed that the division of the world under a multitude of governments was inevitable101, and that it was going on for thousands of years more. It WAS inevitable until it was impossible. Any one who had denied that inevitability102 publicly would have been counted — oh! a SILLY fellow. Old Bismarck was only just a little — forcible, on the lines of the accepted ideas. That is all. He thought that since there had to be national governments he would make one that was strong at home and invincible103 abroad. Because he had fed with a kind of rough appetite upon what we can see now were very stupid ideas, that does not make him a stupid man. We’ve had advantages; we’ve had unity104 and collectivism blasted into our brains. Where should we be now but for the grace of science? I should have been an embittered105, spiteful, downtrodden member of the Russian Intelligenza, a conspirator106, a prisoner, or an assassin. You, my dear, would have been breaking dingy107 windows as a suffragette.’
‘NEVER,’ said Edith stoutly108. . . .
For a time the talk broke into humorous personalities109, and the young people gibed110 at each other across the smiling old administrator111, and then presently one of the young scientific men gave things a new turn. He spoke like one who was full to the brim.
‘You know, sir, I’ve a fancy — it is hard to prove such things — that civilisation112 was very near disaster when the atomic bombs came banging into it, that if there had been no Holsten and no induced radio-activity, the world would have — smashed — much as it did. Only instead of its being a smash that opened a way to better things, it might have been a smash without a recovery. It is part of my business to understand economics, and from that point of view the century before Holsten was just a hundred years’ crescendo113 of waste. Only the extreme individualism of that period, only its utter want of any collective understanding or purpose can explain that waste. Mankind used up material — insanely. They had got through three-quarters of all the coal in the planet, they had used up most of the oil, they had swept away their forests, and they were running short of tin and copper114. Their wheat areas were getting weary and populous115, and many of the big towns had so lowered the water level of their available hills that they suffered a drought every summer. The whole system was rushing towards bankruptcy116. And they were spending every year vaster and vaster amounts of power and energy upon military preparations, and continually expanding the debt of industry to capital. The system was already staggering when Holsten began his researches. So far as the world in general went there was no sense of danger and no desire for inquiry117. They had no belief that science could save them, nor any idea that there was a need to be saved. They could not, they would not, see the gulf beneath their feet. It was pure good luck for mankind at large that any research at all was in progress. And as I say, sir, if that line of escape hadn’t opened, before now there might have been a crash, revolution, panic, social disintegration118, famine, and — it is conceivable — complete disorder119. . . . The rails might have rusted120 on the disused railways by now, the telephone poles have rotted and fallen, the big liners dropped into sheet-iron in the ports; the burnt, deserted121 cities become the ruinous hiding-places of gangs of robbers. We might have been brigands122 in a shattered and attenuated123 world. Ah, you may smile, but that had happened before in human history. The world is still studded with the ruins of broken-down civilisations. Barbaric bands made their fastness upon the Acropolis, and the tomb of Hadrian became a fortress124 that warred across the ruins of Rome against the Colosseum. . . . Had all that possibility of reaction ended so certainly in 1940? Is it all so very far away even now?’
‘It seems far enough away now,’ said Edith Haydon.
‘But forty years ago?’
‘No,’ said Karenin with his eyes upon the mountains, ‘I think you underrate the available intelligence in those early decades of the twentieth century. Officially, I know, politically, that intelligence didn’t tell — but it was there. And I question your hypothesis. I doubt if that discovery could have been delayed. There is a kind of inevitable logic125 now in the progress of research. For a hundred years and more thought and science have been going their own way regardless of the common events of life. You see — they have got loose. If there had been no Holsten there would have been some similar man. If atomic energy had not come in one year it would have come in another. In decadent126 Rome the march of science had scarcely begun. . . . Nineveh, Babylon, Athens, Syracuse, Alexandria, these were the first rough experiments in association that made a security, a breathing-space, in which inquiry was born. Man had to experiment before he found out the way to begin. But already two hundred years ago he had fairly begun. . . . The politics and dignities and wars of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries were only the last phoenix127 blaze of the former civilisation flaring128 up about the beginnings of the new. Which we serve. . . . ‘Man lives in the dawn for ever,’ said Karenin. ‘Life is beginning and nothing else but beginning. It begins everlastingly129. Each step seems vaster than the last, and does but gather us together for the nest. This Modern State of ours, which would have been a Utopian marvel99 a hundred years ago, is already the commonplace of life. But as I sit here and dream of the possibilities in the mind of man that now gather to a head beneath the shelter of its peace, these great mountains here seem but little things. . . . ’
6
About eleven Karenin had his midday meal, and afterwards he slept among his artificial furs and pillows for two hours. Then he awoke and some tea was brought to him, and he attended to a small difficulty in connection with the Moravian schools in the Labrador country and in Greenland that Gardener knew would interest him. He remained alone for a little while after that, and then the two women came to him again. Afterwards Edwards and Kahn joined the group, and the talk fell upon love and the place of women in the renascent130 world. The cloudbanks of India lay under a quivering haze131, and the blaze of the sun fell full upon the eastward precipices. Ever and again as they talked, some vast splinter of rock would crack and come away from these, or a wild rush of snow and ice and stone, pour down in thunder, hang like a wet thread into the gulfs below, and cease. . . .
7
For a time Karenin said very little, and Kahn, the popular poet, talked of passionate love. He said that passionate, personal love had been the abiding132 desire of humanity since ever humanity had begun, and now only was it becoming a possible experience. It had been a dream that generation after generation had pursued, that always men had lost on the verge133 of attainment134. To most of those who had sought it obstinately it had brought tragedy. Now, lifted above sordid135 distresses136, men and women might hope for realised and triumphant137 love. This age was the Dawn of Love. . . .
Karenin remained downcast and thoughtful while Kahn said these things. Against that continued silence Kahn’s voice presently seemed to beat and fail. He had begun by addressing Karenin, but presently he was including Edith Haydon and Rachel Borken in his appeal. Rachel listened silently; Edith watched Karenin and very deliberately138 avoided Kahn’s eyes.
‘I know,’ said Karenin at last, ‘that many people are saying this sort of thing. I know that there is a vast release of love-making in the world. This great wave of decoration and elaboration that has gone about the world, this Efflorescence, has of course laid hold of that. I know that when you say that the world is set free, you interpret that to mean that the world is set free for love-making. Down there — under the clouds, the lovers foregather. I know your songs, Kahn, your half-mystical songs, in which you represent this old hard world dissolving into a luminous139 haze of love — sexual love. . . . I don’t think you are right or true in that. You are a young, imaginative man, and you see life — ardently140 — with the eyes of youth. But the power that has brought man into these high places under this blue-veiled blackness of the sky and which beckons141 us on towards the immense and awful future of our race, is riper and deeper and greater than any such emotions. . . .
‘All through my life — it has been a necessary part of my work — I have had to think of this release of sexual love and the riddles142 that perfect freedom and almost limitless power will put to the soul of our race. I can see now, all over the world, a beautiful ecstasy143 of waste; “Let us sing and rejoice and be lovely and wonderful.” . . . The orgy is only beginning, Kahn. . . . It was inevitable — but it is not the end of mankind. . . .
‘Think what we are. It is but a yesterday in the endlessness of time that life was a dreaming thing, dreaming so deeply that it forgot itself as it dreamt, its lives, its individual instincts, its moments, were born and wondered and played and desired and hungered and grew weary and died. Incalculable successions of vision, visions of sunlit jungle, river wilderness, wild forest, eager desire, beating hearts, soaring wings and creeping terror flamed hotly and then were as though they had never been. Life was an uneasiness across which lights played and vanished. And then we came, man came, and opened eyes that were a question and hands that were a demand and began a mind and memory that dies not when men die, but lives and increases for ever, an over-mind, a dominating will, a question and an aspiration144 that reaches to the stars. . . . Hunger and fear and this that you make so much of, this sex, are but the elementals of life out of which we have arisen. All these elementals, I grant you, have to be provided for, dealt with, satisfied, but all these things have to be left behind.’
‘But Love,’ said Kahn.
‘I speak of sexual love and the love of intimate persons. And that is what you mean, Kahn.’
Karenin shook his head. ‘You cannot stay at the roots and climb the tree,’ he said. . . .
‘No,’ he said after a pause, ‘this sexual excitement, this love story, is just a part of growing up and we grow out of it. So far literature and art and sentiment and all our emotional forms have been almost altogether adolescent, plays and stories, delights and hopes, they have all turned on that marvellous discovery of the love interest, but life lengthens146 out now and the mind of adult humanity detaches itself. Poets who used to die at thirty live now to eighty-five. You, too, Kahn! There are endless years yet for you — and all full of learning. . . . We carry an excessive burden of sex and sexual tradition still, and we have to free ourselves from it. We do free ourselves from it. We have learnt in a thousand different ways to hold back death, and this sex, which in the old barbaric days was just sufficient to balance our dying, is now like a hammer that has lost its anvil147, it plunges148 through human life. You poets, you young people want to turn it to delight. Turn it to delight. That may be one way out. In a little while, if you have any brains worth thinking about, you will be satisfied, and then you will come up here to the greater things. The old religions and their new offsets149 want still, I see, to suppress all these things. Let them suppress. If they can suppress. In their own people. Either road will bring you here at last to the eternal search for knowledge and the great adventure of power.’
‘But incidentally,’ said Rachel Borken; ‘incidentally you have half of humanity, you have womankind, very much specialised for — for this love and reproduction that is so much less needed than it was.’
‘Both sexes are specialised for love and reproduction,’ said Karenin.
‘But the women carry the heavier burden.’
‘Not in their imaginations,’ said Edwards.
‘And surely,’ said Kahn, ‘when you speak of love as a phase — isn’t it a necessary phase? Quite apart from reproduction the love of the sexes is necessary. Isn’t it love, sexual love, which has released the imagination? Without that stir, without that impulse to go out from ourselves, to be reckless of ourselves and wonderful, would our lives be anything more than the contentment of the stalled ox?’
‘The key that opens the door,’ said Karenin, ‘is not the goal of the journey.’
‘But women!’ cried Rachel. ‘Here we are! What is our future — as women? Is it only that we have unlocked the doors of the imagination for you men? Let us speak of this question now. It is a thing constantly in my thoughts, Karenin. What do you think of us? You who must have thought so much of these perplexities.’
Karenin seemed to weigh his words. He spoke very deliberately. ‘I do not care a rap about your future — as women. I do not care a rap about the future of men — as males. I want to destroy these peculiar futures150. I care for your future as intelligences, as parts of and contribution to the universal mind of the race. Humanity is not only naturally over-specialised in these matters, but all its institutions, its customs, everything, exaggerate, intensify151 this difference. I want to unspecialise women. No new idea. Plato wanted exactly that. I do not want to go on as we go now, emphasising this natural difference; I do not deny it, but I want to reduce it and overcome it.’
‘And — we remain women,’ said Rachel Borken. ‘Need you remain thinking of yourselves as women?’
‘It is forced upon us,’ said Edith Haydon.
‘I do not think a woman becomes less of a woman because she dresses and works like a man,’ said Edwards. ‘You women here, I mean you scientific women, wear white clothing like the men, twist up your hair in the simplest fashion, go about your work as though there was only one sex in the world. You are just as much women, even if you are not so feminine, as the fine ladies down below there in the plains who dress for excitement and display, whose only thoughts are of lovers, who exaggerate every difference. . . . Indeed we love you more.’
‘But we go about our work,’ said Edith Haydon.
‘So does it matter?’ asked Rachel.
‘If you go about your work and if the men go about their work then for Heaven’s sake be as much woman as you wish,’ said Karenin. ‘When I ask you to unspecialise, I am thinking not of the abolition152 of sex, but the abolition of the irksome, restricting, obstructive obsession153 with sex. It may be true that sex made society, that the first society was the sex-cemented family, the first state a confederacy of blood relations, the first laws sexual taboos154. Until a few years ago morality meant proper sexual behaviour. Up to within a few years of us the chief interest and motive155 of an ordinary man was to keep and rule a woman and her children and the chief concern of a woman was to get a man to do that. That was the drama, that was life. And the jealousy156 of these demands was the master motive in the world. You said, Kahn, a little while ago that sexual love was the key that let one out from the solitude157 of self, but I tell you that so far it has only done so in order to lock us all up again in a solitude of two. . . . All that may have been necessary but it is necessary no longer. All that has changed and changes still very swiftly. Your future, Rachel, AS WOMEN, is a diminishing future.’
‘Karenin?’ asked Rachel, ‘do you mean that women are to become men?’
‘Men and women have to become human beings.’
‘You would abolish women? But, Karenin, listen! There is more than sex in this. Apart from sex we are different from you. We take up life differently. Forget we are — females, Karenin, and still we are a different sort of human being with a different use. In some things we are amazingly secondary. Here am I in this place because of my trick of management, and Edith is here because of her patient, subtle hands. That does not alter the fact that nearly the whole body of science is man made; that does not alter the fact that men do so predominatingly make history, that you could nearly write a complete history of the world without mentioning a woman’s name. And on the other hand we have a gift of devotion, of inspiration, a distinctive158 power for truly loving beautiful things, a care for life and a peculiar keen close eye for behaviour. You know men are blind beside us in these last matters. You know they are restless — and fitful. We have a steadfastness159. We may never draw the broad outlines nor discover the new paths, but in the future isn’t there a confirming and sustaining and supplying role for us? As important, perhaps, as yours? Equally important. We hold the world up, Karenin, though you may have raised it.’
‘You know very well, Rachel, that I believe as you believe. I am not thinking of the abolition of woman. But I do want to abolish — the heroine, the sexual heroine. I want to abolish the woman whose support is jealousy and whose gift possession. I want to abolish the woman who can be won as a prize or locked up as a delicious treasure. And away down there the heroine flares160 like a divinity.’
‘In America,’ said Edwards, ‘men are fighting duels161 over the praises of women and holding tournaments before Queens of Beauty.’
‘I saw a beautiful girl in Lahore,’ said Kahn, ‘she sat under a golden canopy162 like a goddess, and three fine men, armed and dressed like the ancient paintings, sat on steps below her to show their devotion. And they wanted only her permission to fight for her.’
‘That is the men’s doing,’ said Edith Haydon.
‘I SAID,’ cried Edwards, ‘that man’s imagination was more specialised for sex than the whole being of woman. What woman would do a thing like that? Women do but submit to it or take advantage of it.’
‘There is no evil between men and women that is not a common evil,’ said Karenin. ‘It is you poets, Kahn, with your love songs which turn the sweet fellowship of comrades into this woman-centred excitement. But there is something in women, in many women, which responds to these provocations163; they succumb164 to a peculiarly self-cultivating egotism. They become the subjects of their own artistry. They develop and elaborate themselves as scarcely any man would ever do. They LOOK for golden canopies165. And even when they seem to react against that, they may do it still. I have been reading in the old papers of the movements to emancipate166 women that were going on before the discovery of atomic force. These things which began with a desire to escape from the limitations and servitude of sex, ended in an inflamed167 assertion of sex, and women more heroines than ever. Helen of Holloway was at last as big a nuisance in her way as Helen of Troy, and so long as you think of yourselves as women’— he held out a finger at Rachel and smiled gently —‘instead of thinking of yourselves as intelligent beings, you will be in danger of — Helenism. To think of yourselves as women is to think of yourselves in relation to men. You can’t escape that consequence. You have to learn to think of yourselves — for our sakes and your own sakes — in relation to the sun and stars. You have to cease to be our adventure, Rachel, and come with us upon our adventures. . . . ’ He waved his hand towards the dark sky above the mountain crests168.
8
‘These questions are the next questions to which research will bring us answers,’ said Karenin. ‘While we sit here and talk idly and inexactly of what is needed and what may be, there are hundreds of keen-witted men and women who are working these things out, dispassionately and certainly, for the love of knowledge. The next sciences to yield great harvests now will be psychology169 and neural170 physiology171. These perplexities of the situation between man and woman and the trouble with the obstinacy172 of egotism, these are temporary troubles, the issue of our own times. Suddenly all these differences that seem so fixed173 will dissolve, all these incompatibles will run together, and we shall go on to mould our bodies and our bodily feelings and personal reactions as boldly as we begin now to carve mountains and set the seas in their places and change the currents of the wind.’
‘It is the next wave,’ said Fowler, who had come out upon the terrace and seated himself silently behind Karenin’s chair.
‘Of course, in the old days,’ said Edwards, ‘men were tied to their city or their country, tied to the homes they owned or the work they did. . . . ’
‘I do not see,’ said Karenin, ‘that there is any final limit to man’s power of self-modification.
‘There is none,’ said Fowler, walking forward and sitting down upon the parapet in front of Karenin so that he could see his face. ‘There is no absolute limit to either knowledge or power. . . . I hope you do not tire yourself talking.’
‘I am interested,’ said Karenin. ‘I suppose in a little while men will cease to be tired. I suppose in a little time you will give us something that will hurry away the fatigue174 products and restore our jaded175 tissues almost at once. This old machine may be made to run without slacking or cessation.’
‘That is possible, Karenin. But there is much to learn.’
‘And all the hours we give to digestion176 and half living; don’t you think there will be some way of saving these?’
Fowler nodded assent33.
‘And then sleep again. When man with his blazing lights made an end to night in his towns and houses — it is only a hundred years or so ago that that was done — then it followed he would presently resent his eight hours of uselessness. Shan’t we presently take a tabloid or lie in some field of force that will enable us to do with an hour or so of slumber177 and rise refreshed again?’
‘Frobisher and Ameer Ali have done work in that direction.’
‘And then the inconveniences of age and those diseases of the system that come with years; steadily178 you drive them back and you lengthen145 and lengthen the years that stretch between the passionate tumults179 of youth and the contractions180 of senility. Man who used to weaken and die as his teeth decayed now looks forward to a continually lengthening181, continually fuller term of years. And all those parts of him that once gathered evil against him, the vestigial structures and odd, treacherous182 corners of his body, you know better and better how to deal with. You carve his body about and leave it re-modelled and unscarred. The psychologists are learning how to mould minds, to reduce and remove bad complexes of thought and motive, to relieve pressures and broaden ideas. So that we are becoming more and more capable of transmitting what we have learnt and preserving it for the race. The race, the racial wisdom, science, gather power continually to subdue183 the individual man to its own end. Is that not so?’
Fowler said that it was, and for a time he was telling Karenin of new work that was in progress in India and Russia. ‘And how is it with heredity?’ asked Karenin.
Fowler told them of the mass of inquiry accumulated and arranged by the genius of Tchen, who was beginning to define clearly the laws of inheritance and how the sex of children and the complexions184 and many of the parental185 qualities could be determined.
‘He can actually DO——?’
‘It is still, so to speak, a mere186 laboratory triumph,’ said Fowler, ‘but to-morrow it will be practicable.’
‘You see,’ cried Karenin, turning a laughing face to Rachel and Edith, ‘while we have been theorising about men and women, here is science getting the power for us to end that old dispute for ever. If woman is too much for us, we’ll reduce her to a minority, and if we do not like any type of men and women, we’ll have no more of it. These old bodies, these old animal limitations, all this earthly inheritance of gross inevitabilities falls from the spirit of man like the shrivelled cocoon187 from an imago. And for my own part, when I hear of these things I feel like that — like a wet, crawling new moth188 that still fears to spread its wings. Because where do these things take us?’
‘Beyond humanity,’ said Kahn.
‘No,’ said Karenin. ‘We can still keep our feet upon the earth that made us. But the air no longer imprisons189 us, this round planet is no longer chained to us like the ball of a galley190 slave. . . .
‘In a little while men who will know how to bear the strange gravitations, the altered pressures, the attenuated, unfamiliar191 gases and all the fearful strangenesses of space will be venturing out from this earth. This ball will be no longer enough for us; our spirit will reach out. . . . Cannot you see how that little argosy will go glittering up into the sky, twinkling and glittering smaller and smaller until the blue swallows it up. They may succeed out there; they may perish, but other men will follow them. . . .
‘It is as if a great window opened,’ said Karenin.
9
As the evening drew on Karenin and those who were about him went up upon the roof of the buildings, so that they might the better watch the sunset and the flushing of the mountains and the coming of the afterglow. They were joined by two of the surgeons from the laboratories below, and presently by a nurse who brought Karenin refreshment192 in a thin glass cup. It was a cloudless, windless evening under the deep blue sky, and far away to the north glittered two biplanes on the way to the observatories193 on Everest, two hundred miles distant over the precipices to the east. The little group of people watched them pass over the mountains and vanish into the blue, and then for a time they talked of the work that the observatory194 was doing. From that they passed to the whole process of research about the world, and so Karenin’s thoughts returned again to the mind of the world and the great future that was opening upon man’s imagination. He asked the surgeons many questions upon the detailed195 possibilities of their science, and he was keenly interested and excited by the things they told him. And as they talked the sun touched the mountains, and became very swiftly a blazing and indented196 hemisphere of liquid flame and sank.
Karenin looked blinking at the last quivering rim28 of incandescence197, and shaded his eyes and became silent.
Presently he gave a little start.
‘What?’ asked Rachel Borken.
‘I had forgotten,’ he said.
‘What had you forgotten?’
‘I had forgotten about the operation to-morrow. I have been so interested as Man to-day that I have nearly forgotten Marcus Karenin. Marcus Karenin must go under your knife to-morrow, Fowler, and very probably Marcus Karenin will die.’ He raised his slightly shrivelled hand. ‘It does not matter, Fowler. It scarcely matters even to me. For indeed is it Karenin who has been sitting here and talking; is it not rather a common mind, Fowler, that has played about between us? You and I and all of us have added thought to thought, but the thread is neither you nor me. What is true we all have; when the individual has altogether brought himself to the test and winnowing198 of expression, then the individual is done. I feel as though I had already been emptied out of that little vessel199, that Marcus Karenin, which in my youth held me so tightly and completely. Your beauty, dear Edith, and your broad brow, dear Rachel, and you, Fowler, with your firm and skilful200 hands, are now almost as much to me as this hand that beats the arm of my chair. And as little me. And the spirit that desires to know, the spirit that resolves to do, that spirit that lives and has talked in us to-day, lived in Athens, lived in Florence, lives on, I know, for ever. . . .
‘And you, old Sun, with your sword of flame searing these poor eyes of Marcus for the last time of all, beware of me! You think I die — and indeed I am only taking off one more coat to get at you. I have threatened you for ten thousand years, and soon I warn you I shall be coming. When I am altogether stripped and my disguises thrown away. Very soon now, old Sun, I shall launch myself at you, and I shall reach you and I shall put my foot on your spotted201 face and tug202 you about by your fiery203 locks. One step I shall take to the moon, and then I shall leap at you. I’ve talked to you before, old Sun, I’ve talked to you a million times, and now I am beginning to remember. Yes — long ago, long ago, before I had stripped off a few thousand generations, dust now and forgotten, I was a hairy savage204 and I pointed205 my hand at you and — clearly I remember it! — I saw you in a net. Have you forgotten that, old Sun? . . .
‘Old Sun, I gather myself together out of the pools of the individual that have held me dispersed206 so long. I gather my billion thoughts into science and my million wills into a common purpose. Well may you slink down behind the mountains from me, well may you cower207. . . . ’
10
Karenin desired that he might dream alone for a little while before he returned to the cell in which he was to sleep. He was given relief for a pain that began to trouble him and wrapped warmly about with furs, for a great coldness was creeping over all things, and so they left him, and he sat for a long time watching the afterglow give place to the darkness of night.
It seemed to those who had to watch over him unobtrusively lest he should be in want of any attention, that he mused208 very deeply.
The white and purple peaks against the golden sky sank down into cold, blue remoteness, glowed out again and faded again, and the burning cressets of the Indian stars, that even the moonrise cannot altogether quench209, began their vigil. The moon rose behind the towering screen of dark precipices to the east, and long before it emerged above these, its slanting210 beams had filled the deep gorges211 below with luminous mist and turned the towers and pinnacles of Lio Porgyul to a magic dreamcastle of radiance and wonder. . . .
Came a great uprush of ghostly light above the black rim of rocks, and then like a bubble that is blown and detaches itself the moon floated off clear into the unfathomable dark sky. . . .
And then Karenin stood up. He walked a few paces along the terrace and remained for a time gazing up at that great silver disc, that silvery shield that must needs be man’s first conquest in outer space. . . .
Presently he turned about and stood with his hands folded behind him, looking at the northward stars . . . .
At length he went to his own cell. He lay down there and slept peacefully till the morning. And early in the morning they came to him and the anaesthetic was given him and the operation performed.
It was altogether successful, but Karenin was weak and he had to lie very still; and about seven days later a blood clot80 detached itself from the healing scar and travelled to his heart, and he died in an instant in the night.
The End
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surgical
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| adj.外科的，外科医生的，手术上的 | |
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gorge
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| n.咽喉，胃，暴食，山峡；v.塞饱，狼吞虎咽地吃 | |
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granite
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cleft
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swarming
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| 密集( swarm的现在分词 )； 云集； 成群地移动； 蜜蜂或其他飞行昆虫成群地飞来飞去 | |
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gulf
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moss
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precipices
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fretted
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pinnacles
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northward
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wilderness
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chasms
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plunged
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boulders
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citadel
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porcelain
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eastward
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westward
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abruptly
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albeit
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wildernesses
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descended
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fabric
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distractions
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brass
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platinum
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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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winced
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doorway
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invalid
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uncertainty
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peculiar
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virtue
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chafed
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aptitude
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chaotic
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groaned
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chaos
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passionate
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standing
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exasperation
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wholesome
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indignities
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| n.侮辱，轻蔑( indignity的名词复数 ) | |
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50
vile
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| adj.卑鄙的，可耻的，邪恶的；坏透的 | |
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51
vestiges
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| 残余部分( vestige的名词复数 )； 遗迹； 痕迹； 毫不 | |
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52
brutes
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| 兽( brute的名词复数 )； 畜生； 残酷无情的人； 兽性 | |
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53
reptiles
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| n.爬行动物，爬虫( reptile的名词复数 ) | |
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54
lurk
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| n.潜伏，潜行；v.潜藏，潜伏，埋伏 | |
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55
gnawing
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| a.痛苦的，折磨人的 | |
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56
salvage
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| v.救助，营救，援救；n.救助，营救 | |
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57
peevish
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| adj.易怒的，坏脾气的 | |
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58
belittled
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| 使显得微小，轻视，贬低( belittle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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59
ailing
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| v.生病 | |
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60
vitality
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| n.活力，生命力，效力 | |
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61
ingratitude
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| n.忘恩负义 | |
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62
determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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63
tiresome
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| adj.令人疲劳的，令人厌倦的 | |
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64
encumbered
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| v.妨碍，阻碍，拖累( encumber的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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65
entangled
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| adj.卷入的；陷入的；被缠住的；缠在一起的v.使某人（某物/自己）缠绕，纠缠于（某物中），使某人（自己）陷入（困难或复杂的环境中）( entangle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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66
feverish
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| adj.发烧的，狂热的，兴奋的 | |
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67
obsolete
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| adj.已废弃的，过时的 | |
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68
sects
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| n.宗派，教派( sect的名词复数 ) | |
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69
proprietorship
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| n.所有（权）；所有权 | |
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70
inflict
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| vt.(on)把…强加给，使遭受，使承担 | |
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71
shaft
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| n.(工具的)柄，杆状物 | |
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72
lighting
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| n.照明，光线的明暗，舞台灯光 | |
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73
repletion
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| n.充满，吃饱 | |
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74
awakening
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| n.觉醒，醒悟 adj.觉醒中的；唤醒的 | |
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75
plentiful
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| adj.富裕的，丰富的 | |
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76
strand
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| vt.使（船）搁浅，使（某人）困于（某地） | |
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77
rubble
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| n.（一堆）碎石，瓦砾 | |
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78
tabloid
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|
| adj.轰动性的，庸俗的；n.小报，文摘 | |
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79
filth
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| n.肮脏，污物，污秽；淫猥 | |
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80
clot
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| n.凝块；v.使凝成块 | |
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81
pulping
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|
| 水果的肉质部分( pulp的现在分词 )； 果肉； 纸浆； 低级书刊 | |
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82
congestion
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| n.阻塞，消化不良 | |
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83
uproar
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| n.骚动，喧嚣，鼎沸 | |
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84
irritation
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| n.激怒，恼怒，生气 | |
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85
irrational
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| adj.无理性的，失去理性的 | |
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86
touching
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| adj.动人的，使人感伤的 | |
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87
obstinate
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| adj.顽固的，倔强的，不易屈服的，较难治愈的 | |
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88
obstinately
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| ad.固执地，顽固地 | |
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89
outrageously
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| 凶残地； 肆无忌惮地； 令人不能容忍地； 不寻常地 | |
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90
inaccessible
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|
| adj.达不到的，难接近的 | |
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91
influential
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| adj.有影响的，有权势的 | |
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92
trample
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| vt.踩，践踏；无视，伤害，侵犯 | |
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93
trampled
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| 踩( trample的过去式和过去分词 )； 践踏； 无视； 侵犯 | |
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94
malice
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| n.恶意，怨恨，蓄意；[律]预谋 | |
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95
clatter
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| v./n.(使)发出连续而清脆的撞击声 | |
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96
monstrous
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|
| adj.巨大的；恐怖的；可耻的，丢脸的 | |
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97
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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98
daguerreotype
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| n.银板照相 | |
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99
marvel
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| vi.(at)惊叹vt.感到惊异；n.令人惊异的事 | |
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100
juggling
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| n. 欺骗, 杂耍(=jugglery) adj. 欺骗的, 欺诈的 动词juggle的现在分词 | |
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101
inevitable
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| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
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102
inevitability
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| n.必然性 | |
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103
invincible
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| adj.不可征服的，难以制服的 | |
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104
unity
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| n.团结，联合，统一；和睦，协调 | |
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105
embittered
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| v.使怨恨，激怒( embitter的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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106
conspirator
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| n.阴谋者，谋叛者 | |
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107
dingy
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| adj.昏暗的，肮脏的 | |
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108
stoutly
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| adv.牢固地，粗壮的 | |
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109
personalities
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| n. 诽谤，（对某人容貌、性格等所进行的）人身攻击； 人身攻击；人格, 个性, 名人( personality的名词复数 ) | |
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110
gibed
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| v.嘲笑，嘲弄( gibe的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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111
administrator
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| n.经营管理者，行政官员 | |
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112
civilisation
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| n.文明，文化，开化，教化 | |
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113
crescendo
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| n.(音乐)渐强，高潮 | |
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114
copper
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| n.铜；铜币；铜器；adj.铜(制)的；(紫)铜色的 | |
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115
populous
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| adj.人口稠密的，人口众多的 | |
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116
bankruptcy
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| n.破产；无偿付能力 | |
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117
inquiry
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| n.打听，询问，调查，查问 | |
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118
disintegration
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| n.分散，解体 | |
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119
disorder
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| n.紊乱，混乱；骚动，骚乱；疾病，失调 | |
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120
rusted
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| v.（使）生锈( rust的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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121
deserted
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| adj.荒芜的，荒废的，无人的，被遗弃的 | |
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122
brigands
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| n.土匪，强盗( brigand的名词复数 ) | |
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123
attenuated
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| v.（使）变细( attenuate的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）变薄；（使）变小；减弱 | |
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124
fortress
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| n.堡垒，防御工事 | |
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125
logic
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| n.逻辑(学)；逻辑性 | |
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126
decadent
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| adj.颓废的，衰落的，堕落的 | |
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127
phoenix
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| n.凤凰，长生(不死)鸟；引申为重生 | |
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128
flaring
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| a.火焰摇曳的，过份艳丽的 | |
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129
everlastingly
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| 永久地，持久地 | |
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130
renascent
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| adj.新生的 | |
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131
haze
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| n.霾，烟雾；懵懂，迷糊；vi.(over)变模糊 | |
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132
abiding
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| adj.永久的，持久的，不变的 | |
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133
verge
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| n.边，边缘；v.接近，濒临 | |
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134
attainment
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| n.达到，到达；［常pl.］成就，造诣 | |
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135
sordid
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| adj.肮脏的，不干净的，卑鄙的，暗淡的 | |
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136
distresses
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| n.悲痛( distress的名词复数 )；痛苦；贫困；危险 | |
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137
triumphant
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| adj.胜利的，成功的；狂欢的，喜悦的 | |
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138
deliberately
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|
| adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地 | |
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139
luminous
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| adj.发光的，发亮的；光明的；明白易懂的；有启发的 | |
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140
ardently
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| adv.热心地，热烈地 | |
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141
beckons
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| v.（用头或手的动作）示意，召唤( beckon的第三人称单数 ) | |
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142
riddles
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| n.谜（语）( riddle的名词复数 )；猜不透的难题，难解之谜 | |
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143
ecstasy
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| n.狂喜，心醉神怡，入迷 | |
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144
aspiration
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| n.志向，志趣抱负；渴望；(语)送气音；吸出 | |
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145
lengthen
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| vt.使伸长，延长 | |
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146
lengthens
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| （时间或空间）延长，伸长( lengthen的第三人称单数 ) | |
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147
anvil
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| n.铁钻 | |
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148
plunges
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| n.跳进，投入vt.使投入，使插入，使陷入vi.投入，跳进，陷入v.颠簸( plunge的第三人称单数 )；暴跌；骤降；突降 | |
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149
offsets
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| n.开端( offset的名词复数 )；出发v.抵消( offset的第三人称单数 )；补偿；（为了比较的目的而）把…并列（或并置）；为（管道等）装支管 | |
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150
futures
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| n.期货，期货交易 | |
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151
intensify
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| vt.加强；变强；加剧 | |
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152
abolition
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| n.废除，取消 | |
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153
obsession
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| n.困扰，无法摆脱的思想(或情感) | |
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154
taboos
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| 禁忌( taboo的名词复数 )； 忌讳； 戒律； 禁忌的事物（或行为） | |
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155
motive
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| n.动机，目的；adv.发动的，运动的 | |
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156
jealousy
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| n.妒忌，嫉妒，猜忌 | |
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157
solitude
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| n. 孤独; 独居,荒僻之地,幽静的地方 | |
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158
distinctive
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| adj.特别的，有特色的，与众不同的 | |
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159
steadfastness
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| n.坚定，稳当 | |
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160
flares
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| n.喇叭裤v.（使）闪耀( flare的第三人称单数 )；（使）（船舷）外倾；（使）鼻孔张大；（使）（衣裙、酒杯等）呈喇叭形展开 | |
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161
duels
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| n.两男子的决斗( duel的名词复数 )；竞争，斗争 | |
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162
canopy
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| n.天篷，遮篷 | |
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163
provocations
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| n.挑衅( provocation的名词复数 )；激怒；刺激；愤怒的原因 | |
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164
succumb
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| v.屈服，屈从；死 | |
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165
canopies
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| （宝座或床等上面的）华盖( canopy的名词复数 )； （飞行器上的）座舱罩； 任何悬于上空的覆盖物； 森林中天棚似的树荫 | |
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166
emancipate
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| v.解放，解除 | |
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167
inflamed
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| adj.发炎的，红肿的v.（使）变红，发怒，过热( inflame的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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168
crests
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| v.到达山顶（或浪峰）( crest的第三人称单数 )；到达洪峰，达到顶点 | |
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169
psychology
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| n.心理，心理学，心理状态 | |
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170
neural
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| adj.神经的，神经系统的 | |
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171
physiology
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| n.生理学，生理机能 | |
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172
obstinacy
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| n.顽固；（病痛等）难治 | |
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173
fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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174
fatigue
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| n.疲劳，劳累 | |
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175
jaded
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|
| adj.精疲力竭的；厌倦的；（因过饱或过多而）腻烦的；迟钝的 | |
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176
digestion
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| n.消化，吸收 | |
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177
slumber
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| n.睡眠，沉睡状态 | |
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178
steadily
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| adv.稳定地；不变地；持续地 | |
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179
tumults
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| 吵闹( tumult的名词复数 )； 喧哗； 激动的吵闹声； 心烦意乱 | |
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180
contractions
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| n.收缩( contraction的名词复数 )；缩减；缩略词；（分娩时）子宫收缩 | |
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181
lengthening
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| （时间或空间）延长，伸长( lengthen的现在分词 )； 加长 | |
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182
treacherous
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| adj.不可靠的，有暗藏的危险的；adj.背叛的，背信弃义的 | |
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183
subdue
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| vt.制服，使顺从，征服；抑制，克制 | |
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184
complexions
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| 肤色( complexion的名词复数 )； 面色； 局面； 性质 | |
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185
parental
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| adj.父母的；父的；母的 | |
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186
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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187
cocoon
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| n.茧 | |
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188
moth
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| n.蛾，蛀虫 | |
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189
imprisons
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| v.下狱，监禁( imprison的第三人称单数 ) | |
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190
galley
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| n.（飞机或船上的）厨房单层甲板大帆船；军舰舰长用的大划艇； | |
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191
unfamiliar
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| adj.陌生的，不熟悉的 | |
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192
refreshment
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| n.恢复，精神爽快，提神之事物；（复数）refreshments:点心，茶点 | |
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193
observatories
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| n.天文台，气象台( observatory的名词复数 ) | |
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194
observatory
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| n.天文台，气象台，瞭望台，观测台 | |
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195
detailed
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| adj.详细的，详尽的，极注意细节的，完全的 | |
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196
indented
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| adj.锯齿状的，高低不平的；缩进排版 | |
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197
incandescence
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| n.白热，炽热；白炽 | |
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198
winnowing
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| v.扬( winnow的现在分词 )；辨别；选择；除去 | |
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199
vessel
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| n.船舶；容器，器皿；管，导管，血管 | |
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200
skilful
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| (=skillful)adj.灵巧的，熟练的 | |
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201
spotted
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| adj.有斑点的，斑纹的，弄污了的 | |
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202
tug
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| v.用力拖(或拉)；苦干；n.拖；苦干；拖船 | |
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203
fiery
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| adj.燃烧着的，火红的；暴躁的；激烈的 | |
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204
savage
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| adj.野蛮的；凶恶的，残暴的；n.未开化的人 | |
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pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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206
dispersed
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| adj. 被驱散的, 被分散的, 散布的 | |
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207
cower
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| v.畏缩，退缩，抖缩 | |
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208
mused
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| v.沉思，冥想( muse的过去式和过去分词 )；沉思自语说（某事） | |
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209
quench
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| vt.熄灭，扑灭；压制 | |
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210
slanting
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| 倾斜的，歪斜的 | |
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211
gorges
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| n.山峡，峡谷( gorge的名词复数 )；咽喉v.（用食物把自己）塞饱，填饱( gorge的第三人称单数 )；作呕 | |
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