CHAPTER V THEIR BROTHERS' KEEPERS

On the morning of September 2, a copper¹ wire broke in California, between two telephone poles by the track of the Pacific branch line of Taggart Transcontinental.  A slow, thin rain had been falling since midnight, and there had been no sunrise, only a gray light seeping³ through a soggy sky-and the brilliant raindrops hanging on the telephone wires had been the only sparks glittering against the chalk of the clouds, the lead of the ocean and the steel of the oil derricks descending⁴ as lone⁵ bristles⁶ down a desolate⁷ hillside. The wires had been worn by more rains and years than they had been intended to carry; one of them had kept sagging⁸, through the hours of that morning, under the fragile load of raindrops; then its one last drop had grown on the wire's curve and had hung like a crystal bead⁹, gathering¹⁰ the weight of many seconds; the bead and the wire had given up together and, as soundless as the fall of tears, the wire had broken and fallen with the fall of the bead.  The men at the Division Headquarters of Taggart Transcontinental avoided looking at one another, when the break of the telephone line was discovered and reported. They made statements painfully miscalculated to seem to refer to the problem, yet to state nothing, none fooling the others. They knew that copper wire was a vanishing commodity, more precious than gold or honor; they knew that the division storekeeper had sold their stock of wire weeks ago, to unknown dealers¹³ who came by night and were not businessmen in the daytime, but only men who had friends in Sacramento and in Washington-just as the storekeeper, recently appointed to the division, had a friend in New York, named Cuffy Meigs, about whom one asked no questions. They knew that the man who would now assume the responsibility of ordering repairs and initiating¹⁵ the action which would lead to the discovery that the repairs could not be made, would incur¹⁶ retaliation¹⁷ from unknown enemies, that his fellow workers would become mysteriously silent and would not testify to help him, that he would prove nothing, and if he attempted to do his job, it would not be his any longer. They did not know what was safe or dangerous these days, when the guilty were not punished, but the accusers were; and, like animals, they knew that immobility was the only protection when in doubt and in danger. They remained immobile; they spoke¹⁹ about the appropriate procedure of sending reports to the appropriate authorities on the appropriate dates.  A young roadmaster walked out of the room and out of the headquarters building to the safety of a telephone booth in a drugstore and, at his own expense, ignoring the continent and the tiers of appropriate executives between, he telephoned Dagny Taggart in New York.  She received the call in her brother's office, interrupting an emergency conference. The young roadmaster told her only that the telephone line was broken and that there was no wire to repair it; he said nothing else and he did not explain why he had found it necessary to call her in person. She did not question him; she understood. "Thank you," was all that she answered.  An emergency file in her office kept a record of all the crucial materials still on hand, on every division of Taggart Transcontinental.  Like the file of a bankrupt, it kept registering losses, while the rare additions of new supplies seemed like the malicious²⁰ chuckles²¹ of some tormentor²² throwing crumbs²³ at a starving continent. She looked through the file, closed it, sighed and said, "Montana, Eddie. Phone the Montana Line to ship half their stock of wire to California. Montana might be able to last without it-for another week." And as Eddie Willers was about to protest, she added, "Oil, Eddie. California is one of the last producers of oil left in the country. We don't dare lose the Pacific Line." Then she went back to the conference in her brother's office.  "Copper wire?" said James Taggart, with an odd glance that went from her face to the city beyond the window. "In a very short while, we won't have any trouble about copper."  "Why?" she asked, but he did not answer. There was nothing special to see beyond the window, only the clear sky of a sunny day, the quiet light of early afternoon on the roofs of the city and, above them, the page of the calendar, saying: September 2.  She did not know why he had insisted on holding this conference in his own office, why he had insisted on speaking to her alone, which he had always tried to avoid, or why he kept glancing at his wrist watch.  "Things are, it seems to me, going wrong," he said. "Something has to be done. There appears to exist a state of dislocation and confusion tending toward an uncoordinated, unbalanced policy. What I mean is, there's a tremendous national demand for transportation, yet we're losing money. It seems to me-"  She sat looking at the ancestral map of Taggart Transcontinental on the wall of his office, at the red arteries²⁵ winding²⁶ across a yellowed continent. There had been a time when the railroad was called the blood system of the nation, and the stream of trains had been like a living circuit of blood, bringing growth and wealth to every patch of wilderness²⁷ it touched. Now. it was still like a stream of blood, but like the one-way stream that runs from a wound, draining the last of a body's sustenance²⁸ and life. One-way traffic-she thought indifferently-consumers' traffic.  There was Train Number 193, she thought. Six weeks ago, Train Number 193 had been sent with a load of steel, not to Faulkton, Nebraska, where the Spencer Machine Tool Company, the best machine tool concern still in existence, had been idle for two weeks, waiting for the shipment-but to Sand Creek²⁹, Illinois, where Confederated Machines had been wallowing in debt for over a year, producing unreliable goods at unpredictable times. The steel had been allocated³⁰ by a directive which explained that the Spencer Machine Tool Company was a rich concern, able to wait, while Confederated Machines was bankrupt and could not be allowed to collapse³¹, being the sole source of livelihood³² of the community of Sand Creek, Illinois. The Spencer Machine Tool Company had closed a month ago. Confederated Machines had closed two weeks later.  The people of Sand Creek, Illinois, had been placed on national relief, but no food could be found for them in the empty granaries of the nation at the frantic³⁴ call of the moment-so the seed grain of the farmers of Nebraska had been seized by order of the Unification Board-and Train Number 194 had carried the unplanted harvest and the future of the people of Nebraska to be consumed by the people of Illinois. "In this enlightened age," Eugene Lawson had said in a radio broadcast, "we have come, at last, to realize that each one of us is his brother's keeper."  "In a precarious³⁵ period of emergency, like the present," James Taggart was saying, while she looked at the map, "it is dangerous to find ourselves forced to miss pay days and accumulate wage arrears³⁶ on some of our divisions, a temporary condition, of course, but-"  She chuckled³⁷. "The Railroad Unification Plan isn't working, is it, Jim?"  "I beg your pardon?"  "You're to receive a big cut of the Atlantic Southern's gross income, out of the common pool at the end of the year-only there won't be any gross income left for the pool to seize, will there?"  "That's not true! It's just that the bankers are sabotaging³⁸ the Plan. Those bastards³⁹-who used to give us loans in the old days, with no security at all except our own railroad-now refuse to let me have a few measly hundred-thousands, on short term, just to take care of a few payrolls⁴², when I have the entire plant of all the railroads of the country to offer them as security for my loan!"  She chuckled.  "We couldn't help it!" he cried. "It's not the fault of the Plan that some people refuse to carry their fair share of our burdens!"  "Jim, was this all you wanted to tell me? If it is, I'll go. I have work to do."  His eyes shot to his wrist watch. "No, no, that's not all! It's most urgent that we discuss the situation and arrive at some decision, which-"  She listened blankly to the next stream of generalities, wondering about his motive⁴³. He was marking time, yet he wasn't, not fully¹²; she felt certain that he was holding her here for some specific purpose and, simultaneously⁴⁴, that he was holding her for the mere⁴⁵ sake of her presence.  It was some new trait in him, which she had begun to notice ever since Cherryl's death. He had come running to her, rushing, unannounced, into her apartment on the evening of the day when Cherryl's body had been found and the story of her suicide had filled the newspapers, given by some social worker who had witnessed it; "an. inexplicable⁴⁶ suicide," the newspapers had called it, unable to discover any motive. "It wasn't my fault!" he had screamed to her, as if she were the only judge whom he had to placate⁴⁷. "I'm not to blame for it! I'm not to blame!" He had been shaking with terror-yet she had caught a few glances thrown shrewdly at her face, which had seemed, inconceivably, to convey a touch of triumph. "Get out of here, Jim," was all she had said to him.  He had never spoken to her again about Cherryl, but he had started coming to her office more often than usual, he had stopped her in the halls for snatches of pointless discussions-and such moments had grown into a sum that gave her an incomprehensible sensation: as if, while clinging to her for support and protection against some nameless terror, his arms were sliding to embrace her and to plunge⁴⁸ a knife into her back.  "I am eager to know your views," he was saying insistently⁴⁹, as she looked away. "It is most urgent that we discuss the situation and . . .  and you haven't said anything." She did not turn. "It's not as if there were no money to be had out of the railroad business, but-"  She glanced at him sharply; his eyes scurried⁵¹ away.  "What I mean is, some constructive⁵² policy has to be devised," he droned on hastily. "Something has to be done . . . by somebody. In times of emergency-"  She knew what thought he had scurried to avoid, what hint he had given her, yet did not want her to acknowledge or discuss. She knew that no train schedules could be maintained any longer, no promises kept, no contracts observed, that regular trains were cancelled at a moment's notice and transformed into emergency specials sent by unexplained orders to unexpected destinations-and that the orders came from Cuffy Meigs, sole judge of emergencies and of the public welfare.  She knew that factories were closing, some with their machinery⁵³ stilled for lack of supplies that had not been received, others with their warehouses⁵⁵ full of goods that could not be delivered. She knew that the old industries-the giants who had built their power by a purposeful course projected over a span of time-were left to exist at the whim⁵⁶ of the moment, a moment they could not foresee or control. She knew that the best among them, those of the longest range and most complex function, had long since gone-and those still struggling to produce, struggling savagely⁵⁷ to preserve the code of an age when production had been possible, were now inserting into their contracts a line shameful⁵⁸ to a descendant of Nat Taggart: "Transportation permitting."  And yet there were men-and she knew it-who were able to obtain transportation whenever they wished, as by a mystic secret, as by the grace of some power which one was not to question or explain.  They were the men whose dealings with Cuffy Meigs were regarded by people as that unknowable of mystic creeds⁵⁹ which smites⁶¹ the observer for the sin of looking, so people kept their eyes closed, dreading⁶², not ignorance, but knowledge. She knew that deals were made whereby those men sold a commodity known as "transportation pull"-a term which all understood, but none would dare define. She knew that these were the men of the emergency specials, the men who could cancel her scheduled trains and send them to any random⁶³ spot of the continent which they chose to strike with their voodoo stamp, the stamp superseding⁶⁴ contract, property, justice, reason and lives, the stamp stating that "the public welfare" required the immediate⁶⁵ salvation⁶⁶ of that spot. These were the men who sent trains to the relief of the Smather Brothers and their grapefruit in Arizona-to the relief of a factory in Florida engaged in the production of pin-ball machines-to the relief of a horse farm in Kentucky-to the relief of Orren Boyle's Associated Steel. These were the men who made deals with desperate industrialists⁶⁸ to provide transportation for the goods stalled in their warehouses-or, failing to obtain the percentage demanded, made deals to purchase the goods, when the factory closed, at the bankruptcy⁶⁹ sale, at ten cents on the dollar, and to speed the goods away in freight cars suddenly available, away to markets where dealers of the same kind were ready for the kill. These were the men who hovered⁷⁰ over factories, waiting for the last breath of a furnace, to pounce⁷¹ upon the equipment-and over desolate sidings, to pounce upon the freight cars of undelivered goods-these were a new biological species, the hit-and-run businessmen, who did not stay in any line of business longer than the span of one deal, who had no payrolls to meet, no overhead to carry, no real estate to own, no equipment to build, whose only asset and sole investment consisted of an item known as "friendship." These were the men whom official speeches described as "the progressive businessmen of our dynamic age," but whom people called "the pull peddlers"-the species included many breeds, those of "transportation pull," and of "steel pull" and "oil pull” and "wage-raise pull" and "suspended sentence pull"-men who were dynamic, who kept darting⁷³ all over the country while no one else could move, men who were active and mindless, active, not like animals, but like that which breeds, feeds and moves upon the stillness of a corpse⁷⁴.  She knew that there was money to be had out of the railroad business and she knew who was now obtaining it. Cuffy Meigs was selling trains as he was selling the last of the railroad's supplies, whenever he could rig a setup which would not let it be discovered or proved-selling rail to roads in Guatemala or to trolley⁷⁵ companies in Canada, selling wire to manufacturers of juke boxes, selling crossties for fuel in resort hotels.  Did it matter-she thought, looking at the map-which part of the corpse had been consumed by which type of maggot, by those who gorged⁷⁶ themselves or by those who gave the food to other maggots? So long as living flesh was prey⁷⁷ to be devoured⁷⁹, did it matter whose stomachs it had gone to fill? There was no way to tell which devastation⁸⁰ had been accomplished⁸¹ by the humanitarians⁸³ and which by undisguised gangsters⁸⁵. There was no way to tell which acts of plunder⁸⁶ had been prompted by the charity-lust of the Lawsons and which by the gluttony of Cuffy Meigs-no way to tell which communities had been immolated⁸⁷ to feed another community one week closer to starvation and which to provide yachts for the pull-peddlers. Did it matter? Both were alike in fact as they were alike in spirit, both were in need and need was regarded as sole title to property, both were acting⁸⁸ in strictest accordance with the same code of morality. Both held the immolation⁸⁹ of men as proper and both were achieving it. There wasn't even any way to tell who were the cannibals and who the victims-the communities that accepted as their rightful due the confiscated⁹⁰ clothing or fuel of a town to the east of them, found, next week, their granaries confiscated to feed a town to the west-men had achieved the ideal of the centuries, they were practicing it in unobstructed perfection, they were serving need as their highest ruler, need as first claim upon them, need as their standard of value, as the coin of their realm, as more sacred than right and life. Men had been pushed into a pit where, shouting that man is his brother's keeper, each was devouring⁹² his neighbor and was being devoured by his neighbor's brother, each was proclaiming the righteousness of the unearned and wondering who was stripping the skin off his back, each was devouring himself, while screaming in terror that some unknowable evil was destroying the earth.  "What complaint do they now have to make?" she heard Hugh Akston's voice in her mind. "That the universe is irrational⁹³? Is it?"  She sat looking at the map, her glance dispassionately solemn, as if no emotion save respect were permissible⁹⁶ when observing the awesome⁹⁸ power of logic⁷². She was seeing-in the chaos⁹⁹ of a perishing continent -the precise, mathematical execution of all the ideas men had held. They had not wanted to know that this was what they wanted, they had not wanted to see that they had the power to wish, but not the power to fake-and they had achieved their wish to the letter, to the last bloodstained comma of it. What were they thinking now, the champions of need and the lechers of pity?-she wondered. What were they counting on? Those who had once simpered: "I don't want to destroy the rich, I only want to seize a little of their surplus to help the poor, just a little, they'll never miss it!"-then, later, had snapped: "The tycoons¹⁰⁰ can stand being squeezed, they've amassed¹⁰¹ enough to last them for three generations"-then, later, had yelled: "Why should the people suffer while businessmen have reserves to last a year?"-now were screaming: "Why should we starve while some people have reserves to last a week?" What were they counting on?-she wondered.  "You must do something!" cried James Taggart.  She whirled to face him. "I?"  "It's your job, it's your province, it's your duty!"  "What is?"  "To act. To do."  "To do-what?"  "How should I know? It's your special talent. You're the doer."  She glanced at him: the statement was so oddly perceptive¹⁰² and so incongruously irrelevant¹⁰³. She rose to her feet.  "Is this all, Jim?"  "No! No! I want a discussion!"  "Go ahead."  "But you haven't said anything!"  "You haven't, either."  "But . . . What I mean is, there are practical problems to solve, which . . . For instance, what was that matter of our last allocation of new rail vanishing from the storehouse in Pittsburgh?"  "Cuffy Meigs stole it and sold it."  "Can you prove it?" he snapped defensively.  "Have your friends left any means, methods, rules or agencies of proof?"  "Then don't talk about it, don't be theoretical, we've got to deal with facts! We've got to deal with facts as they are today . . . I mean, we've got to be realistic and devise some practical means to protect our supplies under existing conditions, not under unprovable assumptions, which-"  She chuckled. There was the form of the formless, she thought, there was the method of his consciousness: he wanted her to protect him from Cuffy Meigs without acknowledging Meigs' existence, to fight it without admitting its reality, to defeat it without disturbing its game.  "What do you find so damn funny?" he snapped angrily.  "You know it."  "I don't know what's the matter with you! I don't know what's happened to you . . . in the last two months . . . ever since you came back. . . . You've never been so uncooperative!"  "Why, Jim, I haven't argued with you in the last two months."  "That's what I mean!" He caught himself hastily, but not fast enough to miss her smile. "I mean, I wanted to have a conference, I wanted to know your view of the situation-"  "You know it."  "But you haven't said a word!"  "I said everything I had to say, three years ago. I told you where your course would take you. It has."  "Now there you go again! What's the use of theorizing? We're here, we're not back three years ago. We've got to deal with the present, not the past. Maybe things would have been different, if we had followed your opinion, maybe, but the fact is that we didn't-and we've got to deal with facts. We've got to take reality as it is now, today!"  "Well, take it."  "I beg your pardon?"  "Take your reality. I'll merely take your orders."  "That's unfair! I'm asking for your opinion-"  "You're asking for reassurance¹⁰⁴, Jim. You're not going to get it."  "I beg your pardon?"  "I'm not going to help you pretend-by arguing with you-that the reality you're talking about is not what it is, that there's still a way to make it work and to save your neck. There isn't."  "Well . . ." There was no explosion, no anger-only the feebly uncertain voice of a man on the verge¹⁰⁵ of abdication¹⁰⁶. "Well . . . what would you want me to do?"  "Give up." He looked at her blankly. "Give up-all of you, you and your Washington friends and your looting planners and the whole of your cannibal philosophy. Give up and get out of the way and let those of us who can, start from scratch out of the ruins."  "No!" The explosion came, oddly, now; it was the scream of a man who would die rather than betray his idea, and it came from a man who had spent his life evading¹⁰⁷ the existence of ideas, acting with the expediency¹⁰⁸ of a criminal. She wondered whether she had ever understood the essence of criminals. She wondered about the nature of the loyalty¹¹⁰ to the idea of denying ideas.  "No!" he cried, his voice lower, hoarser¹¹¹ and more normal, sinking from the tone of a zealot to the tone of an overbearing executive.  "That's impossible! That's out of the question!"  "Who said so?"  "Never mind! It's so! Why do you always think of the impractical¹¹²? Why don't you accept reality as it is and do something about it? You're the realist, you're the doer, the mover, the producer, the Nat Taggart, you're the person who's able to achieve any goal she chooses! You could save us now, you could find a way to make things work-if you wanted to!"  She burst out laughing.  There, she thought, was the ultimate goal of all that loose academic prattle¹¹³ which businessmen had ignored for years, the goal of all the slipshod definitions, the sloppy¹¹⁵ generalities, the soupy abstractions, all claiming that obedience¹¹⁶ to objective reality is the same as obedience to the State, that there is no difference between a law of nature and a bureaucrat's directive, that a hungry man is not free, that man must be released from the tyranny of food, shelter and clothing-all of it, for years, that the day might come when Nat Taggart, the realist, would be asked to consider the will of Cuffy Meigs as a fact of nature, irrevocable and absolute like steel, rails and gravitation, to accept the Meigs made world as an objective, unchangeable reality-then to continue producing abundance in that world. There was the goal of all those con² men of library and classroom, who sold their revelations as reason, their "instincts" as science, their cravings as knowledge, the goal of all the savages¹¹⁷ of the non-objective, the non-absolute, the relative, the tentative, the probable-the savages who, seeing a farmer gather a harvest, can consider it only as a mystic phenomenon unbound by the law of causality and created by the farmer's omnipotent¹¹⁸ whim, who then proceed to seize the farmer, to chain him, to deprive him of tools, of seeds, of water, of soil, to push him out on a barren rock and to command: "Now grow a harvest and feed us!"  No-she thought, expecting Jim to ask it-it would be useless to try to explain what she was laughing at, he would not be able to understand it. But he did not ask it. Instead, she saw him slumping¹¹⁹ and heard him say-terrifyingly, because his words were so irrelevant, if he did not understand, and so monstrous¹²⁰, if he did, "Dagny, I'm your brother . . ."  She drew herself up, her muscles growing rigid¹²¹, as if she were about to face a killer's gun.  "Dagny"-his voice was the soft, nasal, monotonous¹²² whine¹²³ of a beggar-"I want to be president of a railroad. I want it. Why can't I have my wish as you always have yours? Why shouldn't I be given the fulfillment of my desires as you always fulfill¹²⁴ any desire of your own? Why should you be happy while I suffer? Oh yes, the world is yours, you're the one who has the brains to run it. Then why do you permit suffering in your world? You proclaim the pursuit of happiness, but you doom¹²⁵ me to frustration¹²⁶. Don't I have the right to demand any form of happiness I choose? Isn't that a debt which you owe me? Am I not your brother?"  His glance was like a prowler's flashlight searching her face for a shred¹²⁷ of pity. It found nothing but a look of revulsion.  "It's your sin if I suffer! It's your moral failure! I'm your brother, therefore I'm your responsibility, but you've failed to supply my wants, therefore you're guilty! All of mankind's moral leaders have said so for centuries-who are you to say otherwise? You're so proud of yourself, you think that you're pure and good-but you can't be good, so long as I'm wretched. My misery¹²⁸ is the measure of your sin. My contentment is the measure of your virtue¹²⁹. I want this kind of world, today's world, it gives me my share of authority, it allows me to feel important-make it work for me!-do something!-how do I know what?-it's your problem and your duty! You have the privilege of strength, but I-I have the right of weakness! That's a moral absolute! Don't you know it? Don't you? Don't you?"  His glance was now like the hands of a man hanging over an abyss, groping frantically¹³⁰ for the slightest fissure¹³¹ of doubt, but slipping on the clean, polished rock of her face.  "You bastard⁴⁰," she said evenly, without emotion, since the words were not addressed to anything human. It seemed to her that she saw him fall into the abyss-even though there was nothing to see in his face except the look of a con man whose trick has not worked. There was no reason to feel more revulsion than usual, she thought; he had merely uttered the things which were preached, heard and accepted everywhere; but this creed⁶⁰ was usually expounded¹³³ in the third person, and Jim had had the open effrontery¹³⁴ to expound¹³² it in the first. She wondered whether people accepted the doctrine¹³⁵ of sacrifice provided its recipients¹³⁶ did not identify the nature of their own claims and actions.  She turned to leave.  "No! No! Wait!" he cried, leaping to his feet, with a glance at his wrist watch. "It's time now! There's a particular news broadcast that I want you to hear!"  She stopped, held by curiosity. He pressed the switch of the radio, watching her face openly, intently, almost insolently¹³⁸. His eyes had a look of fear and of oddly lecherous¹³⁹ anticipation¹⁴⁰.  "Ladies and gentlemen!" the voice of the radio speaker leaped forth¹⁴¹ abruptly¹⁴³; it had a tone of panic. "News of a shocking development has just reached us from Santiago, Chile!"  She saw the jerk of Taggart's head and a sudden anxiety in his bewildered frown, as if something about the words and voice were not what he had expected.  "A special session of the legislature of the People's State of Chile had been called for ten o'clock this morning, to pass an act of utmost importance to the people of Chile, Argentina and other South American People's States. In line with the enlightened policy of Senior Ramirez, the new Head of the Chilean State-who came to power on the moral slogan that man is his brother's keeper-the legislature was to nationalize the Chilean properties of d'Anconia Copper, thus opening the way for the People's State of Argentina to nationalize the rest of the d'Anconia properties the world over. This, however, was known only to a very few of the top-level leaders of both nations. The measure had been kept secret in order to avoid debate and reactionary¹⁴⁴ opposition¹⁴⁵. The seizure¹⁴⁶ of the multi-billion dollar d'Anconia Copper was to come as a munificent¹⁴⁷ surprise to the country.  "On the stroke of ten, in the exact moment when the chairman's gavel struck the rostrum, opening the session-almost as if the gavel's blow had set it off-the sound of a tremendous explosion rocked the hall, shattering the glass of its windows. It came from the harbor, a few streets away-and when the legislators rushed to the windows, they saw a long column of flame where once there had risen the familiar silhouettes¹⁴⁹ of the ore docks of d'Anconia Copper. The ore docks had been blown to bits.  "The chairman averted¹⁵⁰ panic and called the session to order. The act of nationalization was read to the assembly, to the sound of fire alarm sirens and distant cries. It was a gray morning, dark with rain clouds, the explosion had broken an electric transmitter-so that the assembly voted on the measure by the light of candles, while the red glow of the fire kept sweeping¹⁵¹ over the great vaulted¹⁵² ceiling above their heads.  "But more terrible a shock came later, when the legislators called a hasty recess¹⁵⁴ to announce to the nation the good news that the people now owned d'Anconia Copper. While they were voting, word had come from the closest and farthest points of the globe that there was no d'Anconia Copper left on earth. Ladies and gentlemen, not anywhere. In that same instant, on the stroke of ten, by an infernal marvel¹⁵⁵ of synchronization¹⁵⁶, every property of d'Anconia Copper on the face of the globe, from Chile to Siam to Spain to Pottsville, Montana, had been blown up and swept away.  "The d'Anconia workers everywhere had been handed their last pay checks, in cash, at nine A.M., and by nine-thirty had been moved off the premises¹⁵⁷. The ore docks, the smelters, the laboratories, the office buildings were demolished¹⁶⁰. Nothing was left of the d'Anconia ore ships which had been in port-and only lifeboats carrying the crews were left of those ships which had been at sea. As to the d'Anconia mines, some were buried under tons of blasted rock, while others were found not to be worth the price of blasting. An astounding¹⁶¹ number of these mines, as reports pouring in seem to indicate, had continued to be run, even though exhausted¹⁶² years ago.  "Among the thousands of d'Anconia employees, the police have found no one with any knowledge of how this monstrous plot had been conceived, organized and carried out. But the cream of the d'Anconia staff are not here any longer. The most efficient of the executives, mineralogists, engineers, superintendents¹⁶³ have vanished-all the men upon whom the People's State had been counting to carry on the work and cushion the process of readjustment. The most able-correction: the most selfish-of the men are gone. Reports from the various banks indicate that there are no d'Anconia accounts left anywhere; the money has been spent down to the last penny, "Ladies and gentlemen, the d'Anconia fortune-the greatest fortune on earth, the legendary¹⁶⁵ fortune of the centuries-has ceased to exist. In place of the golden dawn of a new age, the People's States of Chile and Argentina are left with a pile of rubble¹⁶⁶ and hordes¹⁶⁷ of unemployed¹⁶⁸ on their hands.  "No clue has been found to the fate or the whereabouts of Senor Francisco d'Anconia. He has vanished, leaving nothing behind him, not even a message of farewell."  Thank you, my darling-thank you in the name of the last of us, even if you will not hear it and will not care to hear. . . . It was not a sentence, but the silent emotion of a prayer in her mind, addressed to the laughing face of a boy she had known at sixteen. Then she noticed that she was clinging to the radio, as if the faint electric beat within it still held a tie to the only living force on earth, which it had transmitted for a few brief moments and which now filled the room where all else was dead.  As distant remnants of the explosion's wreckage¹⁷⁰, she noticed a sound that came from Jim, part-moan, part-scream, part-growl-then the sight of Jim's shoulders shaking over a telephone and his distorted voice screaming, "But, Rodrigo, you said it was safe! Rodrigo-oh God!-do you know how much I'd sunk into it?"-then the shriek¹⁷¹ of another phone on his desk, and his voice snarling¹⁷³ into another receiver, his hand still clutching the first, "Shut your trap, Orren! What are you to do? What do I care, God damn you!"  There were people rushing into the office, the telephones were screaming and, alternating between pleas and curses, Jim kept yelling into one receiver, "Get me Santiago! . . . Get Washington to get me Santiago!"  Distantly, as on the margin¹⁷⁴ of her mind, she could see what sort of game the men behind the shrieking¹⁷⁵ phones had played and lost. They seemed far away, like tiny commas squirming on the white field under the lens of a microscope. She wondered how they could ever expect to be taken seriously when a Francisco d'Anconia was possible on earth.  She saw the glare of the explosion in every face she met through the rest of the day-and in every face she passed in the darkness of the streets, that evening. If Francisco had wanted a worthy¹⁷⁶ funeral pyre for d'Anconia Copper, she thought, he -had succeeded. There it was, in the streets of New York City, the only city on earth still able to understand it-in the faces of people, in their whispers, the whispers crackling tensely like small tongues of fire, the faces lighted by a look that was both solemn and frantic, the shadings of expressions appearing to sway and weave, as if cast by a distant flame, some frightened, some angry, most of them uneasy, uncertain, expectant, but all of them acknowledging a fact much beyond an industrial catastrophe¹⁷⁷, all of them knowing what it meant, though none would name its meaning, all of them carrying a touch of laughter, a laughter of amusement and defiance¹⁷⁸, the bitter laughter of perishing victims who feel that they are avenged¹⁷⁹.  She saw it in the face of Hank Rearden, when she met him for dinner that evening. As his tall, confident figure walked toward her-the only figure that seemed at home in the costly¹⁸¹ setting of a distinguished¹⁸² restaurant-she saw the look of eagerness fighting the sternness of his features, the look of a young boy still open to the enchantment¹⁸³ of the unexpected. He did not speak of this day's event, but she knew that it was the only image in his mind.  They had been meeting whenever he came to the city, spending a brief, rare evening together-with their past still alive in their silent acknowledgment-with no future in their work and in their common struggle, but with the knowledge that they were allies gaining support from the fact of each other's existence. He did not want to mention today's event, he did not want to speak of Francisco, but she noticed, as they sat at the table, that the strain of a resisted smile kept pulling at the hollows of his cheeks. She knew whom he meant, when he said suddenly, his voice soft and low with the weight of admiration¹⁸⁵, "He did keep his oath, didn't he?"  "His oath?" she asked, startled, thinking of the inscription¹⁸⁶ on the temple of Atlantis.  "He said to me, 'I swear-by the woman I love-that I am your friend,' He was."  "He is."  He shook his head. "I have no right to think of him. I have no right to accept what he's done as an act in my defense¹⁸⁷. And yet . . ."  He stopped.  "But it was, Hank. In defense of all of us-and of you, most of all."  He looked away, out at the city. They sat at the side of the room, with a sheet of glass as an invisible protection against the sweep of space and streets sixty floors below. The city seemed abnormally distant: it lay flattened¹⁸⁸ down to the pool of its lowest stories. A few blocks away, its tower merging¹⁸⁹ into darkness, the calendar hung at the level of their faces, not as a small, disturbing rectangle, but as an enormous screen, eerily¹⁹¹ close and large, flooded by the dead, white glow of light projected through an empty film, empty but for the letters: September 2.  "Rearden Steel is now working at capacity," he was saying indifferently. "They've lifted the production quotas¹⁹² off my mills-for the next five minutes, I guess. I don't know how many of their own regulations they've suspended, I don't think they know it, either, they don't bother keeping track of legality any longer, I'm sure I'm a law-breaker on five or six counts, which nobody could prove or disprove-all I know is that the gangster⁸⁴ of the moment told me to go full steam ahead." He shrugged¹⁹³. "When another gangster kicks him out tomorrow, I'll probably be shut down, as penalty for illegal operation. But according to the plan of the present split-second, they've begged me to keep pouring my Metal, in any amount and by any means I choose."  She noticed the occasional, surreptitious glances that people were throwing in their direction. She had noticed it before, ever since her broadcast, ever since the two of them had begun to appear in public together. Instead of the disgrace he had dreaded¹⁹⁴, there was an air of awed¹⁹⁵ uncertainty¹⁹⁶ in people's manner-uncertainty of their own moral precepts¹⁹⁷, awe⁹⁷ in the presence of two persons who dared to be certain of being right. People were looking at them with anxious curiosity, with envy, with respect, with the fear of offending an unknown, proudly rigorous standard, some almost with an air of apology that seemed to say: "Please forgive us for being married." There were some who had a look of angry malice¹⁹⁸, and a few who had a look of admiration.  "Dagny," he asked suddenly, "do you suppose he's in New York?"  "No. I've called the Wayne-Falkland. They told me that the lease on his suite¹⁹⁹ had expired a month ago and he did not renew it."  "They're looking for him all over the world," he said, smiling.  "They'll never find him." The smile vanished. "Neither will I." His voice slipped back to the flat, gray tone of duty: "Well, the mills are working, but I'm not. I'm doing nothing but running around the country like a scavenger²⁰⁰, searching for illegal ways to purchase raw materials. Hiding, sneaking²⁰¹, lying-just to get a few tons of ore or coal or copper. They haven't lifted their regulations off my raw materials. They know that I'm pouring more Metal than the quotas they give me could produce. They don't care." He added, "They think I do."  "Tired, Hank?"  "Bored to death."  There was a time, she thought, when his mind, his energy, his inexhaustible resourcefulness had been given to the task of a producer devising better ways to deal with nature; now, they were switched to the task of a criminal outwitting men. She wondered how long a man could endure a change of that kind.  "It's becoming almost impossible to get iron ore," he said indifferently, then added, his voice suddenly alive, "Now it's going to be completely impossible to get copper." He was grinning.  She wondered how long a man could continue to work against himself, to work when his deepest desire was not to succeed, but to fail.  She understood the connection of his thoughts when he said, "I've never told you, but I've met Ragnar Danneskjold."  "He told me."  "What? Where did you ever-" He stopped. "Of course," he said, his voice tense and low. "He would be one of them. You would have met him. Dagny, what are they like, those men who . . . No. Don't answer me." In a moment he added, "So I've met one of their agents."  "You've met two of them."  His response was a span of total stillness. "Of course," he said dully.  "I knew it . . . I just wouldn't admit to myself that I knew . . . He was their recruiting agent, wasn't he?"  "One of their earliest and best."  He chuckled; it was a sound of bitterness and longing²⁰². 'That night . . . when they got Ken¹¹ Danagger . . . I thought that they had not sent anyone after me. . . ."  The effort by which he made his face grow rigid, was almost like the slow, resisted turn of a key locking a sunlit room he could not permit himself to examine. After a while, he said impassively, "Dagny, that new rail we discussed last month-I don't think I'll be able to deliver it. They haven't lifted their regulations off my output, they're still controlling my sales and disposing of my Metal as they please. But the bookkeeping is in such a snarl¹⁷² that I'm smuggling²⁰³ a few thousand tons into the black market every week. I think they know it. They're pretending not to. They don't want to antagonize me, right now. But, you see, I've been shipping²⁰⁴ every ton I could snatch, to some emergency customers of mine. Dagny, I was in Minnesota last month. I've seen what's going on there. The country will starve, not next year, but this winter, unless a few of us act and act fast. There are no grain reserves left anywhere. With Nebraska gone, Oklahoma wrecked²⁰⁵, North Dakota abandoned, Kansas barely subsisting-there isn't going to be any wheat this winter, not for the city of New York nor for any Eastern city.  ”Minnesota is our last granary. They've had two bad years in succession, but they have a bumper²⁰⁷ crop this fall-and they have to be able to harvest it. Have you had a chance to take a look at the condition of the farm-equipment industry? They're not big enough, any of them, to keep a staff of efficient gangsters in Washington or to pay percentages to pull-peddlers. So they haven't been getting many allocations of materials. Two-thirds of them have shut down and the rest are about to. And farms are perishing all over the country-for lack of tools. You should have seen those farmers in Minnesota. They've been spending more time fixing old tractors that can't be fixed²⁰⁸ than plowing²⁰⁹ their fields. I don't know how they managed to survive till last spring. I don't know how they managed to plant their wheat. But they did. They did." There was a look of intensity²¹⁰ on his face, as if he were contemplating²¹¹ a rare, forgotten sight: a vision of men-and she knew what motive was still holding him to his job. "Dagny, they had to have tools for their harvest. I've been selling all the Metal I could steal out of my own mills to the manufacturers of farm equipment. On credit. They've been sending the equipment to Minnesota as fast as they could put it out. Selling it in the same way-illegally and on credit. But they will be paid, this fall, and so will I. Charity, hell! We're helping²¹² producers-and what tenacious²¹³ producers!-not lousy, mooching 'consumers’. We're giving loans, not alms. We're supporting ability, not need. I'll be damned if I'll stand by and let those men be destroyed while the pull peddlers grow rich!"  He was looking at the image of a sight he had seen in Minnesota: the silhouette¹⁴⁸ of an abandoned factory, with the light of the sunset streaming, unopposed, through the holes of its windows and the cracks of its roof, with the remnant of a sign: Ward²⁴ Harvester Company.  "Oh, I know," he said. "We'll save them this winter, but the looters will devour⁷⁸ them next year. Still, we'll save them this winter. . . . Well, that's why I won't be able to smuggle²¹⁴ any rail for you. Not in the immediate future-and there's nothing left to us but the immediate future. I don't know what is the use of feeding a country, if it loses its railroads-but what is the use of railroads where there is no food?  What is the use, anyway?"  "It's all right, Hank, We'll last with such rail as we have, for-" She stopped.  "For a month?"  "For the winter-I hope."  Cutting across their silence, a shrill²¹⁵ voice reached them from another table, and they turned to look at a man who had the jittery²¹⁶ manner of a cornered gangster about to reach for his gun. "An act of anti-social destruction," he was snarling to a sullen²¹⁷ companion, "at a time when there's such a desperate shortage of copper! . . . We can't permit it! We can't permit it to be true!"  Rearden turned abruptly to look off, at the city. "I'd give anything to know where he is," he said, his voice low. "Just to know where he is, right now, at this moment."  "What would you do, if you knew it?"  He dropped his hand in a gesture of futility²¹⁸. "[ wouldn't approach him. The only homage²¹⁹ I can still pay him is not to cry for forgiveness where no forgiveness is possible."  They remained silent. They listened to the voices around them, to the splinters of panic trickling²²⁰ through the luxurious²²¹ room. She had not been aware that the same presence seemed to be an invisible guest at every table, that the same subject kept breaking through the attempts at any other conversation. People sat in a manner, not quite of cringing²²², but as if they found the room too large and too exposed-a room of glass, blue velvet²²³, aluminum²²⁴ and gentle lighting²²⁵. They looked as if they had come to this room at the price of countless²²⁶ evasions²²⁷, to let it help them pretend that theirs was still a civilized²²⁹ existence-but an act o￡ primeval violence had blasted the nature of their world into the open and they were no longer able not to see.  "How could he? How could he?" a woman was demanding with petulant²³⁰ terror. "He had no right to do it!"  "It was an accident," said a young man with a staccato voice and an odor of public payroll⁴¹. "It was a chain of coincidences, as any statistical²³¹ curve of probabilities can easily prove. It is unpatriotic to spread rumors²³² exaggerating the power of the people's enemies."  "Right and wrong is all very well for academic conversations," said a woman with a schoolroom voice and a barroom mouth, "but how can anybody take his own ideas seriously enough to destroy a fortune when people need it?"  "f don't understand it," an old man was saying with quavering bitterness. "After centuries of efforts to curb²³³ man's innate²³⁴ brutality²³⁵, after centuries of teaching, training and indoctrination with the gentle and the humane²³⁶!"  A woman's bewildered voice rose uncertainly and trailed off: "I thought we were living in an age of brotherhood²³⁷ . . ."  "I'm scared," a young girl was repeating, "I'm scared . . . oh, I don't know! . . . I'm just scared . . ."  "He couldn't have done it!" . . . "He did!" . . . "But why?" . . ."I refuse to believe it!" . . . "It's not human!" . . . "But why?" . . ."Just a worthless playboy!" . . . "But why?"  The muffled²³⁸ scream of a woman across the room and some half grasped signal on the edge of Dagny's vision, came simultaneously and made her whirl to look at the city.  The calendar was run by a mechanism²³⁹ locked in a room behind the screen, unrolling the same film year after year, projecting the dates in steady rotation²⁴⁰, in changeless rhythm, never moving but on the stroke of midnight. The speed of Dagny's turn gave her time to see a phenomenon as unexpected as if a planet had reversed its orbit in the sky: she saw the words "September 2" moving upward and vanishing past the edge of the screen.  Then, written across the enormous page, stopping time, as a last message to the world and to the world's motor which was New York, she saw the lines of a sharp, intransigent handwriting:  Brother, you asked for it! Francisco Domingo Carlos Andres Sebastian d'Anconia  She did not know which shock was greater: the sight of the message or the sound of Rearden's laughter-Rearden, standing²⁴¹ on his feet, in full sight and hearing of the room behind him, laughing above their moans of panic, laughing in greeting, in salute²⁴², in acceptance of the gift he had tried to reject, in release, in triumph, in surrender.  On the evening of September 7, a copper wire broke in Montana, stopping the motor of a loading crane on a spur track of Taggart Transcontinental, at the rim¹⁰⁹ of the Stanford Copper Mine.  The mine had been working on three shifts, its days and nights blending into a single stretch of struggle to lose no minute, no drop of copper it could squeeze from the shelves of a mountain into the nation's industrial desert. The crane broke down at the task of loading a train; it stopped abruptly and hung still against the evening sky, between a string of empty cars and piles of suddenly immovable ore.  The men of the railroad and of the mine stopped in dazed bewilderment: they found that in all the complexity²⁴³ of their equipment, among the drills, the motors, the derricks, the delicate gauges²⁴⁴, the ponderous²⁴⁵ floodlights beating down into the pits and ridges²⁴⁶ of a mountain-there was no wire to mend the crane. They stopped, like men on an ocean liner propelled by ten-thousand-horsepower generators²⁴⁷, but perishing for lack of a safety pin.  The station agent, a young man with a swift body and a brusque voice, stripped the wiring from the station building and set the crane in motion again-and while the ore went clattering²⁴⁸ to fill the cars, the light of candles came trembling through the dusk from the windows of the station.  "Minnesota, Eddie," said Dagny grimly, closing the drawer of her special file. "Tell the Minnesota Division to ship half their stock of wire to Montana." "But good God, Dagny!-with the peak of the harvest rush approaching-" "They'll hold through it-I think. We don't dare lose a single supplier of copper."  "But I have!" screamed James Taggart, when she reminded him once more. "I have obtained for you the top priority on copper wire, the first claim, the uppermost ration⁹⁴ level, I've given you all the cards, certificates, documents and requisitions-what else do you want?" "The copper wire." "I've done all I could! Nobody can blame me!"  She did not argue. The afternoon newspaper was lying on his desk-and she was staring at an item on the back page: An Emergency State Tax had been passed in California for the relief of the state's unemployed, in the amount of fifty per cent of any local corporation's gross income ahead of other taxes; the California oil companies had gone out of business.  "Don't worry, Mr. Rearden," said an unctuous²⁴⁹ voice over a long distance telephone line from Washington, "I just wanted to assure you that you will not have to worry." "About what?" asked Rearden, baffled. "About that temporary bit of confusion in California. We'll straighten it out in no time, it was an act of illegal insurrection, their state government had no right to impose local taxes detrimental²⁵⁰ to national taxes, we'll negotiate an equitable²⁵¹ arrangement immediately-but in the meantime, if you have been disturbed by any unpatriotic rumors about the California oil companies, I just wanted to tell you that Rearden Steel has been placed in the top category of essential need, with first claim upon any oil available anywhere in the nation, very top category, Mr. Rearden-so I just wanted you to know that you won't have to worry about the problem of fuel this winter!"  Rearden hung up the telephone receiver, with a frown of worry, not about the problem of fuel and the end of the California oil fields-disasters of this kind had become habitual-but about the fact that the Washington planners found it necessary to placate him. This was new; he wondered what it meant. Through the years of his struggle, he had learned that an apparently²⁵² causeless antagonism²⁵³ was not hard to deal with, but an apparently causeless solicitude²⁵⁴ was an ugly danger. The same wonder struck him again, when, walking down an alley²⁵⁵ between the mill structures, he caught sight of a slouching figure whose posture²⁵⁶ combined an air of insolence²⁵⁷ with an air of expecting to be swatted: it was his brother Philip.  Ever since he had moved to Philadelphia, Rearden had not visited his former home and had not heard a word from his family, whose bills he went on paying. Then, inexplicably²⁵⁸, twice in the last few weeks, he had caught Philip wandering through the mills for no apparent reason. He had been unable to tell whether Philip was sneaking to avoid him or waiting to catch his attention; it had looked like both. He had been unable to discover any clue to Philip's purpose, only some incomprehensible solicitude, of a kind Philip had never displayed before.  The first time, in answer to his startled "What are you doing here?" -Philip had said vaguely²⁵⁹, "Well, I know that you don't like me to come to your office." "What do you want?" "Oh, nothing . . . but . . . well, Mother is worried about you." "Mother can call me any time she wishes." Philip had not answered, but had proceeded to question him, in an unconvincingly casual manner, about his work, his health, his business; the questions had kept hitting oddly beside the point, not questions about business, but more about his, Rearden's, feelings toward business. Rearden had cut him short and waved him away, but had been left with the small, nagging²⁶⁰ sense of an incident that remained inexplicable.  The second time, Philip had said, as sole explanation, "We just want to know how you feel." "Who's we?" "Why . . . Mother and I. These are difficult times and . . . well, Mother wants to know how you feel about it all." "Tell her that I don't." The words had seemed to hit Philip in some peculiar²⁶² manner, almost as if this were the one answer he dreaded. "Get out of here," Rearden had ordered wearily, "and the next time you want to see me, make an appointment and come to my office. But don't come unless you have something to say. This is not a place where one discusses feelings, mine or anybody else's."  Philip had not called for an appointment-but now there he was again, slouching among the giant shapes of the furnaces, with an air of guilt¹⁸ and snobbishness²⁶³ together, as if he were both snooping and slumming.  "But I do have something to say! I do!" he cried hastily, in answer to the angry frown on Rearden's face.  "Why didn't you come to my office?"  "You don't want me in your office."  "I don't want you here, either."  "But I'm only . . . I'm only trying to be considerate and not to take your time when you're so busy and . . . you are very busy, aren't you?"  "And?"  "And . . . well, I just wanted to catch you in a spare moment . . .to talk to you."  "About what?"  "I . . . Well, I need a job."  He said it belligerently²⁶⁴ and drew back a little. Rearden stood looking at him blankly.  "Henry, I want a job. I mean, here, at the mills. I want you to give me something to do. I need a job, I need to earn my living. I'm tired of alms." He was groping for something to say, his voice both offended and pleading, as if the necessity to justify²⁶⁵ the plea were an unfair imposition upon him. "I want a livelihood of my own, I'm not asking you for charity, I'm asking you to give me a chance!"  "This is a factory, Philip, not a gambling²⁶⁶ joint²⁶⁷."  "Uh?"  "We don't take chances or give them."  'I'm asking you to give me a job!"  "Why should I?"  "Because I need it!"  Rearden pointed¹⁴ to the red spurts²⁶⁸ of flame shooting from the black shape of a furnace, shooting safely into space four hundred feet of steel-clay-and-steam-embodied thought above them. "I needed that furnace, Philip. It wasn't my need that gave it to me."  Philip's face assumed a look of not having heard. "You're not officially supposed to hire anybody, bat that's just a technicality, if you'll put me on, my friends will okay it without any trouble and-" Something about Rearden's eyes made him stop abruptly, then ask in an angrily impatient voice, "Well, what's the matter? What have I said that's wrong?"  "What you haven't said."  "I beg your pardon?"  "What you're squirming to leave unmentioned."  "What?"  "That you'd be of no use to me whatever."  "Is that what you-" Philip started with automatic righteousness, but stopped and did not finish.  "Yes," said Rearden, smiling, "that's what I think of first."  Philip's eyes oozed²⁶⁹ away; when he spoke, his voice sounded as if it were darting about at random, picking stray sentences: "Everybody is entitled to a livelihood . . . How am I going to get it, if nobody gives me my chance?"  "How did I get mine?"  "I wasn't born owning a steel plant."  "Was I?"  "I can do anything you can-if you'll teach me."  "Who taught me?"  "Why do you keep saying that? I'm not talking about you!"  "I am."  In a moment, Philip muttered, "What do you have to worry about? It's not your livelihood that's in question!"  Rearden pointed to the figures of men in the steaming rays of the furnace. "Can you do what they're doing?"  "I don't see what you're-"  "What will happen if I put you there and you ruin a heat of steel for me?"  "What's more important, that your damn steel gets poured or that I eat?"  "How do you propose to eat if the steel doesn't get poured?"  Philip's face assumed a look of reproach. "I'm not in a position to argue with you right now, since you hold the upper hand."  "Then don't argue."  "Uh?"  "Keep your mouth shut and get out of here."  "But I meant-" He stopped.  Rearden chuckled. "You meant that it's I who should keep my mouth shut, because I hold the upper hand, and should give in to you, because you hold no hand at all?"  "That's a peculiarly crude way of stating a moral principle."  "But that's what your moral principle amounts to, doesn't it?"  "You can't discuss morality in materialistic²⁷⁰ terms."  "We're discussing a job in a steel plant-and, boy! is that a materialistic place!"  Philip's body drew a shade tighter together and his eyes became a shade more glazed²⁷¹, as if in fear of the place around him, in resentment²⁷² of its sight, in an effort not to concede its reality. He said, in the soft, stubborn whine of a voodoo incantation, "It's a moral imperative²⁷³, universally conceded in our day and age, that every man is entitled to a job." His voice rose: "I'm entitled to it!"  "You are? Go on, then, collect your claim."  "Uh?"  "Collect your job. Pick it off the bush where you think it grows."  "I mean-"  "You mean that it doesn't? You mean that you need it, but can't create it? You mean that you're entitled to a job which I must create for you?"  "Yes!"  "And if I don't?"  The silence went stretching through second after second. "I don't understand you," said Philip; his voice had the angry bewilderment of a man who recites the formulas of a well-tested role, but keeps getting the wrong cues in answer. "I don't understand why one can't talk to you any more. I don't understand what sort of theory you're propounding²⁷⁴ and-"  "Oh yes, you do."  As if refusing to believe that the formulas could fail, Philip burst out with: "Since when did you take to abstract philosophy? You're only a businessman, you're not qualified²⁷⁵ to deal with questions of principle, you ought to leave it to the experts who have conceded for centuries-"  "Cut it, Philip. What's the gimmick²⁷⁶?"  "Gimmick?"  "Why the sudden ambition?"  "Well, at a time like this . . ."  "Like what?"  "Well, every man has the right to have some means of support and . . . and not be left to be tossed aside . . . When things are so uncertain, a man's got to have some security . . . some foothold . . . I mean, at a time like this, if anything happened to you, I'd have no-"  "What do you expect to happen to me?"  "Oh, I don't! I don't!" The cry was oddly, incomprehensibly genuine.  "I don't expect anything to happen . . . Do you?"  "Such as what?"  "How do I know? . . . But I've got nothing except the pittance²⁷⁷ you give me and . . . and you might change your mind any time."  "I might."  "And I haven't any hold on you at all."  "Why did it take you that many years to realize it and start worrying? Why now?"  "Because . . . because you've changed. You . . . you used to have a sense of duty and moral responsibility, but . . . you're losing it. You're losing it, aren't you?"  Rearden stood studying him silently; there was something peculiar in Philip's manner of sliding toward questions, as if his words were accidental, but the too casual, the faintly insistent⁵⁰ questions were the key to his purpose.  "Well, I'll be glad to take the burden off your shoulders, if I'm a burden to you!" Philip snapped suddenly. "Just give me a job, and your conscience won't have to bother you about me any longer!"  "It doesn't."  "That's what I mean! You don't care. You don't care what becomes of any of us, do you?"  "Of whom?"  "Why . . . Mother and me and . . . and mankind in general. But I'm not going to appeal to your better self. I know that you're ready to ditch me at a moment's notice, so-"  "You're lying, Philip. That's not what you're worried about. If it were, you'd be angling for a chunk²⁷⁸ of cash, not for a job, not-"  "No! I want a job!" The cry was immediate and almost frantic. "Don't try to buy me off with cash! I want a job!"  "Pull yourself together, you poor louse. Do you hear what you're saying?"  Philip spit out his answer with impotent hatred²⁷⁹: "You can't talk to me that way!"  "Can you?"  "I only-"  "To buy you off? Why should I try to buy you off-instead of kicking you out, as I should have, years ago?"  "Well, after all, I'm your brother!"  "What is that supposed to mean?"  "One's supposed to have some sort of feeling for one's brother."  "Do you?"  Philip's mouth swelled²⁸⁰ petulantly²⁸¹; he did not answer; he waited; Rearden let him wait. Philip muttered, "You're supposed . . . at least . . . to have some consideration for my feelings . . . but you haven't."  "Have you for mine?"  "Yours? Your feelings?" It was not malice in Philip's voice, but worse: it was a genuine, indignant astonishment²⁸². "You haven't any feelings. You've never felt anything at all. You've never suffered!"  It was as if a sum of years hit Rearden in the face, by means of a sensation and a sight: the exact sensation of what he had felt in the cab of the first train's engine on the John Galt Line-and the sight of Philip's eyes, the pale, half-liquid eyes presenting the uttermost of human degradation²⁸³: an uncontested pain, and, with the obscene insolence of a skeleton toward a living being, demanding that this pain be held as the highest of values. You've never suffered, the eyes were saying to him accusingly-while he was seeing the night in his office when his ore mines were taken away from him-the moment when he had signed the Gift Certificate surrendering Rearden Metal-the month of days inside a plane that searched for the remains²⁸⁴ of Dagny's body. You've never suffered, the eyes were saying with self-righteous scorn-while he remembered the sensation of proud chastity with which he had fought through those moments, refusing to surrender to pain, a sensation made of his love, of his loyalty, of his knowledge that joy is the goal of existence, and joy is not to be stumbled upon, but to be achieved, and the act of treason is to let its vision drown in the swamp of the moment's torture. You've never suffered, the dead stare of the eyes was saying, you've never felt anything, because only to suffer is to feel-there's no such thing as joy, there's only pain and the absence of pain, only pain and the zero, when one feels nothing-I suffer, I'm twisted by suffering, I'm made of undiluted suffering, that's my purity, that's my virtue-and yours, you the untwisted one, you the uncomplaining, yours is to relieve me of my pain-cut your unsuffering body to patch up mine, cut your unfeeling soul to stop mine from feeling-and we'll achieve the ultimate ideal, the triumph over life, the zero! He was seeing the nature of those who, for centuries, had not recoiled²⁸⁵ from the preachers of annihilation-he was seeing the nature of the enemies he had been fighting all his life.  "Philip," he said, "get out of here." His voice was like a ray of sunlight in a morgue, it was the plain, dry, daily voice of a businessman, the sound of health, addressed to an enemy one could not honor by anger, nor even by horror. "And don't ever try to enter these mills again, because there will be orders at every gate to throw you out, if you try it.”  "Well, after all," said Philip, in the angry and cautious tone of a tentative threat, "I could have my friends assign me to a job here and compel you to accept it!"  Rearden had started to go, but he stopped and turned to look at his brother. Philip's moment of grasping a sudden revelation was not accomplished by means of thought, but by means of that dark sensation which was his only mode of consciousness: he felt a sensation of terror, squeezing his throat, shivering down into his stomach-he was seeing the spread of the mills, with the roving streamers of flame, with the ladles of molten metal sailing through space on delicate cables, with open pits the color of glowing coal, with cranes coming at his head, pounding past, holding tons of steel by the invisible power of magnets-and he knew that he was afraid of this place, afraid to the death, that he dared not move without the protection and guidance of the man before him-then he looked at the tall, straight figure standing casually²⁸⁶ still, the figure with the unflinching eyes whose sight had cut through rock and flame to build this place-and then he knew how easily the man he was proposing to compel could let a single bucket of metal tilt²⁸⁷ over a second ahead of its time or let a single crane drop its load a foot short of its goal, and there would be nothing left of him, of Philip the claimant-and his only protection lay in the fact that his mind would think of such actions, but the mind of Hank Rearden would not.  "But we'd better keep it on a friendly basis," said Philip.  "You'd better," said Rearden and walked away.  Men who worship pain-thought Rearden, staring at the image of the enemies he had never been able to understand-they're men who worship pain. It seemed monstrous, yet peculiarly devoid²⁸⁸ of importance. He felt nothing. It was like trying to summon emotion toward inanimate objects, toward  refuse sliding down a mountainside to crush him. One could flee from the slide or build retaining walls against it or be crushed -but one could not grant any anger, indignation or moral concern to the senseless motions of the un-living; no, worse, he thought-the antiliving.  The same sense of detached unconcern remained with him while he sat in a Philadelphia courtroom and watched men perform the motions which were to grant him his divorce. He watched them utter mechanical generalities, recite vague phrases of fraudulent evidence, play an intricate game of stretching words to convey no facts and no meaning. He had paid them to do it-he whom the law permitted no other way to gain his freedom, no right to state the facts and plead the truth-the law which delivered his fate, not to objective rules objectively defined, but to the arbitrary mercy of a judge with a wizened²⁸⁹ face and a look of empty cunning.  Lillian was not present in the courtroom; her attorney made gestures once in a while, with the energy of letting water run through his fingers. They all knew the verdict in advance and they knew its reason; no other reason had existed for years, where no standards, save whim, had existed. They seemed to regard it as their rightful prerogative²⁹⁰; they acted as if the purpose of the procedure were not to try a case, but to give them jobs, as if their jobs were to recite the appropriate formulas with no responsibility to know what the formulas accomplished, as if a courtroom were the one place where questions of right and wrong were irrelevant and they, the men in charge of dispensing²⁹¹ justice, were safely wise enough to know that no justice existed. They acted like savages performing a ritual devised to set them free of objective reality.  But the ten years of his marriage had been real, he thought-and these were the men who assumed the power to dispose of it, to decide whether he would have a chance of contentment on earth or be condemned²⁹² to torture for the rest of his lifetime. He remembered the austerely²⁹³ pitiless respect he had felt for his contract of marriage, for all his contracts and all his legal obligations-and he saw what sort of legality his scrupulous²⁹⁵ observance was expected to serve.  He noticed that the puppets of the courtroom had started by glancing at him in the sly, wise manner of fellow conspirators²⁹⁶ sharing a common guilt, mutually safe from moral condemnation²⁹⁷. Then, when they observed that he was the only man in the room who looked steadily²⁹⁸ straight at anyone's face, he saw resentment growing in their eyes. Incredulously, he realized what it was that had been expected of him: he, the victim, chained, bound, gagged and left with no recourse save to bribery³⁰⁰, had been expected to believe that the farce³⁰¹ he had purchased was a process of law, that the edicts enslaving him had moral validity, that he was guilty of corrupting³⁰² the integrity of the guardians³⁰³ of justice, and that the blame was his, not theirs. It was like blaming the victim of a holdup for corrupting the integrity of the thug. And yet-he thought -through all the generations of political extortion, it was not the looting bureaucrats³⁰⁴ who had taken the blame, but the chained industrialists, not the men who peddled³⁰⁵ legal favors, but the men who were forced to buy them; and through all those generations of crusades against corruption³⁰⁶, the remedy had always been, not the liberating³⁰⁷ of the victims, but the granting of wider powers for extortion to the extortionists. The only guilt of the victims, he thought, had been that they accepted it as guilt.  When he walked out of the courtroom into the chilly³⁰⁸ drizzle³⁰⁹ of a gray afternoon, he felt as if he had been divorced, not only from Lillian, but from the whole of the human society that supported the procedure he had witnessed. The face of his attorney, an elderly man of the old-fashioned school, wore an expression that made it look as if he longed to take a bath.  "Say, Hank," he asked as sole comment, "is there something the looters are anxious to get from you right now?" "Not that I know of. Why?"  "The thing went too smoothly³¹⁰. There were a few points at which I expected pressure and hints for some extras, but the boys sailed past and took no advantage of it. Looks to me as if orders had come from on high to treat you gently and let you have your way. Are they planning something new against your mills?" "Not that I know of," said Rearden -and was astonished to hear in his mind: Not that I care.  It was on the same afternoon, at the mills, that he saw the Wet Nurse hurrying toward him-a gangling³¹¹, coltish³¹² figure with a peculiar mixture of brusqueness, awkwardness and decisiveness.  "Mr. Rearden, I would like to speak to you." His voice was diffident, yet oddly firm.  "Go ahead."  "There's something I want to ask you." The boy's face was solemn and taut³¹³. "I want you to know that I know you should refuse me, but I want to ask it just the same . . . and . . . and if it's presumptuous³¹⁴, then just tell me to go to hell."  "Okay. Try it."  "Mr. Rearden, would you give me a job?" It was the effort to sound normal that betrayed the days of struggle behind the question. "I want to quit what I'm doing and go to work. I mean, real work-in steel making, like I thought I'd started to, once. I want to earn my keep. I'm tired of being a bedbug."  Rearden could not resist smiling and reminding him, in the tone of a quotation³¹⁵, "Now why use such words, Non-Absolute? If we don't use ugly words, we won't have any ugliness and-" But he saw the desperate earnestness of the boy's face and stopped, his smile vanishing.  "I mean it, Mr. Rearden. And I know what the word means and it's the right word. I'm tired of being paid, with your money, to do nothing except make it impossible for you to make any money at all. I know that anyone who works today is only a sucker for bastards like me, but . . .well, God damn it, I'd rather be a sucker, if that's all there's left to be!"  His voice had risen to a cry. "I beg your pardon, Mr. Rearden," he said stiffly, looking away. In a moment, he went on in his woodenly unemotional tone. "I want to get out of the Deputy-Director-of-Distribution racket. I don't know that I'd be of much use to you, I've got a college diploma in metallurgy, but that's not worth the paper it's printed on. But I think I've learned a little about the work in the two years I've been here-and if you could use me at all, as sweeper or scrap³¹⁶ man or whatever you'd trust me with, I'd tell them where to put the deputy directorship and I'd go to work for you tomorrow, next week, this minute or whenever you say." He avoided looking at Rearden, not in a manner of evasion²²⁸, but as if he had no right to do it.  "Why were you afraid to ask me?" said Rearden gently.  The boy glanced at him with indignant astonishment, as if the answer were self-evident. "Because after the way I started here and the way I acted and what I'm deputy of, if I come asking you for favors, you ought to kick me in the teeth!"  "You have learned a great deal in the two years you've been here."  "No, I-" He glanced at Rearden, understood, looked away and said woodenly, "Yeah . . . if that's what you mean."  "Listen, kid, I'd give you a job this minute and I'd trust you with more than a sweeper's job, if it were up to me. But have you forgotten the Unification Board? I'm not allowed to hire you and you're not allowed to quit. Sure, men are quitting all the time, and we're hiring others under phony names and fancy papers proving that they've worked here for years. You know it, and thanks for keeping your mouth shut. But do you think that if I hired you that way, your friends in Washington would miss it?"  The boy shook his head slowly.  "Do you think that if you quit their service to become a sweeper, they wouldn't understand your reason?"  The boy nodded.  "Would they let you go?"  The boy shook his head. After a moment, he said in a tone of forlorn astonishment, "I hadn't thought of that at all, Mr. Rearden. I forgot them. I kept thinking of whether you'd want me or not and that the only thing that counted was your decision."  "I know."  "And . . . it is the only thing that counts, in fact."  "Yes, Non-Absolute, in fact."  The boy's mouth jerked suddenly into the brief, mirthless twist of a smile. "I guess I'm tied worse than any sucker . . ."  "Yes. There's nothing you can do now, except apply to the Unification Board for permission to change your job. I'll support your application, if you want to try-only I don't think they'll grant it. I don't think they'll let you work for me."  "No. They won't."  "If you maneuver³¹⁷ enough and lie enough, they might permit you to transfer to a private job-with some other steel company."  "No! I don't want to go anywhere else! I don't want to leave this place!" He stood looking off at the invisible vapor³¹⁸ of rain over the flame of the furnaces. After a while, he said quietly, "I'd better stay put, I guess. I'd better go on being a deputy looter. Besides, if I left, God only knows what sort of bastard they'd saddle you with in my place!"  He turned. "They're up to something, Mr. Rearden. I don't know what it is, but they're getting ready to spring something on you."  "What?"  "I don't know. But they've been watching every opening here, in the last few weeks, every desertion, and slipping their own gang in. A queer sort of gang, too-real goons, some of them, that I'd swear never stepped inside a steel plant before. I've had orders to get as many of 'our boys' in as possible. They wouldn't tell me why. I don't know what it is they're planning. I've tried to pump them, but they're acting pretty cagey about it. I don't think they trust me any more. I'm losing the right touch, I guess. All I know is they're getting set to pull something here."  "Thanks for warning me."  "I'll try to get the dope on it. I'll try my damndest to get it in time." He turned brusquely and started off, but stopped. "Mr. Rearden, if it were up to you, you would have hired me?"  "I would have, gladly and at once."  "Thank you, Mr. Rearden," he said, his voice solemn and low, then walked away.  Rearden stood looking after him, seeing, with a tearing smile of pity, what it was that the ex-relativist, the ex-pragmatist, the ex-amoralist was carrying away with him for consolation³¹⁹.  On the afternoon of September 11, a copper wire broke in Minnesota, stopping the belts of a grain elevator at a small country station of Taggart Transcontinental.  A flood of wheat was moving down the highways, the roads, the abandoned trails of the countryside, emptying thousands of acres of farmland upon the fragile dams of the railroad's stations. It was moving day and night, the first trickles³²⁰ growing into streams, then rivers, then torrents-moving on palsied trucks with coughing, tubercular motors-on wagons³²¹ pulled by the rusty³²² skeletons of starving horses-on carts pulled by oxen-on the nerves and last energy of men who had lived through two years of disaster for the triumphant³²³ reward of this autumn's giant harvest, men who had patched their trucks and carts with wire, blankets, ropes and sleepless³²⁴ nights, to make them hold together for this one more journey, to carry the grain and collapse at destination, but to give their owners a chance at survival.  Every year, at this season, another movement had gone clicking across the country, drawing freight cars from all corners of the continent to the Minnesota Division of Taggart Transcontinental, the beat of train wheels preceding the creak of the wagons, like an advance echo rigorously planned, ordered and timed to meet the flood. The Minnesota Division drowsed through the year, to come to violent life for the weeks of the harvest; fourteen thousand freight cars had jammed its yards each year; fifteen thousand were expected this time. The first of the wheat trains had started to channel the flood into the hungry flour mills, then bakeries, then stomachs of the nation-but every train, car and storage elevator counted, and there was no minute or inch of space to spare.  Eddie Willers watched Dagny's face as she went through the cards of her emergency file; he could tell the content of the cards by her expression. "The Terminal," she said quietly, closing the file. "Phone the Terminal downstairs and have them ship half their stock of wire to Minnesota." Eddie said nothing and obeyed.  He said nothing, the morning when he put on her desk a telegram from the Taggart office in Washington, informing them of the directive which, due to the critical shortage of copper, ordered government agents to seize all copper mines and operate them as a public utility.  "Well," she said, dropping the telegram into the wastebasket, "that's the end of Montana."  She said nothing when James Taggart announced to her that he was issuing an order to discontinue all dining cars on Taggart trains. "We can't afford it any longer," he explained, "we've always lost money on those goddamn diners, and when there's no food to get, when restaurants are closing because they can't grab hold of a pound of horse meat anywhere, how can railroads be expected to do it? Why in hell should we have to feed the passengers, anyway? They're lucky if we give them transportation, they'd travel in cattle cars if necessary, let 'em pack their own box lunches, what do we care?-they've got no other trains to take!"  The telephone on her desk had become, not a voice of business, but an alarm siren for the desperate appeals of disaster. "Miss Taggart, we have no copper wire!" "Nails, Miss Taggart, plain nails, could you tell somebody to send us a keg of nails?" "Can you find any paint, Miss Taggart, any sort of waterproof³²⁵ paint anywhere?"  But thirty million dollars of subsidy³²⁶ money from Washington had been plowed³²⁷ into Project Soybean-an enormous acreage in Louisiana, where a harvest of soybeans was ripening³²⁸, as advocated and organized by Emma Chalmers, for the purpose of reconditioning the dietary habits of the nation. Emma Chalmers, better known as Kip's Ma, was an old sociologist³²⁹ who had hung about Washington for years, as other women of her age and type hang about barrooms. For some reason which nobody could define, the death of her son in the tunnel catastrophe had given her in Washington an aura of martyrdom, heightened by her recent conversion³³⁰ to Buddhism³³¹. "The soybean is a much more sturdy, nutritious³³² and economical plant than all the extravagant³³³ foods which our wasteful³³⁴, self-indulgent diet has conditioned us to expect," Kip's Ma had said over the radio; her voice always sounded as if it were falling in drops, not of water, but of mayonnaise.  "Soybeans make an excellent substitute for bread, meat, cereals and coffee-and if all of us were compelled to adopt soybeans as our staple³³⁵ diet, it would solve the national food crisis and make it possible to feed more people. The greatest food for the greatest number-that's my slogan. At a time of desperate public need, it's our duty to sacrifice our luxurious tastes and eat our way back to prosperity by adapting ourselves to the simple, wholesome³³⁶ foodstuff³³⁷ on which the peoples of the Orient have so nobly subsisted³³⁸ for centuries. There's a great deal that we could learn from the peoples of the Orient."  "Copper tubing, Miss Taggart, could you get some copper tubing for us somewhere?" the voices were pleading over her telephone. "Rail spikes³³⁹, Miss Taggart!" "Screwdrivers³⁴⁰, Miss Taggart!" "Light bulbs, Miss Taggart, there's no electric light bulbs to be had anywhere within two hundred miles of us!"  But five million dollars was being spent by the office of Morale³⁴¹ Conditioning on the People's Opera Company, which traveled through the country, giving free performances to people who, on one meal a day, could not afford the energy to walk to the opera house. Seven million dollars had been granted to a psychologist in charge of a project to solve the world crisis by research into the nature of brother-love. Ten million dollars had been granted to the manufacturer of a new electronic cigarette lighter-but there were no cigarettes in the shops of the country. There were flashlights on the market, but no batteries; there were radios, but no tubes; there were cameras, but no film. The production of airplanes had been declared "temporarily suspended." Air travel for private purposes had been forbidden, and reserved exclusively for missions of "public need." An industrialist⁶⁷ traveling to save his factory was not considered as publicly needed and could not get aboard a plane; an official traveling to collect taxes was and could.  "People are stealing nuts and bolts out of rail plates, Miss Taggart, stealing them at night, and our stock is running out, the division storehouse is bare, what are we to do, Miss Taggart?"  But a super-color-four-foot-screen television set was being erected³⁴² for tourists in a People's Park in Washington-and a super-cyclotron for the study of cosmic rays was being erected at the State Science Institute, to be completed in ten years.  "The trouble with our modern world," Dr. Robert Stadler said over the radio, at the ceremonies launching the construction of the cyclotron, "is that too many people think too much. It is the cause of all our current fears and doubts. An enlightened citizenry should abandon the superstitious³⁴⁴ worship of logic and the outmoded reliance on reason. Just as laymen³⁴⁵ leave medicine to doctors and electronics to engineers, so people who are not qualified to think should leave all thinking to the experts and have faith in the experts' higher authority. Only experts are able to understand the discoveries of modern science, which have proved that thought is an illusion and that the mind is a myth."  "This age of misery is God's punishment to man for the sin of relying on his mind!" snarled³⁴⁶ the triumphant voices of mystics of every sect³⁴⁷ and sort, on street corners, in rain-soaked tents, in crumbling³⁴⁸ temples. "This world ordeal³⁴⁹ is the result of man's attempt to live by reason! This is where thinking, logic and science have brought you! And there's to be no salvation until men realize that their mortal mind is impotent to solve their problems and go back to faith, faith in God, faith in a higher authority!"  And confronting her daily there was the final product of it all, the heir and collector-Cuffy Meigs, the man impervious³⁵⁰ to thought. Cuffy Meigs strode through the offices of Taggart Transcontinental, wearing a semi-military tunic³⁵¹ and slapping a shiny leather briefcase³⁵² against his shiny leather leggings. He carried an automatic pistol in one pocket and a rabbit's foot in the other.  Cuffy Meigs tried to avoid her; his manner was part scorn, as if he considered her an impractical idealist, part superstitious awe, as if she possessed³⁵³ some incomprehensible power with which he preferred not to tangle¹⁹⁰. He acted as if her presence did not belong to his view of a railroad, yet as if hers were the one presence he dared not challenge.  There was a touch of impatient resentment in his manner toward Jim, as if it were Jim's duty to deal with her and to protect him; just as he expected Jim to keep the railroad in running order and leave him free for activities of more practical a nature, so he expected Jim to keep her in line, as part of the equipment.  Beyond the window of her office, like a patch of adhesive³⁵⁴ plaster stuck over a wound on the sky, the page of the calendar hung blank in the distance. The calendar had never been repaired since the night of Francisco's farewell. The officials who had rushed to the tower, that night, had knocked the calendar's motor to a stop, while tearing the film out of the projector³⁵⁵. They had found the small square of Francisco's message, pasted into the strip of numbered days, but who had pasted it there, who had entered the locked room and when and how, was never discovered by the three commissions still investigating the case. Pending¹⁸⁴ the outcome of their efforts, the page hung blank and still above the city.  It was blank on the afternoon of September 14, when the telephone rang in her office. "A man from Minnesota," said the voice of her secretary.  She had told her secretary that she would accept all calls of this kind. They were the appeals for help and her only source of information. At a time when the voices of railroad officials uttered nothing but sounds designed to avoid communication, the voices of nameless men were her last link to the system, the last sparks of reason and tortured honesty flashing briefly³⁵⁶ through the miles of Taggart track.  "Miss Taggart, it is not my place to call you, but nobody else will," said the voice that came on the wire, this time; the voice sounded young and too calm. "In another day or two, a disaster's going to happen here the like of which they've never seen, and they won't be able to hide it any longer, only it will be too late by then, and maybe it's too late already."  "What is it? Who are you?"  "One of your employees of the Minnesota Division, Miss Taggart. In another day or two, the trains will stop running out of here-and you know what that means, at the height of the harvest. At the height of the biggest harvest we've ever had. They'll stop, because we have no cars. The harvest freight cars have not been sent to us this year."  "What did you say?" She felt as if minutes went by between the words of the unnatural³⁵⁷ voice that did not sound like her own.  "The cars have not been sent. Fifteen thousand should have been here by now. As far as I could learn, about eight thousand cars is all we got. I've been calling Division Headquarters for a week. They've been telling me not to worry. Last time, they told me to mind my own damn business. Every shed, silo, elevator, warehouse⁵⁴, garage and dance hall along the track is filled with wheat. At the Sherman elevators, there's a line of farmers' trucks and wagons two miles long, waiting on the road. At Lakewood Station, the square is packed solid and has been for three nights. They keep telling us it's only temporary, the cars are coming and we'll catch up. We won't. There aren't any cars coming. I've called everyone I could. I know, by the way they answer. They know, and not one of them wants to admit it. They're scared, scared to move or speak or ask or answer. All they're thinking of is who will be blamed when that harvest rots here around the stations-and not of who's going to move it. Maybe nobody can, now. Maybe there's nothing you can do about it, either. But I thought you're the only person left who'd want to know and that somebody had to tell you."  "I . . ." She made an effort to breathe. "I see . . . Who are you?"  "The name wouldn't matter. When I hang up, I will have become a deserter. I don't want to stay here to see it when it happens. I don't want any part of it any more. Good luck to you, Miss Taggart."  She heard the click. "Thank you," she said over a dead wire.  The next time she noticed the office around her and permitted herself to feel, it was noon of the following day. She stood in the middle of the office, running stiff, spread fingers through a strand³⁵⁸ of hair, brushing it back off her face-and for an instant, she wondered where she was and what was the unbelievable thing that had happened in the last twenty hours. What she felt was horror, and she knew that she had felt it from the first words of the man on the wire, only there had been no time to know it.  There was not much that remained in her mind of the last twenty hours, only disconnected bits, held together by the single constant that had made them possible-by the soft, loose faces of men who fought to hide from themselves that they knew the answers to the questions she asked.  From the moment when she was told that the manager of the Car Service Department had been out of town for a week and had left no address where one could reach him-she knew that the report of the man from Minnesota was true. Then came the faces of the assistants in the Car Service Department, who would neither confirm the report nor deny it, but kept showing her papers, orders, forms, file cards that bore words in the English language, but no connection to intelligible³⁵⁹ facts. "Were the freight cars sent to Minnesota?" "Form 357W is filled out in every particular, as required by the office of the Co-ordinator in conformance with the instructions of the comptroller and by Directive 11-493."  "Were the freight cars sent to Minnesota?" "The entries for the months of August and September have been processed by-" "Were the freight cars sent to Minnesota?" "My files indicate the locations of freight cars by state, date, classification and-" "Do you know whether the cars were sent to Minnesota?" "As to the interstate motion of freight cars, I would have to refer you to the files of Mr. Benson and of-"  There was nothing to learn from the files. There were careful entries, each conveying four possible meanings, with references which led to references which led to a final reference which was missing from the files. It did not take her long to discover that the cars had not been sent to Minnesota and that the order had come from Cuffy Meigs-but who had carried it out, who had tangled³⁶⁰ the trail, what steps had been taken by what compliant³⁶¹ men to preserve the appearance of a safely normal operation, without a single cry of protest to arouse some braver man's attention, who had falsified the reports, and where the cars had gone-seemed, at first, impossible to learn.  Through the hours of that night-while a small, desperate crew under the command of Eddie Willers kept calling every division point, every yard, depot³⁶³, station, spur and siding of Taggart Transcontinental for every freight car in sight or reach, ordering them to unload, drop, dump, scuttle³⁶⁴ anything and proceed to Minnesota at once, while they kept calling the yards, stations and presidents of every railroad still half in existence anywhere across the map, begging for cars for Minnesota-she went through the task of tracing from face to coward's face the destination of the freight cars that had vanished.  She went from railroad executives to wealthy shippers to Washington officials and back to the railroad-by cab, by phone, by wire-pursuing a trail of half-uttered hints. The trail approached its end when she heard the pinch-lipped voice of a public relations, woman in a Washington office, saying resentfully over the telephone wire, "Well, after all, it is a matter of opinion whether wheat is essential to a nation's welfare-there are those of more progressive views who feel that the soybean is, perhaps, of far greater value"-and then, by noon, she stood in the middle of her office, knowing that the freight cars intended for the wheat of Minnesota had been sent, instead, to carry the soybeans from the Louisiana swamps of Kip's Ma's project.  The first story of the Minnesota disaster appeared in the newspapers three days later. It reported that the farmers who had waited in. the streets of Lakewood for six days, with no place to store their wheat and no trains to carry it, had demolished the local courthouse, the mayor's home and the railroad station. Then the stories vanished abruptly and the newspapers kept silent, then began to print admonitions urging people not to believe unpatriotic rumors.  While the flour mills and grain markets of the country were screaming over the phones and the telegraph wires, sending pleas to New York and delegations³⁶⁵ to Washington, while strings³⁶⁶ of freight cars from random corners of the continent were crawling like rusty caterpillars³⁶⁷ across the map in the direction of Minnesota-the wheat and hope of the country were waiting to perish along an empty track, under the unchanging green lights of signals that called for motion to trains that were not there.  At the communication desks of Taggart Transcontinental, a small crew kept calling for freight cars, repeating, like the crew of a sinking ship, an S.O.S, that remained unheard. There were freight cars held loaded for months in the yards of the companies owned by the friends of pull-peddlers, who ignored the frantic demands to unload the cars and release them. "You can tell that railroad to-" followed by untransmissible words, was the message of the Smather Brothers of Arizona in answer to the S.O.S. of New York.  In Minnesota, they were seizing cars from every siding, from the Mesabi Range, from the ore mines of Paul Larkin where the cars had stood waiting for a dribble³⁶⁸ of iron. They were pouring wheat into ore cars, into coal cars, into boarded stock cars that went spilling thin gold trickles along the track as they clattered³⁶⁹ off. They were pouring wheat into passenger coaches, over seats, racks and fixtures³⁷⁰, to send it off, to get it moving, even if it went moving into track-side ditches in the sudden crash of breaking springs, in the explosions set off by burning journal boxes.  They fought for movement, for movement with no thought of destination, for movement as such, like a paralytic³⁷¹ under a stroke, struggling in wild, stiff, incredulous jerks against the realization³⁷² that movement was suddenly impossible. There were no other railroads: James Taggart had killed them; there were no boats on the Lakes: Paul Larkin had destroyed them. There was only the single line of rail and a net of neglected highways.  The trucks and wagons of waiting farmers started trickling blindly down the roads, with no maps, no gas, no feed for horses-moving south, south toward the vision of flour mills awaiting them somewhere, with no knowledge of the distances ahead, but with the knowledge of death behind them-moving, to collapse on the roads, in the gullies, in the breaks of rotted bridges. One farmer was found, half a mile south of the wreck¹⁶⁹ of his truck, lying dead in a ditch, face down, still clutching a sack of wheat on his shoulders. Then rain clouds burst over the prairies of Minnesota; the rain went eating the wheat into rot at the waiting railroad stations; it went hammering the piles spilled along the roads, washing gold kernels³⁷³ into the soil.  The men in Washington were last to be reached by the panic. They watched, not the news from Minnesota, but the precarious balance of their friendships and commitments; they weighed, not the fate of the harvest, but the unknowable result of unpredictable emotions in unthinking men of unlimited³⁷⁴ power. They waited, they evaded³⁷⁵ all pleas, they declared, "Oh, ridiculous, there's nothing to worry about! Those Taggart people have always moved that wheat on schedule, they'll find some way to move it!"  Then, when the State Chief Executive of Minnesota sent a request to Washington for the assistance of the Army against the riots he was unable to control-three directives burst forth within two hours, stopping all trains in the country, commandeering all cars to speed to Minnesota.  An order signed by Wesley Mouch demanded the immediate release of the freight cars held in the service of Kip's Ma. But by that time, it was too late. Ma's freight cars were in California, where the soybeans had been sent to a progressive concern made up of sociologists preaching the cult²⁶¹ of Oriental austerity, and of businessmen formerly³⁷⁶ in the numbers racket.  In Minnesota, farmers were setting fire to their own farms, they were demolishing³⁷⁷ grain elevators and the homes of county officials, they were fighting along the track of the railroad, some to tear it up, some to defend it with their lives-and, with no goal to reach save violence, they were dying in the streets of gutted³⁷⁸ towns and in the silent gullies of a roadless night.  Then there was only the acrid³⁷⁹ stench of grain rotting in half-smouldering piles-a few columns of smoke rising from the plains, standing still in the air over blackened ruins-and, in an office in Pennsylvania, Hank Rearden sitting at his desk, looking at a list of men who had gone bankrupt: they were the manufacturers of farm equipment, who could not be paid and would not be able to pay him. The harvest of soybeans did not reach the markets of the country: it had been reaped prematurely³⁸⁰, it was moldy³⁸¹ and unfit for consumption.  On the night of October 15, a copper wire broke in New York City, in an underground control tower of the Taggart Terminal, extinguishing the lights of the signals. It was only the breach³⁸² of one wire, but it produced a short circuit in the interlocking traffic system, and the signals of motion or danger disappeared from the panels of the control towers and from among the strands³⁸³ of rail. The red and green lenses remained red and green, not with the living radiance of sight, but with the dead stare of glass eyes. On the edge of the city, a cluster of trains gathered at the entrance to the Terminal tunnels and grew through the minutes of stillness, like blood dammed by a clot⁹¹ inside a vein³⁸⁵, unable to rush into the chambers³⁸⁶ of the heart.  Dagny, that night, was sitting at a table in a private dining room of the Wayne-Falkland. The wax of candles was dripping down on the white camellias and laurel leaves at the base of the silver candlesticks, arithmetical calculations were penciled on the damask linen³⁸⁷ tablecloth³⁸⁸, and a cigar butt³⁸⁹ was swimming in a finger bowl. The six men in formal dinner jackets, facing her about the table, were Wesley Mouch, Eugene Lawson, Dr. Floyd Ferris, Clem Weatherby, James Taggart and Cuffy Meigs.  "Why?" she had asked, when Jim had told her that she had to attend that dinner. "Well . . . because our Board of Directors is to meet next week." "And?" "You're interested in what's going to be decided³⁹⁰ about our Minnesota Line, aren't you?" "Is that going to be decided at the Board meeting?” "Well, not exactly." "Is it going to be decided at this dinner?" "Not exactly, but . . . oh, why do you always have to be so definite? Nothing's ever definite. Besides, they insisted that they wanted you to come." "Why?" "Isn't that sufficient?"  She did not ask why those men chose to make all their crucial decisions at parties of this kind; she knew that they did. She knew that behind the clattering, lumbering³⁹¹ pretense³⁹² of their council sessions, committee meetings and mass debates, the decisions were made in advance, in furtive³⁹³ informality, at luncheons³⁹⁴, dinners and bars, the graver the issue, the more casual the method of settling it. It was the first time that they had asked her, the outsider, the enemy, to one of those secret sessions; it was, she thought, an acknowledgment of the fact that they needed her and, perhaps, the first step of their surrender; it was a chance she could not leave untaken.  But as she sat in the candlelight of the dining room, she felt certain that she had no chance; she felt restlessly unable to accept that certainty, since she could not grasp its reason, yet lethargically³⁹⁵ reluctant to pursue any inquiry³⁹⁶.  "As, I think, you will concede, Miss Taggart, there now seems to be no economic justification³⁹⁷ for the continued existence of a railroad line in Minnesota, which . . ." "And even Miss Taggart will, I'm sure, agree that certain temporary retrenchments seem to be indicated, until . . ." "Nobody, not even Miss Taggart, will deny that there are times when it is necessary to sacrifice the parts for the sake of the whole . . ." As she listened to the mentions of her name tossed into the conversation at half-hour intervals³⁹⁹, tossed perfunctorily, with the speaker's eyes never glancing in her direction, she wondered what motive had made them want her to be present. It was not an attempt to delude⁴⁰⁰ her into believing that they were consulting her, but worse: an attempt to delude themselves into believing that she had agreed. They asked her questions at times and interrupted her before she had completed the first sentence of the answer. They seemed to want her approval, without having to know whether she approved or not.  Some crudely childish form of self-deception had made them choose to give to this occasion the decorous setting of a formal dinner. They acted as if they hoped to gain, from the objects of gracious luxury, the power and the honor of which those objects had once been the product and symbol-they acted, she thought, like those savages who devour the corpse of an adversary⁴⁰¹ in the hope of acquiring his strength and his virtue.  She regretted that she was dressed as she was. "It's formal," Jim had told her, "but don't overdo⁴⁰² it . . . what I mean is, don't look too rich . . . business people should avoid any appearance of arrogance⁴⁰³ these days . . . not that you should look shabby, but if you could just seem to suggest . . . well, humility⁴⁰⁴ . . . it would please them, you know, it would make them feel big." "Really?" she had said, turning away.  She wore a black dress that looked as if it were no more than a piece of cloth crossed over her breasts and falling to her feet in the soft folds of a Grecian tunic; it was made of satin, a satin so light and thin that it could have served as the stuff of a nightgown. The luster³⁸⁴ of the cloth, streaming and shifting with her movements, made it look as if the light of the room she entered were her personal property, sensitively obedient to-the motions of her body, wrapping her in a sheet of radiance more luxurious than the texture⁴⁰⁵ of brocade, underscoring the pliant³⁶² fragility of her figure, giving her an air of so natural an elegance⁴⁰⁶ that it could afford to be scornfully casual. She wore a single piece of jewelry⁴⁰⁷, a diamond clip at the edge of the black neckline, that kept flashing with the imperceptible motion of her breath, like a transformer converting a flicker⁴⁰⁸ into fire, making one conscious, not of the gems⁴⁰⁹, but of the living beat behind them; it flashed like a military decoration, like wealth worn as a badge of honor. She wore no other ornament⁴¹⁰, only the sweep of a black velvet cape⁴¹¹, more arrogantly⁴¹², ostentatiously patrician⁴¹³ than any spread of sables⁴¹⁴.  She regretted it now, as she looked at the men before her; she felt the embarrassing guilt of pointlessness, as if she had tried to defy the figures in a waxworks⁴¹⁵. She saw a mindless resentment in their eyes and a sneaking trace of the lifeless, sexless, smutty leer with which men look at a poster advertising⁴¹⁶ burlesque⁴¹⁷.  "It's a great responsibility," said Eugene Lawson, "to hold the decision of life or death over thousands of people and to sacrifice them when necessary, but we mast have the courage to do it." His soft lips seemed to twist into a smile.  "The only factors to consider are land acreage and population figures," said Dr. Ferris in a statistical voice, blowing smoke rings at the ceiling. "Since it is no longer possible to maintain both the Minnesota Line and the transcontinental traffic of this railroad, the choice is between Minnesota and those states west of the Rockies which were cut off by the failure of the Taggart Tunnel, as well as the neighboring states of Montana, Idaho, Oregon, which means, practically speaking, the whole of the Northwest. When you compute⁴¹⁸ the acreage and the number of heads in both areas, it's obvious that we should scuttle Minnesota rather than give up our lines of communication over a third of a continent."  "I won't give up the continent," said Wesley Mouch, staring down at his dish of ice cream, his voice hurt and stubborn.  She was thinking of the Mesabi Range, the last of the major sources of iron ore, she was thinking of the Minnesota farmers, such as were left of them, the best producers of wheat in the country-she was thinking that the end of Minnesota would end Wisconsin, then Michigan, then Illinois-she was seeing the red breath of the factories dying out over the industrial East-as against the empty miles of western sands, of scraggly pastures and abandoned ranches⁴¹⁹.  "The figures indicate," said Mr. Weatherby primly⁴²⁰, "that the continued maintenance of both areas seems to be impossible. The railway track and equipment of one has to be dismantled⁴²¹ to provide the material for the maintenance of the other."  She noticed that Clem Weatherby, their technical expert on railroads, was the man of least influence among them, and Cuffy Meigs-of most.  Cuffy Meigs sat sprawled⁴²³ in his chair, with a look of patronizing tolerance⁴²⁴ for their game of wasting time on discussions. He spoke little, but when he did, it was to snap decisively, with a contemptuous grin, "Pipe down, Jimmy!" or, "Nuts, Wes, you're talking through your hat!" She noticed that neither Jim nor Mouch resented it. They seemed to welcome the authority of his assurance; they were accepting him as their master.  "We have to be practical," Dr. Ferris kept saying. "We have to be scientific."  "I need the economy of the country as a whole," Wesley Mouch kept repeating. "I need the production of a nation."  "Is it economics that you're talking about? Is it production?" she said, whenever her cold, measured voice was able to seize a brief stretch of their tune¹⁶⁴. "If it is, then give us leeway to save the Eastern states. That's all that's left of the country-and of the world. If you let us save that, we'll have a chance to rebuild the rest. If not, it's the end. Let the Atlantic Southern take care of such transcontinental traffic as still exists. Let the local railroads take care of the Northwest. But let Taggart Transcontinental drop everything else-yes, everything-and devote all our resources, equipment and rail to the traffic of the Eastern states. Let us shrink back to the start of this country, but let us hold that start. We'll run no trains west of the Missouri. We'll become a local railroad-the local of the industrial East. Let us save our industries. There's nothing left to save in the West. You can run agriculture for centuries by manual labor¹⁵⁹ and oxcarts. But destroy the last of this country's industrial plant-and centuries of effort won't be able to rebuild it or to gather the economic strength to make a start. How do you expect our industries-or railroads-to survive without steel? How do you expect any steel to be produced if you cut off the supply of iron ore? Save Minnesota, whatever's left of it. The country? You have no country to save, if its industries perish. You can sacrifice a leg or an arm. You can't save a body by sacrificing its heart and brain. Save our industries. Save Minnesota. Save the Eastern Seaboard."  It was no use. She said it as many times, with as many details, statistics, figures, proofs, as she could force out of her weary mind into their evasive hearing. It was no use. They neither refuted nor agreed; they merely looked as if her arguments were beside the point. There was a sound of hidden emphasis in their answers, as if they were giving her an explanation, but in a code to which she had no key.  "There's trouble in California," said Wesley Mouch sullenly⁴²⁵. "Their state legislature's been acting pretty huffy. There's talk of seceding⁴²⁶ from the union."  "Oregon is overrun by gangs of deserters," said Clem Weatherby cautiously. "They murdered two tax collectors within the last three months."  "The importance of industry to a civilization has been grossly overemphasized," said Dr. Ferris dreamily. "What is now known as the People's State of India has existed for centuries without any industrial development whatever."  "People could do with fewer material gadgets⁴²⁷ and a sterner discipline of privations," said Eugene Lawson eagerly. "It would be good for them."  "Oh hell, are you going to let that dame⁴²⁸ talk you into letting the richest country on earth slip through your fingers?" said Cuffy Meigs, leaping to his feet. "It's a fine time to give up a whole continent-and in exchange for what? For a dinky little state that's milked dry, anyway! I say ditch Minnesota, but hold onto your transcontinental dragnet. With trouble and riots everywhere, you won't be able to keep people in line unless you have transportation-troop transportation-unless you hold your soldiers within a few days' journey of any point on the continent. This is no time to retrench³⁹⁸. Don't get yellow, listening to all that talk. You've got the country in your pocket. Just keep it there."  "In the long run-" Mouch started uncertainly.  "In the long run, we'll all be dead," snapped Cuffy Meigs. He was pacing restlessly. "Retrenching⁴²⁹, hell! There's plenty of pickings left in California and Oregon and all those places. What I've been thinking is, we ought to think of expanding-the way things are, there's nobody to stop us, it's there for the taking-Mexico, and Canada maybe-it ought to be a cinch."  Then she saw the answer; she saw the secret premise¹⁵⁸ behind their words. With all of their noisy devotion to the age of science, their hysterically⁴³⁰ technological⁴³¹ jargon⁴³², their cyclotrons, their sound rays, these men were moved forward, not by the image of an industrial skyline, but by the vision of that  form of existence which the industrialists had swept away-the vision of a fat, unhygienic rajah of India, with vacant eyes staring in indolent stupor⁴³³ out of stagnant⁴³⁴ layers of flesh, with nothing to do but run precious gems through his fingers and, once in a while, stick a knife into the body of a starved, toil-dazed, germ-eaten creature, as a claim to a few grains of the creature's rice, then claim it from hundreds of millions of such creatures and thus let the rice grains gather into gems.  She had thought that industrial production was a value not to be questioned by anyone; she had thought that these men's urge to expropriate the factories of others was their acknowledgment of the factories value. She, born of the industrial revolution, had not held as conceivable, had forgotten along with the tales of astrology and alchemy, what these men knew in their secret, furtive souls, knew not by means of thought, but by means of that nameless muck which they called their instincts and emotions: that so long as men struggle to stay alive, they'll never produce so little but that the man with the club won't be able to seize it and leave them still less, provided millions of them are willing to submit-that the harder their work and the less their gain, the more submissive the fiber⁴³⁵ of their spirit-that men who live by pulling levers at an electric switchboard, are not easily ruled, but men who live by digging the soil with their naked fingers, are-that the feudal⁴³⁶ baron⁴³⁷ did not need electronic factories in order to drink his brains away out of jeweled goblets⁴³⁸, and neither did the rajahs of the People's State of India.  She saw what they wanted and to what goal their "instincts," which they called unaccountable, were leading them. She saw that Eugene Lawson, the humanitarian⁸², took pleasure at the prospect⁴³⁹ of human starvation-and Dr. Ferris, the scientist, was dreaming of the day when men would return to the hand-plow. Incredulity and indifference⁴⁴⁰ were her only reaction: incredulity, because she could not conceive of what would bring human beings to such a state-indifference, because she could not regard those who reached it, as human any longer. They went on talking, but she was unable to speak or to listen. She caught herself feeling that her only desire was now to get home and fall asleep.  "Miss Taggart," said a politely rational, faintly anxious voice-and jerking her head up, she saw the courteous⁴⁴¹ figure of a waiter, "the assistant manager of the Taggart Terminal is on the telephone, requesting permission to speak to you at once. He says it's an emergency."  It was a relief to leap to her feet and get out of that room, even if in answer to the call of some new disaster. It was a relief to hear the assistant manager's voice, even though it was saying, "The interlocker system is out, Miss Taggart. The signals are dead. There are eight incoming trains held up and six outgoing. We can't move them in or out of the tunnels, we can't find the chief engineer, we can't locate the breach of the circuit, we have no copper wire for repairs, we don't know what to do, we-" "I’ll be right down," she said, dropping the receiver.  Hurrying to the elevator, then half-running through the stately lobby of the Wayne-Falkland, she felt herself returning to life at the summons of the possibility of action. Taxicabs were rare, these days, and none came in answer to the doorman's whistle. She started rapidly down the street, forgetting what she wore, wondering why the touch of the wind seemed too cold and too ultimately close.  Her mind on the Terminal ahead, she was startled by the loveliness of a sudden sight: she saw the slender figure of a woman hurrying toward her, the ray of a lamppost sweeping over lustrous⁴⁴² hair, naked arms, the swirl⁴⁴³ of a black cape and the flame of a diamond on her breast, with the long, empty corridor of a city street behind her and skyscrapers⁴⁴⁴ drawn⁴⁴⁵ by lonely dots of light. The knowledge that she was seeing her own reflection in the side mirror of a florist's window, came an instant too late: she had felt the enchantment of the full context to which that image and city belonged. Then she felt a stab of desolate loneliness, much wider a loneliness than the span of an empty street-and a stab of anger at herself, at the preposterous⁴⁴⁶ contrast between her appearance and the context of this night and age.  She saw a taxi turn a corner, she waved to it and leaped in, slamming the door against a feeling which she hoped to leave behind her, on the empty pavement by a florist's window. But she knew-in self mockery, in bitterness, in longing-that this feeling was the sense of expectation she had felt at her first ball and at those rare times when she had wanted the outward beauty of existence to match its inner splendor⁴⁴⁷. What a time to think of it! she told herself in mockery-not now! she cried to herself in anger-but a desolate voice kept asking her quietly to the rattle¹¹⁴ of the taxi's wheels: You who believed you must live for your happiness, what do you now have left of it?-what are you gaining from your struggle?-yes! say it honestly: what's in it for you?-or are you becoming one of those abject⁴⁴⁸ altruists who has no answer to that question any longer? . . . Not now!-she ordered, as the glowing entrance to the Taggart Terminal flared⁴⁵⁰ up in the rectangle of the taxi's windshield.  The men in the Terminal manager's office were like extinguished signals, as if here, too, a circuit were broken and there were no living current to make them move. They looked at her with a kind of inanimate passivity, as if it made no difference whether she let them stay still or threw a switch to set them in motion.  The Terminal manager was absent. The chief engineer could not be found; he had been seen at the Terminal two hours ago, not since. The assistant manager had exhausted his power of initiative by volunteering to call her. The others volunteered nothing. The signal engineer was a college-boyish man in his thirties, who kept saying aggressively, "But this has never happened before, Miss Taggart! The interlocker has never failed. It's not supposed to fail. We know our jobs, we can take care of it as well as anybody can-but not if it breaks down when it's not supposed to!" She could not tell whether the dispatcher, an elderly man with years of railroad work behind him, still retained his intelligence but chose to hide it, or whether months of suppressing it had choked it for good, granting him the safety of stagnation⁴⁵¹, "We don't know what to do, Miss Taggart." "We don't know whom to call for what sort of permission." "There are no rules to cover an emergency of this kind." "There aren't even any rules about who's to lay down the rules for it!"  She listened, she reached for the telephone without a word of explanation, she ordered the operator to get her the operating vice-president of the Atlantic Southern in Chicago, to get him at his home and out of bed, if necessary.  "George? Dagny Taggart," she said, when the voice of her competitor came on the wire. "Will you lend me the signal engineer of your Chicago terminal, Charles Murray, for twenty-four hours? . . .  Yes. . . . Right. . . . Put him aboard a plane and get him here as fast as you can. Tell him we'll pay three thousand dollars. . . . Yes, for the one day. . . . Yes, as bad as that. . . . Yes, I'll pay him in cash, out of my own pocket, if necessary. I'll pay whatever it takes to bribe²⁹⁹ his way aboard a plane, but get him on the first plane out of Chicago. . . . No, George, not one-not a single mind left on Taggart Transcontinental. . . . Yes, I'll get all the papers, exemptions⁴⁵², exceptions and emergency permissions. . . . Thanks, George. So long."  She hung up and spoke rapidly to the men before her, not to hear the stillness of the room and of the Terminal, where no sound of wheels was beating any longer, not to hear the bitter words which the stillness seemed to repeat: Not a single mind left on Taggart Transcontinental. . . .  "Get a wrecking⁴⁵³ train and crew ready at once,'1 she said. "Send them out on the Hudson Line, with orders to tear down every foot of copper wire, any copper wire, lights, signals, telephone, everything that's company property. Have it here by morning." "But, Miss Taggart! Our service on the Hudson Line is only temporarily suspended and the Unification Board has refused us permission to dismantle⁴²² the line!" "I'll be responsible." "But how are we going to get the wrecking train out of here, when there aren't any signals?" "There will be signals in half an hour." "How?" "Come on," she said, rising to her feet.  They followed her as she hurried down the passenger platforms, past the huddling⁴⁵⁴, shifting groups of travelers by the motionless trains. She hurried down a narrow catwalk, through a maze⁴⁵⁵ of rail, past blinded signals and frozen switches, with nothing but the beat of her satin sandals to fill the great vaults⁴⁵⁶ of the underground tunnels of Taggart Transcontinental, with the hollow creaking of planks⁴⁵⁷ under the slower steps of men trailing her like a reluctant echo-she hurried to the lighted glass cube of Tower A, that hung in the darkness like a crown without a body, the crown of a deposed⁴⁵⁸ ruler above a realm of empty tracks.  The tower director was too expert a man at too exacting⁴⁵⁹ a job to be able wholly to conceal⁴⁶⁰ the dangerous burden of intelligence. He understood what she wanted him to do from her first few words and answered only with an abrupt¹⁴² "Yes, ma'am," but he was bent⁴⁶¹ over his charts by the time the others came following her up the iron stairway, he was grimly at work on the most humiliating job of calculation he had ever had to perform in his long career. She knew how fully he understood it, from a single glance he threw at her, a glance of indignation and endurance that matched some emotion he had caught in her face, "We'll do it first and feel about it afterwards," she said, even though he had made no comment. "Yes, ma'am," he answered woodenly.  His room, on the top of an underground tower, was like a glass verandah overlooking what had once been the swiftest, richest and most orderly stream in the world. He had been trained to chart the course of over ninety trains an hour and to watch them roll safely through a maze of tracks and switches in and out of the Terminal, under his glass walls and his fingertips. Now, for the first time, he was looking out at the empty darkness of a dried channel.  Through the open door of the relay room, she saw the tower men standing grimly idle-the men whose jobs had never permitted a moment's relaxation⁴⁶²-standing by the long rows that looked like vertical⁴⁶³ copper pleats, like shelves of books and as much of a monument to human intelligence. The pull of one of the small levers, which protruded⁴⁶⁴ like bookmarks from the shelves, threw thousands of electric circuits into motion, made thousands of contacts and broke as many others, set dozens of switches to clear a chosen course and dozens of signals to light it, with no error left possible, no chance, no contradiction -an enormous complexity of thought condensed into one movement of a human hand to set and insure the course of a train, that hundreds of trains might safely rush by, that thousands of tons of metal and lives might pass in speeding streaks⁴⁶⁵ a breath away from one another, protected by nothing but a thought, the thought of the man who devised the levers. But they-she looked at the face of her signal engineer -they believed that that muscular contraction⁴⁶⁷ of a hand was the only thing required to move the traffic-and now the tower men stood idle-and on the great panels in front of the tower director, the red and green lights, which had flashed announcing the progress of trains at a distance of miles, were now so many glass beads⁴⁶⁸-like the glass beads for which another breed of savages had once sold the Island of Manhattan.  "Call all of your unskilled laborers," she said to the assistant manager, "the section hands, trackwalkers, engine wipers, whoever's in the Terminal right now, and have them come here at once."  "Here?"  "Here," she said, pointing at the tracks outside the tower. "Call all your switchmen, too. Phone your storehouse and have them bring here every lantern they can lay their hands on, any sort of lantern, conductors' lanterns, storm lanterns, anything."  "Lanterns, Miss Taggart?"  "Get going."  "Yes, ma'am."  "What is it we're doing, Miss Taggart?" asked the dispatcher.  "We're going to move trains and we're going to move them manually."  "Manually?" said the signal engineer.  "Yes, brother! Now why should you be shocked?" She could not resist it. "Man is only muscles, isn't he? We're going back-back to where there were no interlocking systems, no semaphores, no electricity -back to the time when train signals were not steel and wire, but men holding lanterns. Physical men, serving as lampposts. You've advocated it long enough-you got what you wanted. Oh, you thought that your tools would determine your ideas? But it happens to be the other way around-and now you're going to see the kind of tools your ideas have determined⁴⁷⁰!"  But even to go back took an act of intelligence-she thought, feeling the paradox⁴⁷¹ of her own position, as she looked at the lethargy of the faces around her.  "How will we work the switches, Miss Taggart?"  "By hand."  "And the signals?"  "By hand."  "How?"  "By placing a man with a lantern at every signal post."  "How? There's not enough clearance⁴⁷²."  "We'll use alternate tracks."  "How will the men know which way to throw the switches?"  "By written orders."  "Uh?"  "By written orders-just as in the old days." She pointed to the tower director. "He's working out a schedule of how to move the trains and which tracks to use. He'll write out an. order for every signal and switch, he'll pick some men as runners and they'll keep delivering the orders to every post-and it will take hours to do what used to take minutes, but we'll get those waiting trains into the Terminal and out on the road-"  "We're to work it that way all night?"  "And all day tomorrow-until the engineer who's got the brains for it, shows you how to repair the interlocker."  "There's nothing in the union contracts about men standing with lanterns. There's going to be trouble. The union will object."  "Let them come to me."  "The Unification Board will object."  "I'll be responsible."  "Well, I wouldn't want to be held for giving the orders-"  "I'll give the orders."  She stepped out on the landing of the iron stairway that hung on the side of the tower; she was fighting for self-control. It seemed to her for a moment as if she, too, were a precision instrument of high technology, left without electric current, trying to run a transcontinental railroad by means of her two hands. She looked out at the great, silent darkness of the Taggart underground-and she felt a stab of burning humiliation⁴⁷³ that she should now see it brought down to the level where human lampposts would stand in its tunnels as its last memorial statues.  She could barely distinguish the faces of the men when they gathered at the foot of the tower. They came streaming silently through the darkness and stood without moving in the bluish murk, with blue bulbs on the walls behind them and patches of light falling on their shoulders from the tower's windows. She could see the greasy⁴⁷⁴ garments, the slack, muscular bodies, the limply hanging arms of men drained by the unrewarding exhaustion⁴⁷⁵ of a labor that required no thought. These were the dregs of the railroad, the younger men who could now seek no chance to rise and the older men who had never wanted to seek it. They stood in silence, not with the apprehensive⁴⁷⁶ curiosity of workmen, but with the heavy indifference of convicts.  "The orders which you are about to receive have come from me," she said, standing above them on the iron stairs, speaking with resonant⁴⁷⁷ clarity. "The men who'll issue them are acting under my instructions. The interlocking control system has broken down. It will now be replaced by human labor. Train service will be resumed at once."  She noticed some faces in the crowd staring at her with a peculiar look: with a veiled resentment and the kind of insolent¹³⁷ curiosity that made her suddenly conscious of being a woman. Then she remembered what she wore, and thought that it did look preposterous-and then, at the sudden stab of some violent impulse that felt like defiance and like loyalty to the full, real meaning of the moment, she threw her cape back and stood in the raw glare of light, under the sooted⁴⁷⁸ columns, like a figure at a formal reception, sternly erect³⁴³, flaunting⁴⁷⁹ the luxury of naked arms, of glowing black satin, of a diamond flashing like a military cross.  "The tower director will assign switchmen to their posts. He will select men for the job of signaling trains by means of lanterns and for the task of transmitting his orders. Trains will-" She was fighting to drown a bitter voice that seemed to be saying: That's all they're fit for, these men, if even that . . . there's not a single mind left anywhere on Taggart Transcontinental. . . . "Trains will continue to be moved in and out of the Terminal. You will remain at your posts until-"  Then she stopped. It was his eyes and hair that she saw first-the ruthlessly perceptive eyes, the streaks of hair shaded from gold to copper that seemed to reflect the glow of sunlight in the murk of the underground-she saw John Galt among the chain gang of the mindless, John Galt in greasy overalls⁴⁸⁰ and rolled shirt sleeves, she saw his weightless way of standing, his face held lifted, his eyes looking at her as if he had seen this moment many moments ago.  "What's the matter, Miss Taggart?"  It was the soft voice of the tower director, who stood by her side, with some sort of paper in his hand-and she thought it was strange to emerge from a span of unconsciousness which had been the span of the sharpest awareness⁴⁸¹ she had ever experienced, only she did not know how long it had lasted or where she was or why. She had been aware of Galt's face, she had been seeing, in the shape of his mouth, in the planes of his cheeks, the crackup of that implacable serenity⁴⁸² which had always been his, but he still retained it in his look of acknowledging the breach, of admitting that this moment was too much even for him.  She knew that she went on speaking, because those around her looked as if they were listening, though she could not hear a sound, she went on speaking as if carrying out a hypnotic order given to herself some endless time ago, knowing only that the completion of that order was a form of defiance against him, neither knowing nor hearing her own words.  She felt as if she were standing in a radiant silence where sight was her only capacity and his face was its only object, and the sight of his face was like a speech in the form of a pressure at the base of her throat. It seemed so natural that he should be here, it seemed so unendurably simple-she felt as if the shock were not his presence, but the presence of others on the tracks of her railroad, where he belonged and they did not. She was seeing those moments aboard a train when, at its plunge into the tunnels, she had felt a sudden, solemn tension, as if this place were showing her in naked simplicity⁴⁸³ the essence of her railroad and of her life, the union of consciousness and matter, the frozen form of a mind's ingenuity⁴⁸⁴ giving physical existence to its purpose; she had felt a sense of sudden hope, as if this place held the meaning of all of her values, and a sense of secret excitement, as if a nameless promise were awaiting her under the ground-it was right that she should now meet him here, he had been the meaning and the promise-she was not seeing his clothing any longer, nor to what level her railroad had reduced him-she was seeing only the vanishing torture of the months when he had been outside her  reach-she was seeing in his face the confession⁴⁸⁵ of what those months had cost him -the only speech she heard was as if she were saying to him: This is the reward for all my days-and as if he were answering: For all of mine.  She knew that she had finished speaking to the strangers when she saw that the tower director had stepped forward and was saying something to them, glancing at a list in his hand. Then, drawn by a sense of irresistible⁴⁸⁶ certainty, she found herself descending the stairs, slipping away from the crowd, not toward the platforms and the exit, but into the darkness of the abandoned tunnels. You will follow me, she thought -and felt as if the thought were not in words, but in the tension of her muscles, the tension of her will to accomplish a thing she knew to be outside her power, yet she knew with certainty that it would be accomplished and by her wish . . . no, she thought, not by her wish, but by its total rightness. You will follow me-it was neither plea nor prayer nor demand., but the quiet statement of a fact, it contained the whole of her power of knowledge and the whole of the knowledge she had earned through the years. You will follow me, if we are what we are, you and I, if we live, if the world exists, if you know the meaning of this moment and can't let it slip by, as others let it slip, into the senselessness of the unwilled and unreached. You will follow me-she felt an exultant⁴⁸⁷ assurance, which was neither hope nor faith, but an act of worship for the logic of existence.  She was hurrying down the remnants of abandoned rails, down the long, dark corridors twisting through granite⁴⁸⁸. She lost the sound of the director's voice behind her. Then she felt the beat of her arteries and heard, in answering rhythm, the beat of the city above her head, but she felt as if she heard the motion of her blood as a sound filling the silence, and the motion of the city as the beat inside her body-and, far behind her, she heard the sound of steps. She did not glance back.  She went faster. She went past the locked iron door where the remnant of his motor was still hidden, she did not stop, but a faint shudder⁴⁸⁹ was her answer to the sudden glimpse of the unity³³ and logic in the events of the last two years. A string of blue lights went on into the darkness, over patches of glistening⁴⁹⁰ granite, over broken sandbags spilling drifts on the rails, over rusty piles of scrap metal. When she heard the steps coming closer, she stopped and turned to look back.  She saw a sweep of blue light flash briefly on the shining strands of Galt's hair, she caught the pale outline of his face and the dark hollows of his eyes. The face disappeared, but the sound of his steps served as the link to the next blue light that swept across the line of his eyes, the eyes that remained held level, directed ahead-and she felt certain that she had stayed in his sight from the moment he had seen her at the tower.  She heard the beat of the city above them-these tunnels, she had once thought, were the roots of the city and of all the motion reaching to the sky-but they, she thought, John Galt and she, were the living power within these roots, they were the start and aim and meaning-he, too, she thought, heard the beat of the city as the beat of his body.  She threw her cape back, she stood defiantly⁴⁹¹ straight, as he had seen her stand on the steps of the tower-as he had seen her for the first time, ten years ago, here, under the ground-she was hearing the words of his confession, not as words, but by means of that beating which made it so difficult to breathe: You looked like a symbol of luxury and you belonged in the place that was its source . . . you seemed to bring the enjoyment⁴⁹² of life back to its rightful owners . . .you had a look of energy and of its reward, together . . . and I was the first man who had ever stated in what manner these two were inseparable. . . .  The next span of moments was like flashes of light in stretches of blinded unconsciousness-the moment when she saw his face, as he stopped beside her, when she saw the unastonished calm, the leashed intensity, the laughter of understanding in the dark green eyes-the moment when she knew what he saw in her face, by the tight, drawn harshness of his lips-the moment when she felt his mouth on hers, when she felt the shape of his mouth both as an absolute shape and as a liquid filling her body-then the motion of his lips down the line of her throat, a drinking motion that left a trail of bruises-then the sparkle of her diamond clip against the trembling copper of his hair.  Then she was conscious of nothing but the sensations of her body, because her body acquired the sudden power to let her know her most complex values by direct perception. Just as her eyes had the power to translate wave lengths of energy into sight, just as her ears had the power to translate vibrations⁴⁹³ into sound, so her body now had the power to translate the energy that had moved all the choices of her life, into immediate sensory⁴⁹⁴ perception. It was not the pressure of a hand that made her tremble, but the instantaneous sum of its meaning, the knowledge that it was his hand, that it moved as if her flesh were his possession, that its movement was his signature of acceptance under the whole of that achievement which was herself-it was only a sensation of physical pleasure, but it contained her worship of him, of everything that was his person and his life-from the night of the mass meeting in a factory in Wisconsin, to the Atlantis of a valley hidden in the Rocky Mountains, to the triumphant mockery of the green eyes of the superlative intelligence above a worker's figure at the foot of the tower-it contained her pride in herself and that it should be she whom he had chosen as his mirror, that it should be her body which was now giving him the sum of his existence, as his body was giving her the sum of hers. These were the things it contained-but what she knew was only the sensation of the movement of his hand on her breasts.  He tore off her cape and she felt the slenderness of her own body by means of the circle of his arms, as if his person were only a tool for her triumphant awareness of herself, but that self were only a tool for her awareness of him. It was as if she were reaching the limit of her capacity to feel, yet what she felt was like a cry of impatient demand, which she was now incapable⁴⁹⁵ of naming, except that it had the same quality of ambition as the course of her life, the same inexhaustible quality of radiant greed.  He pulled her head back for a moment, to look straight into her eyes, to let her see his, to let her know the full meaning of their actions, as if throwing the spotlight⁴⁹⁶ of consciousness upon them for the meeting of their eyes in a moment of intimacy⁴⁹⁷ greater than the one to come.  Then she felt the mesh⁴⁹⁸ of burlap striking the skin of her shoulders, she found herself lying on the broken sandbags, she saw the long, tight gleam of her stockings, she felt his mouth pressed to her ankle, then rising in a tortured motion up the line of her leg, as if he wished to own its shape by means of his lips, then she felt her teeth sinking into the flesh of his arm, she felt the sweep of his elbow knocking her head aside and his mouth seizing her lips with a pressure more viciously painful than hers-then she felt, when it hit her throat, that which she knew only as an upward streak⁴⁶⁶ of motion that released and united her body into a single shock of pleasure-then she knew nothing but the motion of his body and the driving greed that went reaching on and on, as if she were not a person any longer, only a sensation of endless reaching for the impossible-then she knew that it was possible, and she gasped⁵⁰⁰ and lay still, knowing that nothing more could be desired, ever.  He lay beside her, on his back, looking up at the darkness of the granite vault¹⁵³ above them, she saw him stretched on the jagged slant⁵⁰¹ of sandbags as if his body were fluid in relaxation, she saw the black wedge of her cape flung across the rails at their feet, there were beads of moisture twinkling on the vault, shifting slowly, running into invisible cracks, like the lights of a distant traffic. When he spoke, his voice sounded as if he were quietly continuing a sentence in answer to the questions in her mind, as if he had nothing to hide from her any longer and what he owed her now was only the act of undressing his soul, as simply as he would have undressed his body: ". . . this is how I've watched you for ten years . . . from here, from under the ground under your feet . . . knowing every move you made in your office at the top of the building, but never seeing you, never enough . . . ten years of nights, spent waiting to catch a glimpse of you, here, on the platforms, when you boarded a train. . . . Whenever the order came down to couple your car, I'd know of it and wait and see you come down the ramp⁵⁰², and wish you didn't walk so fast . . . it was so much like you, that walk, I'd know it anywhere . . .  your walk and those legs of yours . . . it was always your legs that I'd see first, hurrying down the ramp, going past me as I looked up at you from a dark side track below. . . . I think I could have molded a sculpture of your legs, I knew them, not with my eyes, but with the palms of my hands when I watched you go by . . . when I turned back to my work . . . when I went home just before sunrise for the three hours of sleep which I didn't get . . ."  "I love you," she said, her voice quiet and almost toneless except for a fragile sound of youth.  He closed his eyes, as if letting the sound travel through the years behind them. "Ten years, Dagny . . ., except that once there were a few weeks when I had you before me, in plain sight, within reach, not hurrying away, but held still, as on a lighted stage, a private stage for me to watch . . . and I watched you for hours through many evenings . . . in the lighted window of an office that was called the John Galt Line. . . . And one night-"  Her breath was a faint gasp⁴⁹⁹. "Was it you, that night?"  "Did you see me?"  "I saw your shadow . . . on the pavement . . . pacing back and forth . . . it looked like a struggle . . . it looked like-" She stopped; she did not want to say "torture."  "It was," he said quietly. "That night, I wanted to walk in, to face you, to speak, to . . . That was the night I came closest to breaking my oath, when I saw you slumped⁵⁰³ across your desk, when I saw you broken by the burden you were carrying-"  "John, that night, it was you that I was thinking of . . . only I didn't know it . . ."  "But, you see, I knew it."  ". . . it was you, all my life, through everything I did and everything I wanted . . . "  "I know it."  "John, the hardest was not when I left you in the valley . . . it was-"  "Your radio speech, the day you returned?"  "Yes! Were you listening?"  "Of course. I'm glad you did it. It was a magnificent thing to do. And I-I knew it, anyway."  "You knew . . . about Hank Rearden?"  "Before I saw you in the valley."  "Was it . . . when you learned about him, had you expected it?"  "No."  "Was it . . . ?" she stopped.  "Hard? Yes. But only for the first few days. That next night . . . Do you want me to tell you what I did the night after I learned it?"  "Yes."  "I had never seen Hank Rearden, only pictures of him in the newspapers. I knew that he was in New York, that night, at some conference of big industrialists. I wanted to have just one look at him. I went to wait at the entrance of the hotel where that conference was held. There were bright lights under the marquee of the entrance, but it was dark beyond, on the pavement, so I could see without being seen, there were a few loafers and vagrants⁵⁰⁴ hanging around, there was a drizzle of rain and we clung to the walls of the building. One could tell the members of the conference when they began filing out, by their clothes and their manner-ostentatiously prosperous clothes and a manner of overbearing timidity, as if they were guiltily trying to pretend that they were what they appeared to be for that moment. There were chauffeurs⁵⁰⁵ driving up their cars, there were a few reporters delaying them for questions and hangers-on trying to catch a word from them. They were worn men, those industrialists, aging, flabby, frantic with the effort to disguise uncertainty. And then I saw him. He wore an expensive trenchcoat and a hat slanting⁵⁰⁶ across his eyes. He walked swiftly, with the kind of assurance that has to be earned, as he'd earned it. Some of his fellow industrialists pounced⁵⁰⁷ on him with questions, and those tycoons were acting like hangers-on around him. I caught a glimpse of him as he stood with his hand on the door of his car, his head lifted, I saw the brief flare⁴⁴⁹ of a smile under the slanting brim, a confident smile, impatient and a little amused. And then, for one instant, I did what I had never done before, what most men wreck their lives on doing-I saw that moment out of context, I saw the world as he made it look, as if it matched him, as if he were its symbol-I saw a world of achievement, of unenslaved energy, of unobstructed drive through purposeful years to the enjoyment of one's reward-I saw, as I stood in the rain in a crowd of vagrants, what my years would have brought me, if that world had existed, and I felt a desperate longing-he was the image of everything I should have been . . . and he had everything that should have been mine. . . . But it was only a moment. Then I saw the scene in full context again and in all of its actual meaning-I saw what price he was paying for his brilliant ability, what torture he was enduring in silent bewilderment, struggling to understand what I had understood-I saw that the world he suggested, did not exist and was yet to be made, I saw him again for what he was, the symbol of my battle, the unrewarded hero whom I was to avenge¹⁸⁰ and to release-and then . . . then I accepted what I had learned about you and him. I saw that it changed nothing, that I should have expected it-that it was right."  He heard the faint sound of her moan and he chuckled softly.  "Dagny, it's not that I don't suffer, it's that I know the unimportance of suffering, I know that pain is to be fought and thrown aside, not to be accepted as part of one's soul and as a permanent scar across one's view of existence. Don't feel sorry for me. It was gone right then."  She turned her head to look at him in silence, and he smiled, lifting himself on an elbow to look down at her face as she lay helplessly still.  She whispered, "You've been a track laborer⁴⁶⁹, here-here!-for twelve years . . ."  "Yes."  "Ever since-"  "Ever since I quit the Twentieth Century."  "The night when you saw me for the first time . . . you were working here, then?"  "Yes. And the morning when you offered to work for me as my cook, I was only your track laborer on leave of absence. Do you see why I laughed as I did?"  She was looking up at his face; hers was a smile of pain, his-of pure gaiety, "John . . ."  "Say it. But say it all."  "You were here . . . all those years . . ."  "Yes."  ". . . all those years . . . while the railroad was perishing . . .while I was searching for men of intelligence . . . while I was struggling to hold onto any scrap of it I could find . . ."  ". . . while you were combing the country for the inventor of my motor, while you were feeding James Taggart and Wesley Mouch, while you were naming your best achievement after the enemy whom you wanted to destroy."  She closed her eyes.  "I was here all those years," he said, "within your reach, inside your own realm, watching your struggle, your loneliness, your longing, watching you in a battle you thought you were fighting for me, a battle in which you were supporting my enemies and taking an endless defeat -I was here, hidden by nothing but an error of your sight, as Atlantis is hidden from men by nothing but an optical illusion-I was here, waiting for the day when you would see, when you would know that by the code of the world you were supporting, it's to the darkest bottom of the underground that all the things you valued would have to be consigned⁵⁰⁸ and that it's there that you would have to look. I was here. I was waiting for you. I love you, Dagny. I love you more than my life, I who have taught men how life is to be loved. I've taught them also never to expect the unpaid⁵⁰⁹ for-and what I did tonight, I did it with full knowledge that I would pay for it and that my life might have to be the price."  "No!"  He smiled, nodding. "Oh yes. You know that you've broken me for once, that I broke the decision I had set for myself-but I did it consciously, knowing what it meant, I did it, not in blind surrender to the moment, but with full sight of the consequences and full willingness to bear them. I could not let this kind of moment pass us by, it was ours, my love, we had earned it. But you're not ready to quit and join me-you don't have to tell me, I know-and since I chose to take what I wanted before it was fully mine, I'll have to pay for it, I have no way of knowing how or when, I know only that if I give in to an enemy, I'll take the consequences." He smiled in answer to the look on her face.  "No, Dagny, you're not my enemy in mind-and that is what brought me to this-but you are in fact, in the course you're pursuing, though you don't see it yet, but I do. My actual enemies are of no danger to me. You are. You're the only one who can lead them to find me. They would never have the capacity to know what I am, but with your help -they will."  "No!"  "No, not by your intention. And you're free to change your course, but so long as you follow it, you're not free to escape its logic. Don't frown, the choice was mine and it's a danger I chose to accept. I am a trader, Dagny, in all things. I wanted you, I had no power to change your decision, I had only the power to consider the price and decide whether I could afford it. I could. My life is mine to spend or to invest -and you, you're"-as if his gesture were continuing his sentence, he raised her across his arm and kissed her mouth, while her body hung limply in surrender, her hair streaming down, her head falling back, held only by the pressure of his lips-"you're the one reward I had to have and chose to buy. I wanted you, and if my life is the price, I'll give it. My life-but not my mind."  There was a sudden glint of hardness in his eyes, as he sat up and smiled and asked, "Would you want me to join you and go to work? Would you like me to repair that interlocking signal system of yours within an hour?"  "No!" The cry was immediate-in answer to the flash of a sudden image, the image of the men in the private dining room of the Wayne Falkland.  He laughed. "Why not?"  "I don't want to see you working as their serf!"  "And yourself?"  "I think that they're crumbling and that I'll win. I can stand it just a little longer."  "True, it's just a little longer-not till you win, but till you learn."  "I can't let it go!" It was a cry of despair.  "Not yet," he said quietly.  He got up, and she rose obediently, unable to speak.  "I will remain here, on my job," he said. "But don't try to see me. You'll have to endure what I've endured and wanted to spare you-you'll have to go on, knowing where I am, wanting me as I'll want you, but never permitting yourself to approach me. Don't seek me here. Don't come to my home. Don't ever let them see us together. And when you reach the end, when you're ready to quit, don't tell them, just chalk a dollar sign on the pedestal of Nat Taggart's statue-where it belongs -then go home and wait. I'll come for you in twenty-four hours."  She inclined her head in silent promise.  But when he turned to go, a sudden shudder ran through her body, like a first jolt⁵¹⁰ of awakening⁵¹¹ or a last convulsion of life, and it ended in an involuntary cry: "Where are you going?"  "To be a lamppost and stand holding a lantern till dawn-which is the only work your world relegates⁵¹² me to and the only work it's going to get."  She seized his arm, to hold him, to follow, to follow him blindly, abandoning everything but the sight of his face. "John!"  He gripped her wrist, twisted her hand and threw it off. "No," he said.  Then he took her hand and raised it to his lips and the pressure of his mouth was more passionate⁹⁵ a statement than any he had chosen to confess. Then he walked away, down the vanishing line of rail, and it seemed to her that both the rail and the figure were abandoning her at the same time.  When she staggered out into the concourse of the Terminal, the first blast of rolling wheels went shuddering⁵¹³ through the walls of the building, like the sudden beat of a heart that had stopped. The temple of Nathaniel Taggart was silent and empty, its changeless light beating down on a deserted⁵¹⁴ stretch of marble. Some shabby figures shuffled⁵¹⁵ across it, as if lost in its shining expanse. On the steps of the pedestal, under the statue of the austere²⁹⁴, exultant figure, a ragged⁵¹⁶ bum²⁰⁶ sat slumped in passive resignation, like a wing-plucked bird with no place to go, resting on any chance cornice.  She fell down on the steps of the pedestal, like another derelict, her dust-smeared cape wrapped tightly about her, she sat still, her head on her arm, past crying or reeling or moving. It seemed to her only that she kept seeing a figure with a raised arm holding a light, and it looked at times like the Statue of Liberty and then it looked like a man with sun-streaked hair, holding a lantern against a midnight sky, a red lantern that stopped the movement of the world.  "Don't take it to heart, lady, whatever it is," said the bum, in a tone of exhausted compassion⁵¹⁷. "Nothing's to be done about it, anyway. . . .What's the use, lady? Who is John Galt?"

1 copper   

n.铜；铜币；铜器；adj.铜(制)的；(紫)铜色的

参考例句：

• The students are asked to prove the purity of copper.要求学生们检验铜的纯度。
• Copper is a good medium for the conduction of heat and electricity.铜是热和电的良导体。

2 con   

n.反对的观点，反对者，反对票，肺病；vt.精读，学习，默记；adv.反对地，从反面；adj.欺诈的

参考例句：

• We must be fair and consider the reason pro and con.我们必须公平考虑赞成和反对的理由。
• The motion is adopted non con.因无人投反对票，协议被通过。

3 seeping   

v.（液体）渗( seep的现在分词 )；渗透；渗出；漏出

参考例句：

• Water had been slowly seeping away from the pond. 池塘里的水一直在慢慢渗漏。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Chueh-hui could feel the cold seeping into his bones. 觉慧开始觉得寒气透过衣服浸到身上来了。 来自汉英文学 - 家（1-26） - 家（1-26）

4 descending   

n. 下行 adj. 下降的

参考例句：

• The results are expressed in descending numerical order . 结果按数字降序列出。
• The climbers stopped to orient themselves before descending the mountain. 登山者先停下来确定所在的位置，然后再下山。

5 lone   

adj.孤寂的，单独的；唯一的

参考例句：

• A lone sea gull flew across the sky.一只孤独的海鸥在空中飞过。
• She could see a lone figure on the deserted beach.她在空旷的海滩上能看到一个孤独的身影。

6 bristles   

短而硬的毛发，刷子毛( bristle的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• the bristles on his chin 他下巴上的胡楂子
• This job bristles with difficulties. 这项工作困难重重。

7 desolate   

adj.荒凉的，荒芜的；孤独的，凄凉的；v.使荒芜，使孤寂

参考例句：

• The city was burned into a desolate waste.那座城市被烧成一片废墟。
• We all felt absolutely desolate when she left.她走后，我们都觉得万分孤寂。

8 sagging   

下垂[沉，陷]，松垂，垂度

参考例句：

• The morale of the enemy troops is continuously sagging. 敌军的士气不断低落。
• We are sagging south. 我们的船正离开航线向南漂流。

9 bead   

n.念珠；(pl.)珠子项链；水珠

参考例句：

• She accidentally swallowed a glass bead.她不小心吞下了一颗玻璃珠。
• She has a beautiful glass bead and a bracelet in the box.盒子里有一颗美丽的玻璃珠和手镯。

10 gathering   

n.集会，聚会，聚集

参考例句：

• He called on Mr. White to speak at the gathering.他请怀特先生在集会上讲话。
• He is on the wing gathering material for his novels.他正忙于为他的小说收集资料。

11 ken   

n.视野，知识领域

参考例句：

• Such things are beyond my ken.我可不懂这些事。
• Abstract words are beyond the ken of children.抽象的言辞超出小孩所理解的范围.

12 fully   

adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地

参考例句：

• The doctor asked me to breathe in,then to breathe out fully.医生让我先吸气，然后全部呼出。
• They soon became fully integrated into the local community.他们很快就完全融入了当地人的圈子。

13 dealers   

n.商人( dealer的名词复数 )；贩毒者；毒品贩子；发牌者

参考例句：

• There was fast bidding between private collectors and dealers. 私人收藏家和交易商急速竞相喊价。
• The police were corrupt and were operating in collusion with the drug dealers. 警察腐败，与那伙毒品贩子内外勾结。

14 pointed   

adj.尖的，直截了当的

参考例句：

• He gave me a very sharp pointed pencil.他给我一支削得非常尖的铅笔。
• She wished to show Mrs.John Dashwood by this pointed invitation to her brother.她想通过对达茨伍德夫人提出直截了当的邀请向她的哥哥表示出来。

15 initiating   

v.开始( initiate的现在分词 )；传授；发起；接纳新成员

参考例句：

• He is good at initiating projects but rarely follows through with anything. 他善于创建项目，但难得坚持完成。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Only the perchlorate shows marked sensitiveness and possibly initiating properties. 只有高氯酸盐表现有显著的感度和可能具有起爆性能。 来自辞典例句

16 incur   

vt.招致，蒙受，遭遇

参考例句：

• Any costs that you incur will be reimbursed in full.你的所有花费都将全额付还。
• An enterprise has to incur certain costs and expenses in order to stay in business.一个企业为了维持营业,就不得不承担一定的费用和开支。

17 retaliation   

n.报复，反击

参考例句：

• retaliation against UN workers 对联合国工作人员的报复
• He never said a single word in retaliation. 他从未说过一句反击的话。 来自《简明英汉词典》

18 guilt   

n.犯罪；内疚；过失，罪责

参考例句：

• She tried to cover up her guilt by lying.她企图用谎言掩饰自己的罪行。
• Don't lay a guilt trip on your child about schoolwork.别因为功课责备孩子而使他觉得很内疚。

19 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

20 malicious   

adj.有恶意的，心怀恶意的

参考例句：

• You ought to kick back at such malicious slander. 你应当反击这种恶毒的污蔑。
• Their talk was slightly malicious.他们的谈话有点儿心怀不轨。

21 chuckles   

轻声地笑( chuckle的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Father always chuckles when he reads the funny papers. 父亲在读幽默报纸时总是低声发笑。
• [Chuckles] You thought he was being poisoned by hemlock? 你觉得他中的会是芹叶钩吻毒吗？

22 tormentor   

n. 使苦痛之人, 使苦恼之物, 侧幕 =tormenter

参考例句：

• He was the tormentor, he was the protector, he was the inquisitor, he was the friend. 他既是拷打者，又是保护者；既是审问者，又是朋友。 来自英汉文学
• The tormentor enlarged the engagement garment. 折磨者加大了订婚服装。

23 crumbs   

int. (表示惊讶)哎呀 n. 碎屑 名词crumb的复数形式

参考例句：

• She stood up and brushed the crumbs from her sweater. 她站起身掸掉了毛衣上的面包屑。
• Oh crumbs! Is that the time? 啊，天哪！都这会儿啦？

24 ward   

n.守卫，监护，病房，行政区，由监护人或法院保护的人（尤指儿童）；vt.守护，躲开

参考例句：

• The hospital has a medical ward and a surgical ward.这家医院有内科病房和外科病房。
• During the evening picnic,I'll carry a torch to ward off the bugs.傍晚野餐时，我要点根火把，抵挡蚊虫。

25 arteries   

n.动脉( artery的名词复数 )；干线，要道

参考例句：

• Even grafting new blood vessels in place of the diseased coronary arteries has been tried. 甚至移植新血管代替不健康的冠状动脉的方法都已经试过。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• This is the place where the three main arteries of West London traffic met. 这就是伦敦西部三条主要交通干线的交汇处。 来自《简明英汉词典》

26 winding   

n.绕，缠，绕组，线圈

参考例句：

• A winding lane led down towards the river.一条弯弯曲曲的小路通向河边。
• The winding trail caused us to lose our orientation.迂回曲折的小道使我们迷失了方向。

27 wilderness   

n.杳无人烟的一片陆地、水等，荒漠

参考例句：

• She drove the herd of cattle through the wilderness.她赶着牛群穿过荒野。
• Education in the wilderness is not a matter of monetary means.荒凉地区的教育不是钱财问题。

28 sustenance   

n.食物，粮食；生活资料；生计

参考例句：

• We derive our sustenance from the land.我们从土地获取食物。
• The urban homeless are often in desperate need of sustenance.城市里无家可归的人极其需要食物来维持生命。

29 creek   

n.小溪，小河，小湾

参考例句：

• He sprang through the creek.他跳过小河。
• People sunbathe in the nude on the rocks above the creek.人们在露出小溪的岩石上裸体晒日光浴。

30 allocated   

adj. 分配的 动词allocate的过去式和过去分词

参考例句：

• The Ford Foundation allocated millions of dollars for cancer research. 福特基金会拨款数百万美元用于癌症研究。
• More funds will now be allocated to charitable organizations. 现在会拨更多的资金给慈善组织。

31 collapse   

vi.累倒；昏倒；倒塌；塌陷

参考例句：

• The country's economy is on the verge of collapse.国家的经济已到了崩溃的边缘。
• The engineer made a complete diagnosis of the bridge's collapse.工程师对桥的倒塌做了一次彻底的调查分析。

32 livelihood   

n.生计，谋生之道

参考例句：

• Appropriate arrangements will be made for their work and livelihood.他们的工作和生活会得到妥善安排。
• My father gained a bare livelihood of family by his own hands.父亲靠自己的双手勉强维持家计。

33 unity   

n.团结，联合，统一；和睦，协调

参考例句：

• When we speak of unity,we do not mean unprincipled peace.所谓团结，并非一团和气。
• We must strengthen our unity in the face of powerful enemies.大敌当前，我们必须加强团结。

34 frantic   

adj.狂乱的，错乱的，激昂的

参考例句：

• I've had a frantic rush to get my work done.我急急忙忙地赶完工作。
• He made frantic dash for the departing train.他发疯似地冲向正开出的火车。

35 precarious   

adj.不安定的，靠不住的；根据不足的

参考例句：

• Our financial situation had become precarious.我们的财务状况已变得不稳定了。
• He earned a precarious living as an artist.作为一个艺术家，他过得是朝不保夕的生活。

36 arrears   

n.到期未付之债，拖欠的款项；待做的工作

参考例句：

• The payments on that car loan are in arrears by three months.购车贷款的偿付被拖欠了三个月。
• They are urgent for payment of arrears of wages.他们催讨拖欠的工钱。

37 chuckled   

轻声地笑( chuckle的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• She chuckled at the memory. 想起这件事她就暗自发笑。
• She chuckled softly to herself as she remembered his astonished look. 想起他那惊讶的表情，她就轻轻地暗自发笑。

38 sabotaging   

阴谋破坏（某事物）( sabotage的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• Mr Smith fiercely denied any question of sabotaging the talks. 史密斯先生坚决拒绝任何企图阻挠谈话的提问。
• Failed in sabotaging APEC summit in Sydney of Australia. 澳大利亚悉尼APEC会议遭遇惨败。

39 bastards   

私生子( bastard的名词复数 )； 坏蛋； 讨厌的事物； 麻烦事 （认为别人走运或不幸时说）家伙

参考例句：

• Those bastards don't care a damn about the welfare of the factory! 这批狗养的，不顾大局！ 来自子夜部分
• Let the first bastards to find out be the goddam Germans. 就让那些混账的德国佬去做最先发现的倒霉鬼吧。 来自演讲部分

40 bastard   

n.坏蛋，混蛋；私生子

参考例句：

• He was never concerned about being born a bastard.他从不介意自己是私生子。
• There was supposed to be no way to get at the bastard.据说没有办法买通那个混蛋。

41 payroll   

n.工资表，在职人员名单，工薪总额

参考例句：

• His yearly payroll is $1.2 million.他的年薪是120万美元。
• I can't wait to get my payroll check.我真等不及拿到我的工资单了。

42 payrolls   

n.（公司员工的）工资名单( payroll的名词复数 )；（公司的）工资总支出，工薪总额

参考例句：

• Indices of employment, payrolls, and production steadied in February 1931931年2月，就业、工资额和生产指数稳定。 来自辞典例句
• Wall Street responded to the payrolls figures with gusto. 华尔街对就业数据作出了积极的反应。 来自互联网

43 motive   

n.动机，目的；adv.发动的，运动的

参考例句：

• The police could not find a motive for the murder.警察不能找到谋杀的动机。
• He had some motive in telling this fable.他讲这寓言故事是有用意的。

44 simultaneously   

adv.同时发生地，同时进行地

参考例句：

• The radar beam can track a number of targets almost simultaneously.雷达波几乎可以同时追着多个目标。
• The Windows allow a computer user to execute multiple programs simultaneously.Windows允许计算机用户同时运行多个程序。

45 mere   

adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过

参考例句：

• That is a mere repetition of what you said before.那不过是重复了你以前讲的话。
• It's a mere waste of time waiting any longer.再等下去纯粹是浪费时间。

46 inexplicable   

adj.无法解释的，难理解的

参考例句：

• It is now inexplicable how that development was misinterpreted.当时对这一事态发展的错误理解究竟是怎么产生的，现在已经无法说清楚了。
• There are many things which are inexplicable by science.有很多事科学还无法解释。

47 placate   

v.抚慰，平息(愤怒)

参考例句：

• He never attempts to placate his enemy.他从不企图与敌人和解。
• Even a written apology failed to placate the indignant hostess.甚至一纸书面道歉都没能安抚这个怒气冲冲的女主人。

48 plunge   

v.跳入，(使)投入，(使)陷入；猛冲

参考例句：

• Test pool's water temperature before you plunge in.在你跳入之前你应该测试水温。
• That would plunge them in the broil of the two countries.那将会使他们陷入这两国的争斗之中。

49 insistently   

ad.坚持地

参考例句：

• Still Rhett did not look at her. His eyes were bent insistently on Melanie's white face. 瑞德还是看也不看她，他的眼睛死死地盯着媚兰苍白的脸。
• These are the questions which we should think and explore insistently. 怎样实现这一主体性等问题仍要求我们不断思考、探索。

50 insistent   

adj.迫切的，坚持的

参考例句：

• There was an insistent knock on my door.我听到一阵急促的敲门声。
• He is most insistent on this point.他在这点上很坚持。

51 scurried   

v.急匆匆地走( scurry的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• She said goodbye and scurried back to work. 她说声再见，然后扭头跑回去干活了。
• It began to rain and we scurried for shelter. 下起雨来，我们急忙找地方躲避。 来自《简明英汉词典》

52 constructive   

adj.建设的，建设性的

参考例句：

• We welcome constructive criticism.我们乐意接受有建设性的批评。
• He is beginning to deal with his anger in a constructive way.他开始用建设性的方法处理自己的怒气。

53 machinery   

n.(总称)机械，机器；机构

参考例句：

• Has the machinery been put up ready for the broadcast?广播器材安装完毕了吗？
• Machinery ought to be well maintained all the time.机器应该随时注意维护。

54 warehouse   

n.仓库；vt.存入仓库

参考例句：

• We freighted the goods to the warehouse by truck.我们用卡车把货物运到仓库。
• The manager wants to clear off the old stocks in the warehouse.经理想把仓库里积压的存货处理掉。

55 warehouses   

仓库，货栈( warehouse的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The whisky was taken to bonded warehouses at Port Dundee. 威士忌酒已送到邓迪港的保稅仓库。
• Row upon row of newly built warehouses line the waterfront. 江岸新建的仓库鳞次栉比。

56 whim   

n.一时的兴致，突然的念头；奇想，幻想

参考例句：

• I bought the encyclopedia on a whim.我凭一时的兴致买了这本百科全书。
• He had a sudden whim to go sailing today.今天他突然想要去航海。

57 savagely   

adv. 野蛮地，残酷地

参考例句：

• The roses had been pruned back savagely. 玫瑰被狠狠地修剪了一番。
• He snarled savagely at her. 他向她狂吼起来。

58 shameful   

adj.可耻的，不道德的

参考例句：

• It is very shameful of him to show off.他向人炫耀自己，真不害臊。
• We must expose this shameful activity to the newspapers.我们一定要向报社揭露这一无耻行径。

59 creeds   

（尤指宗教）信条，教条( creed的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• people of all races, colours and creeds 各种种族、肤色和宗教信仰的人
• Catholics are agnostic to the Protestant creeds. 天主教徒对于新教教义来说，是不可知论者。

60 creed   

n.信条；信念，纲领

参考例句：

• They offended against every article of his creed.他们触犯了他的每一条戒律。
• Our creed has always been that business is business.我们的信条一直是公私分明。

61 smites   

v.猛打，重击，打击( smite的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• The sound smites upon the ear. 声音震耳。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
• My conscience smites me. 我良心上过意不去。 来自互联网

62 dreading   

v.害怕，恐惧，担心( dread的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• She was dreading having to broach the subject of money to her father. 她正在为不得不向父亲提出钱的事犯愁。
• This was the moment he had been dreading. 这是他一直最担心的时刻。

63 random   

adj.随机的；任意的；n.偶然的(或随便的)行动

参考例句：

• The list is arranged in a random order.名单排列不分先后。
• On random inspection the meat was found to be bad.经抽查，发现肉变质了。

64 superseding   

取代，接替( supersede的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• This mechanism has such functions as integrating relations, resolving contradictions, superseding the old, improving efficiency. 公务员流动机制具有整合关系、化解矛盾、新陈代谢、提高效能等功能。
• The issuance, revision, superseding, and withdrawal of all documents should be controlled by maintaining revision histories. 11所有文件的发放、修订、替换和收回应当通过保存修订历史来控制。

65 immediate   

adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的

参考例句：

• His immediate neighbours felt it their duty to call.他的近邻认为他们有责任去拜访。
• We declared ourselves for the immediate convocation of the meeting.我们主张立即召开这个会议。

66 salvation   

n.（尤指基督）救世，超度，拯救，解困

参考例句：

• Salvation lay in political reform.解救办法在于政治改革。
• Christians hope and pray for salvation.基督教徒希望并祈祷灵魂得救。

67 industrialist   

n.工业家，实业家

参考例句：

• The industrialist's son was kidnapped.这名实业家的儿子被绑架了。
• Mr.Smith was a wealthy industrialist,but he was not satisfied with life.史密斯先生是位富有的企业家，可他对生活感到不满意。

68 industrialists   

n.工业家，实业家( industrialist的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• This deal will offer major benefits to industrialists and investors. 这笔交易将会让实业家和投资者受益匪浅。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The government has set up a committee of industrialists and academics to advise it. 政府已成立了一个实业家和学者的委员会来为其提供建议。 来自《简明英汉词典》

69 bankruptcy   

n.破产；无偿付能力

参考例句：

• You will have to pull in if you want to escape bankruptcy.如果你想避免破产，就必须节省开支。
• His firm is just on thin ice of bankruptcy.他的商号正面临破产的危险。

70 hovered   

鸟( hover的过去式和过去分词 )； 靠近（某事物）； （人）徘徊； 犹豫

参考例句：

• A hawk hovered over the hill. 一只鹰在小山的上空翱翔。
• A hawk hovered in the blue sky. 一只老鹰在蓝色的天空中翱翔。

71 pounce   

n.猛扑；v.猛扑，突然袭击，欣然同意

参考例句：

• Why do you pounce on every single thing I say?干吗我说的每句话你都要找麻烦？
• We saw the tiger about to pounce on the goat.我们看见老虎要向那只山羊扑过去。

72 logic   

n.逻辑(学)；逻辑性

参考例句：

• What sort of logic is that?这是什么逻辑？
• I don't follow the logic of your argument.我不明白你的论点逻辑性何在。

73 darting   

v.投掷，投射( dart的现在分词 )；向前冲，飞奔

参考例句：

• Swallows were darting through the clouds. 燕子穿云急飞。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
• Swallows were darting through the air. 燕子在空中掠过。 来自辞典例句

74 corpse   

n.尸体，死尸

参考例句：

• What she saw was just an unfeeling corpse.她见到的只是一具全无感觉的尸体。
• The corpse was preserved from decay by embalming.尸体用香料涂抹以防腐烂。

75 trolley   

n.手推车，台车；无轨电车；有轨电车

参考例句：

• The waiter had brought the sweet trolley.侍者已经推来了甜食推车。
• In a library,books are moved on a trolley.在图书馆，书籍是放在台车上搬动的。

76 gorged   

v.（用食物把自己）塞饱，填饱( gorge的过去式和过去分词 )；作呕

参考例句：

• He gorged himself at the party. 在宴会上他狼吞虎咽地把自己塞饱。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The men, gorged with food, had unbuttoned their vests. 那些男人，吃得直打饱嗝，解开了背心的钮扣。 来自辞典例句

77 prey   

n.被掠食者，牺牲者，掠食；v.捕食，掠夺，折磨

参考例句：

• Stronger animals prey on weaker ones.弱肉强食。
• The lion was hunting for its prey.狮子在寻找猎物。

78 devour   

v.吞没；贪婪地注视或谛听，贪读；使着迷

参考例句：

• Larger fish devour the smaller ones.大鱼吃小鱼。
• Beauty is but a flower which wrinkle will devour.美只不过是一朵，终会被皱纹所吞噬。

79 devoured   

吞没( devour的过去式和过去分词 )； 耗尽； 津津有味地看； 狼吞虎咽地吃光

参考例句：

• She devoured everything she could lay her hands on: books, magazines and newspapers. 无论是书、杂志，还是报纸，只要能弄得到，她都看得津津有味。
• The lions devoured a zebra in a short time. 狮子一会儿就吃掉了一匹斑马。

80 devastation   

n.毁坏；荒废；极度震惊或悲伤

参考例句：

• The bomb caused widespread devastation. 炸弹造成大面积破坏。
• There was devastation on every side. 到处都是破坏的创伤。 来自《简明英汉词典》

81 accomplished   

adj.有才艺的；有造诣的；达到了的

参考例句：

• Thanks to your help,we accomplished the task ahead of schedule.亏得你们帮忙,我们才提前完成了任务。
• Removal of excess heat is accomplished by means of a radiator.通过散热器完成多余热量的排出。

82 humanitarian   

n.人道主义者，博爱者，基督凡人论者

参考例句：

• She has many humanitarian interests and contributes a lot to them.她拥有很多慈善事业，并作了很大的贡献。
• The British government has now suspended humanitarian aid to the area.英国政府现已暂停对这一地区的人道主义援助。

83 humanitarians   

n.慈善家( humanitarian的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Finally, humanitarians saw it as a means of helping to feed the hungry of the world. 人道主义者把这一计划看成是为世界上那些忍饥挨饿的人提供粮食的一项措施。 来自英汉非文学 - 政府文件
• All humanitarians fought against slavery. 所有人道主义者都为反对奴隶制而斗争过。 来自互联网

84 gangster   

n.匪徒，歹徒，暴徒

参考例句：

• The gangster's friends bought off the police witness.那匪徒的朋友买通了警察方面的证人。
• He is obviously a gangster,but he pretends to be a saint.分明是强盗，却要装圣贤。

85 gangsters   

匪徒，歹徒( gangster的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The gangsters offered him a sum equivalent to a whole year's earnings. 歹徒提出要给他一笔相当于他一年收入的钱。
• One of the gangsters was caught by the police. 歹徒之一被警察逮捕。

86 plunder   

vt.劫掠财物，掠夺；n.劫掠物，赃物；劫掠

参考例句：

• The thieves hid their plunder in the cave.贼把赃物藏在山洞里。
• Trade should not serve as a means of economic plunder.贸易不应当成为经济掠夺的手段。

87 immolated   

v.宰杀…作祭品( immolate的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• The Aztecs immolated human victims. 阿兹特克人牺牲真人来祭祀。 来自互联网
• Several members immolated themselves in Tiananmen Square, an incident that Falun Gong claims was fabricated. 几个学员在天安门广场自焚，法轮功认为这个事件是编造的。 来自互联网

88 acting   

n.演戏，行为，假装；adj.代理的，临时的，演出用的

参考例句：

• Ignore her,she's just acting.别理她，她只是假装的。
• During the seventies,her acting career was in eclipse.在七十年代，她的表演生涯黯然失色。

89 immolation   

n.牺牲品

参考例句：

• We still do;living in a world in which underclared aggression, war,hypocrisy,chicanery,anarchy and impending immolation are part of our daily lives, we all want a code to live by. 我们仍然有这种感觉；生活在一个不宣而战的侵略、战争、虚伪、诈骗、混乱以及迫在眉睫的杀戮充斥着我们日常生活的世界里，我们都想有一种能赖以生存的准则。
• The Emperor had these clay figures made instead of burying slave-workers alive as immolation. 秦始皇用泥塑造了这批俑，没有活埋奴隶作为殉葬。

90 confiscated   

没收，充公( confiscate的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• Their land was confiscated after the war. 他们的土地在战后被没收。
• The customs officer confiscated the smuggled goods. 海关官员没收了走私品。

91 clot   

n.凝块；v.使凝成块

参考例句：

• Platelets are one of the components required to make blood clot.血小板是血液凝固的必须成分之一。
• The patient's blood refused to clot.病人的血液无法凝结。

92 devouring   

吞没( devour的现在分词 )； 耗尽； 津津有味地看； 狼吞虎咽地吃光

参考例句：

• The hungry boy was devouring his dinner. 那饥饿的孩子狼吞虎咽地吃饭。
• He is devouring novel after novel. 他一味贪看小说。

93 irrational   

adj.无理性的，失去理性的

参考例句：

• After taking the drug she became completely irrational.她在吸毒后变得完全失去了理性。
• There are also signs of irrational exuberance among some investors.在某些投资者中是存在非理性繁荣的征象的。

94 ration   

n.定量(pl.)给养，口粮；vt.定量供应

参考例句：

• The country cut the bread ration last year.那个国家去年削减面包配给量。
• We have to ration the water.我们必须限量用水。

95 passionate   

adj.热情的，热烈的，激昂的，易动情的，易怒的，性情暴躁的

参考例句：

• He is said to be the most passionate man.据说他是最有激情的人。
• He is very passionate about the project.他对那个项目非常热心。

96 permissible   

adj.可允许的，许可的

参考例句：

• Is smoking permissible in the theatre?在剧院里允许吸烟吗？
• Delay is not permissible,even for a single day.不得延误，即使一日亦不可。

97 awe   

n.敬畏，惊惧；vt.使敬畏，使惊惧

参考例句：

• The sight filled us with awe.这景色使我们大为惊叹。
• The approaching tornado struck awe in our hearts.正在逼近的龙卷风使我们惊恐万分。

98 awesome   

adj.令人惊叹的，难得吓人的，很好的

参考例句：

• The church in Ireland has always exercised an awesome power.爱尔兰的教堂一直掌握着令人敬畏的权力。
• That new white convertible is totally awesome.那辆新的白色折篷汽车简直棒极了.

99 chaos   

n.混乱，无秩序

参考例句：

• After the failure of electricity supply the city was in chaos.停电后，城市一片混乱。
• The typhoon left chaos behind it.台风后一片混乱。

100 tycoons   

大君( tycoon的名词复数 )； 将军； 企业巨头； 大亨

参考例句：

• The great tycoons were fierce competitors, single-minded in their pursuit of financial success and power. 企业巨头都是激烈的竞争者，他们一心追求钱财和权势。
• Tycoons and their conglomerates are even raising money again on international markets. 企业大亨们以及他们的企业甚至正再次从国际市场上筹集资金。

101 amassed   

v.积累，积聚( amass的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• He amassed a fortune from silver mining. 他靠开采银矿积累了一笔财富。
• They have amassed a fortune in just a few years. 他们在几年的时间里就聚集了一笔财富。 来自《简明英汉词典》

102 perceptive   

adj.知觉的，有洞察力的，感知的

参考例句：

• This is a very perceptive assessment of the situation.这是一个对该情况的极富洞察力的评价。
• He is very perceptive and nothing can be hidden from him.他耳聪目明，什么事都很难瞒住他。

103 irrelevant   

adj.不恰当的，无关系的，不相干的

参考例句：

• That is completely irrelevant to the subject under discussion.这跟讨论的主题完全不相关。
• A question about arithmetic is irrelevant in a music lesson.在音乐课上，一个数学的问题是风马牛不相及的。

104 reassurance   

n.使放心，使消除疑虑

参考例句：

• He drew reassurance from the enthusiastic applause.热烈的掌声使他获得了信心。
• Reassurance is especially critical when it comes to military activities.消除疑虑在军事活动方面尤为关键。

105 verge   

n.边，边缘；v.接近，濒临

参考例句：

• The country's economy is on the verge of collapse.国家的经济已到了崩溃的边缘。
• She was on the verge of bursting into tears.她快要哭出来了。

106 abdication   

n.辞职；退位

参考例句：

• The officers took over and forced his abdication in 1947.1947年军官们接管了政权并迫使他退了位。
• Abdication is precluded by the lack of a possible successor.因为没有可能的继承人，让位无法实现。

107 evading   

逃避( evade的现在分词 )； 避开； 回避； 想不出

参考例句：

• Segmentation of a project is one means of evading NEPA. 把某一工程进行分割，是回避《国家环境政策法》的一种手段。 来自英汉非文学 - 环境法 - 环境法
• Too many companies, she says, are evading the issue. 她说太多公司都在回避这个问题。

108 expediency   

n.适宜；方便；合算；利己

参考例句：

• The government is torn between principle and expediency. 政府在原则与权宜之间难于抉择。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• It was difficult to strike the right balance between justice and expediency. 在公正与私利之间很难两全。 来自辞典例句

109 rim   

n.(圆物的)边，轮缘；边界

参考例句：

• The water was even with the rim of the basin.盆里的水与盆边平齐了。
• She looked at him over the rim of her glass.她的目光越过玻璃杯的边沿看着他。

110 loyalty   

n.忠诚，忠心

参考例句：

• She told him the truth from a sense of loyalty.她告诉他真相是出于忠诚。
• His loyalty to his friends was never in doubt.他对朋友的一片忠心从来没受到怀疑。

111 hoarser   

（指声音）粗哑的，嘶哑的( hoarse的比较级 )

参考例句：

112 impractical   

adj.不现实的，不实用的，不切实际的

参考例句：

• He was hopelessly impractical when it came to planning new projects.一到规划新项目，他就完全没有了实际操作的能力。
• An entirely rigid system is impractical.一套完全死板的体制是不实际的。

113 prattle   

n.闲谈；v.（小孩般）天真无邪地说话；发出连续而无意义的声音

参考例句：

• Amy's happy prattle became intolerable.艾美兴高采烈地叽叽喳喳说个不停，汤姆感到无法忍受。
• Flowing water and green grass witness your lover's endless prattle.流水缠绕，小草依依，都是你诉不尽的情话。

114 rattle   

v.飞奔，碰响；激怒；n.碰撞声；拨浪鼓

参考例句：

• The baby only shook the rattle and laughed and crowed.孩子只是摇着拨浪鼓，笑着叫着。
• She could hear the rattle of the teacups.她听见茶具叮当响。

115 sloppy   

adj.邋遢的，不整洁的

参考例句：

• If you do such sloppy work again,I promise I'll fail you.要是下次作业你再马马虎虎，我话说在头里，可要给你打不及格了。
• Mother constantly picked at him for being sloppy.母亲不断地批评他懒散。

116 obedience   

n.服从，顺从

参考例句：

• Society has a right to expect obedience of the law.社会有权要求人人遵守法律。
• Soldiers act in obedience to the orders of their superior officers.士兵们遵照上级军官的命令行动。

117 savages   

未开化的人，野蛮人( savage的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• There're some savages living in the forest. 森林里居住着一些野人。
• That's an island inhabited by savages. 那是一个野蛮人居住的岛屿。

118 omnipotent   

adj.全能的，万能的

参考例句：

• When we are omnipotent we shall have no more need of science.我们达到万能以后就不需要科学了。
• Money is not omnipotent,but we can't survive without money.金钱不是万能的，但是没有金钱我们却无法生存。

119 slumping   

大幅度下降，暴跌( slump的现在分词 )； 沉重或突然地落下[倒下]

参考例句：

• Hong Kong's slumping economy also caused a rise in bankruptcy applications. 香港经济低迷，破产申请个案随之上升。
• And as with slumping, over-arching can also be a simple postural habit. 就像弯腰驼背，过度挺直也可能只是一种习惯性姿势。

120 monstrous   

adj.巨大的；恐怖的；可耻的，丢脸的

参考例句：

• The smoke began to whirl and grew into a monstrous column.浓烟开始盘旋上升，形成了一个巨大的烟柱。
• Your behaviour in class is monstrous!你在课堂上的行为真是丢人！

121 rigid   

adj.严格的，死板的；刚硬的，僵硬的

参考例句：

• She became as rigid as adamant.她变得如顽石般的固执。
• The examination was so rigid that nearly all aspirants were ruled out.考试很严，几乎所有的考生都被淘汰了。

122 monotonous   

adj.单调的，一成不变的，使人厌倦的

参考例句：

• She thought life in the small town was monotonous.她觉得小镇上的生活单调而乏味。
• His articles are fixed in form and monotonous in content.他的文章千篇一律，一个调调儿。

123 whine   

v.哀号，号哭；n.哀鸣

参考例句：

• You are getting paid to think,not to whine.支付给你工资是让你思考而不是哀怨的。
• The bullet hit a rock and rocketed with a sharp whine.子弹打在一块岩石上，一声尖厉的呼啸，跳飞开去。

124 fulfill   

vt.履行，实现，完成；满足，使满意

参考例句：

• If you make a promise you should fulfill it.如果你许诺了，你就要履行你的诺言。
• This company should be able to fulfill our requirements.这家公司应该能够满足我们的要求。

125 doom   

n.厄运，劫数；v.注定，命定

参考例句：

• The report on our economic situation is full of doom and gloom.这份关于我们经济状况的报告充满了令人绝望和沮丧的调子。
• The dictator met his doom after ten years of rule.独裁者统治了十年终于完蛋了。

126 frustration   

n.挫折，失败，失效，落空

参考例句：

• He had to fight back tears of frustration.他不得不强忍住失意的泪水。
• He beat his hands on the steering wheel in frustration.他沮丧地用手打了几下方向盘。

127 shred   

v.撕成碎片，变成碎片；n.碎布条，细片，些少

参考例句：

• There is not a shred of truth in what he says.他说的全是骗人的鬼话。
• The food processor can shred all kinds of vegetables.这架食品加工机可将各种蔬菜切丝切条。

128 misery   

n.痛苦，苦恼，苦难；悲惨的境遇，贫苦

参考例句：

• Business depression usually causes misery among the working class.商业不景气常使工薪阶层受苦。
• He has rescued me from the mire of misery.他把我从苦海里救了出来。

129 virtue   

n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力

参考例句：

• He was considered to be a paragon of virtue.他被认为是品德尽善尽美的典范。
• You need to decorate your mind with virtue.你应该用德行美化心灵。

130 frantically   

ad.发狂地, 发疯地

参考例句：

• He dashed frantically across the road. 他疯狂地跑过马路。
• She bid frantically for the old chair. 她发狂地喊出高价要买那把古老的椅子。

131 fissure   

n.裂缝；裂伤

参考例句：

• Though we all got out to examine the fissure,he remained in the car.我们纷纷下车察看那个大裂缝，他却呆在车上。
• Ground fissure is the main geological disaster in Xi'an city construction.地裂缝是西安市主要的工程地质灾害问题。

132 expound   

v.详述；解释；阐述

参考例句：

• Why not get a diviner to expound my dream?为什么不去叫一个占卜者来解释我的梦呢？
• The speaker has an hour to expound his views to the public.讲演者有1小时时间向公众阐明他的观点。

133 expounded   

论述，详细讲解( expound的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• He expounded his views on the subject to me at great length. 他详细地向我阐述了他在这个问题上的观点。
• He warmed up as he expounded his views. 他在阐明自己的意见时激动起来了。

134 effrontery   

n.厚颜无耻

参考例句：

• This is a despicable fraud . Just imagine that he has the effrontery to say it.这是一个可耻的骗局. 他竟然有脸说这样的话。
• One could only gasp at the sheer effrontery of the man.那人十足的厚颜无耻让人们吃惊得无话可说。

135 doctrine   

n.教义；主义；学说

参考例句：

• He was impelled to proclaim his doctrine.他不得不宣扬他的教义。
• The council met to consider changes to doctrine.宗教议会开会考虑更改教义。

136 recipients   

adj.接受的；受领的；容纳的；愿意接受的n.收件人；接受者；受领者；接受器

参考例句：

• The recipients of the prizes had their names printed in the paper. 获奖者的姓名登在报上。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The recipients of prizes had their names printed in the paper. 获奖者名单登在报上。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》

137 insolent   

adj.傲慢的，无理的

参考例句：

• His insolent manner really got my blood up.他那傲慢的态度把我的肺都气炸了。
• It was insolent of them to demand special treatment.他们要求给予特殊待遇，脸皮真厚。

138 insolently   

adv.自豪地，自傲地

参考例句：

• No does not respect, speak insolently,satire, etc for TT management team member. 不得发表对TT管理层人员不尊重、出言不逊、讽刺等等的帖子。 来自互联网
• He had replied insolently to his superiors. 他傲慢地回答了他上司的问题。 来自互联网

139 lecherous   

adj.好色的；淫邪的

参考例句：

• Her husband was described in court as a lecherous scoundrel.她的丈夫在法庭上被描绘成一个好色的无赖。
• Men enjoy all the beautiful bones,but do not mistake him lecherous.男人骨子里全都喜欢美女，但千万别误以为他好色。

140 anticipation   

n.预期，预料，期望

参考例句：

• We waited at the station in anticipation of her arrival.我们在车站等着，期待她的到来。
• The animals grew restless as if in anticipation of an earthquake.各种动物都变得焦躁不安，像是感到了地震即将发生。

141 forth   

adv.向前；向外，往外

参考例句：

• The wind moved the trees gently back and forth.风吹得树轻轻地来回摇晃。
• He gave forth a series of works in rapid succession.他很快连续发表了一系列的作品。

142 abrupt   

adj.突然的，意外的；唐突的，鲁莽的

参考例句：

• The river takes an abrupt bend to the west.这河突然向西转弯。
• His abrupt reply hurt our feelings.他粗鲁的回答伤了我们的感情。

143 abruptly   

adv.突然地，出其不意地

参考例句：

• He gestured abruptly for Virginia to get in the car.他粗鲁地示意弗吉尼亚上车。
• I was abruptly notified that a half-hour speech was expected of me.我突然被通知要讲半个小时的话。

144 reactionary   

n.反动者，反动主义者；adj.反动的，反动主义的，反对改革的

参考例句：

• They forced thousands of peasants into their reactionary armies.他们迫使成千上万的农民参加他们的反动军队。
• The reactionary ruling clique was torn by internal strife.反动统治集团内部勾心斗角，四分五裂。

145 opposition   

n.反对，敌对

参考例句：

• The party leader is facing opposition in his own backyard.该党领袖在自己的党內遇到了反对。
• The police tried to break down the prisoner's opposition.警察设法制住了那个囚犯的反抗。

146 seizure   

n.没收；占有；抵押

参考例句：

• The seizure of contraband is made by customs.那些走私品是被海关没收的。
• The courts ordered the seizure of all her property.法院下令查封她所有的财产。

147 munificent   

adj.慷慨的，大方的

参考例句：

• I am so happy to get munificent birthday presents from my friends.我很高兴跟我朋友收到大量的生日礼物。
• The old man's munificent donation to the hospital was highly appreciated.老人对医院慷慨的捐赠赢得了高度赞扬。

148 silhouette   

n.黑色半身侧面影，影子，轮廓；v.描绘成侧面影，照出影子来，仅仅显出轮廓

参考例句：

• I could see its black silhouette against the evening sky.我能看到夜幕下它黑色的轮廓。
• I could see the silhouette of the woman in the pickup.我可以见到小卡车的女人黑色半身侧面影。

149 silhouettes   

轮廓( silhouette的名词复数 )； （人的）体形； （事物的）形状； 剪影

参考例句：

• Now that darkness was falling, only their silhouettes were outlined against the faintly glimmering sky. 这时节两山只剩余一抹深黑，赖天空微明为画出一个轮廓。 来自汉英文学 - 散文英译
• They could see silhouettes. 他们能看得见影子的。

150 averted   

防止，避免( avert的过去式和过去分词 )； 转移

参考例句：

• A disaster was narrowly averted. 及时防止了一场灾难。
• Thanks to her skilful handling of the affair, the problem was averted. 多亏她对事情处理得巧妙，才避免了麻烦。

151 sweeping   

adj.范围广大的，一扫无遗的

参考例句：

• The citizens voted for sweeping reforms.公民投票支持全面的改革。
• Can you hear the wind sweeping through the branches?你能听到风掠过树枝的声音吗？

152 vaulted   

adj.拱状的

参考例句：

• She vaulted over the gate and ran up the path. 她用手一撑跃过栅栏门沿着小路跑去。
• The formal living room has a fireplace and vaulted ceilings. 正式的客厅有一个壁炉和拱形天花板。

153 vault   

n.拱形圆顶，地窖，地下室

参考例句：

• The vault of this cathedral is very high.这座天主教堂的拱顶非常高。
• The old patrician was buried in the family vault.这位老贵族埋在家族的墓地里。

154 recess   

n.短期休息，壁凹（墙上装架子，柜子等凹处）

参考例句：

• The chairman of the meeting announced a ten-minute recess.会议主席宣布休会10分钟。
• Parliament was hastily recalled from recess.休会的议员被匆匆召回开会。

155 marvel   

vi.(at)惊叹vt.感到惊异；n.令人惊异的事

参考例句：

• The robot is a marvel of modern engineering.机器人是现代工程技术的奇迹。
• The operation was a marvel of medical skill.这次手术是医术上的一个奇迹。

156 synchronization   

n.同一时刻；同步；使时间互相一致；同时性

参考例句：

• Communication record: the function supports synchronization record during the communication process. 通话录音：支持通话过程的同步录音。 来自互联网
• Synchronization is an important problem of digital audio watermarking. 同步性是数字音频水印的一个重要问题。 来自互联网

157 premises   

n.建筑物，房屋

参考例句：

• According to the rules,no alcohol can be consumed on the premises.按照规定，场内不准饮酒。
• All repairs are done on the premises and not put out.全部修缮都在家里进行，不用送到外面去做。

158 premise   

n.前提；v.提论，预述

参考例句：

• Let me premise my argument with a bit of history.让我引述一些史实作为我立论的前提。
• We can deduce a conclusion from the premise.我们可以从这个前提推出结论。

159 labor   

n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦

参考例句：

• We are never late in satisfying him for his labor.我们从不延误付给他劳动报酬。
• He was completely spent after two weeks of hard labor.艰苦劳动两周后，他已经疲惫不堪了。

160 demolished   

v.摧毁( demolish的过去式和过去分词 )；推翻；拆毁（尤指大建筑物）；吃光

参考例句：

• The factory is due to be demolished next year. 这个工厂定于明年拆除。
• They have been fighting a rearguard action for two years to stop their house being demolished. 两年来，为了不让拆除他们的房子，他们一直在进行最后的努力。

161 astounding   

adj.使人震惊的vt.使震惊，使大吃一惊astound的现在分词)

参考例句：

• There was an astounding 20% increase in sales. 销售量惊人地增加了20%。
• The Chairman's remarks were so astounding that the audience listened to him with bated breath. 主席说的话令人吃惊，所以听众都屏息听他说。 来自《简明英汉词典》

162 exhausted   

adj.极其疲惫的，精疲力尽的

参考例句：

• It was a long haul home and we arrived exhausted.搬运回家的这段路程特别长，到家时我们已筋疲力尽。
• Jenny was exhausted by the hustle of city life.珍妮被城市生活的忙乱弄得筋疲力尽。

163 superintendents   

警长( superintendent的名词复数 )； （大楼的）管理人； 监管人； （美国）警察局长

参考例句：

• Unlike their New York counterparts, Portland school superintendents welcomed McFarlane. 这一次，地点是在波特兰。
• But superintendents and principals have wide discretion. 但是，地方领导和校长有自由裁量权。

164 tune   

n.调子；和谐，协调；v.调音，调节，调整

参考例句：

• He'd written a tune,and played it to us on the piano.他写了一段曲子，并在钢琴上弹给我们听。
• The boy beat out a tune on a tin can.那男孩在易拉罐上敲出一首曲子。

165 legendary   

adj.传奇（中）的，闻名遐迩的；n.传奇（文学）

参考例句：

• Legendary stories are passed down from parents to children.传奇故事是由父母传给孩子们的。
• Odysseus was a legendary Greek hero.奥狄修斯是传说中的希腊英雄。

166 rubble   

n.（一堆）碎石，瓦砾

参考例句：

• After the earthquake,it took months to clean up the rubble.地震后，花了数月才清理完瓦砾。
• After the war many cities were full of rubble.战后许多城市到处可见颓垣残壁。

167 hordes   

n.移动着的一大群( horde的名词复数 )；部落

参考例句：

• There are always hordes of tourists here in the summer. 夏天这里总有成群结队的游客。
• Hordes of journalists jostled for position outside the conference hall. 大群记者在会堂外争抢位置。 来自《简明英汉词典》

168 unemployed   

adj.失业的，没有工作的；未动用的，闲置的

参考例句：

• There are now over four million unemployed workers in this country.这个国家现有四百万失业人员。
• The unemployed hunger for jobs.失业者渴望得到工作。

169 wreck   

n.失事，遇难；沉船；vt.(船等)失事，遇难

参考例句：

• Weather may have been a factor in the wreck.天气可能是造成这次失事的原因之一。
• No one can wreck the friendship between us.没有人能够破坏我们之间的友谊。

170 wreckage   

n.（失事飞机等的）残骸，破坏，毁坏

参考例句：

• They hauled him clear of the wreckage.他们把他从形骸中拖出来。
• New states were born out of the wreckage of old colonial empires.新生国家从老殖民帝国的废墟中诞生。

171 shriek   

v./n.尖叫，叫喊

参考例句：

• Suddenly he began to shriek loudly.突然他开始大声尖叫起来。
• People sometimes shriek because of terror,anger,or pain.人们有时会因为恐惧，气愤或疼痛而尖叫。

172 snarl   

v.吼叫，怒骂，纠缠，混乱；n.混乱，缠结，咆哮

参考例句：

• At the seaside we could hear the snarl of the waves.在海边我们可以听见波涛的咆哮。
• The traffic was all in a snarl near the accident.事故发生处附近交通一片混乱。

173 snarling   

v.（指狗）吠，嗥叫， （人）咆哮( snarl的现在分词 )；咆哮着说，厉声地说

参考例句：

• "I didn't marry you," he said, in a snarling tone. “我没有娶你，"他咆哮着说。 来自英汉文学 - 嘉莉妹妹
• So he got into the shoes snarling. 于是，汤姆一边大喊大叫，一边穿上了那双鞋。 来自英汉文学 - 汤姆历险

174 margin   

n.页边空白；差额；余地，余裕；边，边缘

参考例句：

• We allowed a margin of 20 minutes in catching the train.我们有20分钟的余地赶火车。
• The village is situated at the margin of a forest.村子位于森林的边缘。

175 shrieking   

v.尖叫( shriek的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• The boxers were goaded on by the shrieking crowd. 拳击运动员听见观众的喊叫就来劲儿了。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• They were all shrieking with laughter. 他们都发出了尖锐的笑声。 来自《简明英汉词典》

176 worthy   

adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的

参考例句：

• I did not esteem him to be worthy of trust.我认为他不值得信赖。
• There occurred nothing that was worthy to be mentioned.没有值得一提的事发生。

177 catastrophe   

n.大灾难，大祸

参考例句：

• I owe it to you that I survived the catastrophe.亏得你我才大难不死。
• This is a catastrophe beyond human control.这是一场人类无法控制的灾难。

178 defiance   

n.挑战，挑衅，蔑视，违抗

参考例句：

• He climbed the ladder in defiance of the warning.他无视警告爬上了那架梯子。
• He slammed the door in a spirit of defiance.他以挑衅性的态度把门砰地一下关上。

179 avenged   

v.为…复仇，报…之仇( avenge的过去式和过去分词 )；为…报复

参考例句：

• She avenged her mother's death upon the Nazi soldiers. 她惩处了纳粹士兵以报杀母之仇。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The Indians avenged the burning of their village on〔upon〕 the settlers. 印第安人因为村庄被焚毁向拓居者们进行报复。 来自《简明英汉词典》

180 avenge   

v.为...复仇，为...报仇

参考例句：

• He swore to avenge himself on the mafia.他发誓说要向黑手党报仇。
• He will avenge the people on their oppressor.他将为人民向压迫者报仇。

181 costly   

adj.昂贵的，价值高的，豪华的

参考例句：

• It must be very costly to keep up a house like this.维修这么一幢房子一定很昂贵。
• This dictionary is very useful,only it is a bit costly.这本词典很有用，左不过贵了些。

182 distinguished   

adj.卓越的，杰出的，著名的

参考例句：

• Elephants are distinguished from other animals by their long noses.大象以其长长的鼻子显示出与其他动物的不同。
• A banquet was given in honor of the distinguished guests.宴会是为了向贵宾们致敬而举行的。

183 enchantment   

n.迷惑，妖术，魅力

参考例句：

• The beauty of the scene filled us with enchantment.风景的秀丽令我们陶醉。
• The countryside lay as under some dread enchantment.乡村好像躺在某种可怖的魔法之下。

184 pending   

prep.直到，等待…期间；adj.待定的；迫近的

参考例句：

• The lawsuit is still pending in the state court.这案子仍在州法庭等待定夺。
• He knew my examination was pending.他知道我就要考试了。

185 admiration   

n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕

参考例句：

• He was lost in admiration of the beauty of the scene.他对风景之美赞不绝口。
• We have a great admiration for the gold medalists.我们对金牌获得者极为敬佩。

186 inscription   

n.（尤指石块上的）刻印文字，铭文，碑文

参考例句：

• The inscription has worn away and can no longer be read.铭文已磨损，无法辨认了。
• He chiselled an inscription on the marble.他在大理石上刻碑文。

187 defense   

n.防御，保卫；[pl.]防务工事；辩护，答辩

参考例句：

• The accused has the right to defense.被告人有权获得辩护。
• The war has impacted the area with military and defense workers.战争使那个地区挤满了军队和防御工程人员。

188 flattened   

[医]（水）平扁的，弄平的

参考例句：

• She flattened her nose and lips against the window. 她把鼻子和嘴唇紧贴着窗户。
• I flattened myself against the wall to let them pass. 我身体紧靠着墙让他们通过。

189 merging   

合并（分类）

参考例句：

• Many companies continued to grow by merging with or buying competing firms. 许多公司通过合并或收买竞争对手的公司而不断扩大。 来自英汉非文学 - 政府文件
• To sequence by repeated splitting and merging. 用反复分开和合并的方法进行的排序。

190 tangle   

n.纠缠；缠结；混乱；v.(使)缠绕；变乱

参考例句：

• I shouldn't tangle with Peter.He is bigger than me.我不应该与彼特吵架。他的块头比我大。
• If I were you, I wouldn't tangle with them.我要是你，我就不跟他们争吵。

191 eerily   

adv.引起神秘感或害怕地

参考例句：

• It was nearly mid-night and eerily dark all around her. 夜深了，到处是一片黑黝黝的怪影。 来自汉英文学 - 散文英译
• The vast volcanic slope was eerily reminiscent of a lunar landscape. 开阔的火山坡让人心生怪异地联想起月球的地貌。 来自辞典例句

192 quotas   

（正式限定的）定量( quota的名词复数 )； 定额； 指标； 摊派

参考例句：

• In fulfilling the production quotas, John made rings round all his fellow workers. 约翰完成生产定额大大超过他的同事们。
• Quotas of the means of production are allocated by the higher administrative bodies to the lower ones. 物资指标按隶属关系分配。

193 shrugged   

vt.耸肩（shrug的过去式与过去分词形式）

参考例句：

• Sam shrugged and said nothing. 萨姆耸耸肩膀，什么也没说。
• She shrugged, feigning nonchalance. 她耸耸肩，装出一副无所谓的样子。 来自《简明英汉词典》

194 dreaded   

adj.令人畏惧的；害怕的v.害怕，恐惧，担心( dread的过去式和过去分词)

参考例句：

• The dreaded moment had finally arrived. 可怕的时刻终于来到了。
• He dreaded having to spend Christmas in hospital. 他害怕非得在医院过圣诞节不可。 来自《用法词典》

195 awed   

adj.充满敬畏的，表示敬畏的v.使敬畏，使惊惧( awe的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• The audience was awed into silence by her stunning performance. 观众席上鸦雀无声，人们对他出色的表演感到惊叹。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• I was awed by the huge gorilla. 那只大猩猩使我惊惧。 来自《简明英汉词典》

196 uncertainty   

n.易变，靠不住，不确知，不确定的事物

参考例句：

• Her comments will add to the uncertainty of the situation.她的批评将会使局势更加不稳定。
• After six weeks of uncertainty,the strain was beginning to take its toll.6个星期的忐忑不安后，压力开始产生影响了。

197 precepts   

n.规诫，戒律，箴言( precept的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• They accept the Prophet's precepts but reject some of his strictures. 他们接受先知的教训，但拒绝他的种种约束。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
• The legal philosopher's concern is to ascertain the true nature of all the precepts and norms. 法哲学家的兴趣在于探寻所有规范和准则的性质。 来自辞典例句

198 malice   

n.恶意，怨恨，蓄意；[律]预谋

参考例句：

• I detected a suggestion of malice in his remarks.我觉察出他说的话略带恶意。
• There was a strong current of malice in many of his portraits.他的许多肖像画中都透着一股强烈的怨恨。

199 suite   

n.一套(家具)；套房；随从人员

参考例句：

• She has a suite of rooms in the hotel.她在那家旅馆有一套房间。
• That is a nice suite of furniture.那套家具很不错。

200 scavenger   

n.以腐尸为食的动物，清扫工

参考例句：

• He's just fit for a job as scavenger.他只配当个清道夫。
• He is not a scavenger nor just a moving appetite as some sharks are.它不是食腐动物，也不像有些鲨鱼那样，只知道游来游去满足食欲。

201 sneaking   

a.秘密的，不公开的

参考例句：

• She had always had a sneaking affection for him. 以前她一直暗暗倾心于他。
• She ducked the interviewers by sneaking out the back door. 她从后门偷偷溜走，躲开采访者。

202 longing   

n.（for）渴望

参考例句：

• Hearing the tune again sent waves of longing through her.再次听到那首曲子使她胸中充满了渴望。
• His heart burned with longing for revenge.他心中燃烧着急欲复仇的怒火。

203 smuggling   

n.走私

参考例句：

• Some claimed that the docker's union fronted for the smuggling ring.某些人声称码头工人工会是走私集团的掩护所。
• The evidence pointed to the existence of an international smuggling network.证据表明很可能有一个国际走私网络存在。

204 shipping   

n.船运（发货，运输，乘船）

参考例句：

• We struck a bargain with an American shipping firm.我们和一家美国船运公司谈成了一笔生意。
• There's a shipping charge of ￡5 added to the price.价格之外另加五英镑运输费。

205 wrecked   

adj.失事的，遇难的

参考例句：

• the hulk of a wrecked ship 遇难轮船的残骸
• the salvage of the wrecked tanker 对失事油轮的打捞

206 bum   

n.臀部；流浪汉，乞丐；vt.乞求，乞讨

参考例句：

• A man pinched her bum on the train so she hit him.在火车上有人捏她屁股，她打了那人。
• The penniless man had to bum a ride home.那个身无分文的人只好乞求搭车回家。

207 bumper   

n.(汽车上的)保险杠；adj.特大的，丰盛的

参考例句：

• The painting represents the scene of a bumper harvest.这幅画描绘了丰收的景象。
• This year we have a bumper harvest in grain.今年我们谷物丰收。

208 fixed   

adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的

参考例句：

• Have you two fixed on a date for the wedding yet?你们俩选定婚期了吗？
• Once the aim is fixed,we should not change it arbitrarily.目标一旦确定，我们就不应该随意改变。

209 plowing   

v.耕( plow的现在分词 )；犁耕；费力穿过

参考例句：

• "There are things more important now than plowing, Sugar. "如今有比耕种更重要的事情要做呀，宝贝儿。 来自飘（部分）
• Since his wife's death, he has been plowing a lonely furrow. 从他妻子死后，他一直过着孤独的生活。 来自辞典例句

210 intensity   

n.强烈，剧烈；强度；烈度

参考例句：

• I didn't realize the intensity of people's feelings on this issue.我没有意识到这一问题能引起群情激奋。
• The strike is growing in intensity.罢工日益加剧。

211 contemplating   

深思，细想，仔细考虑( contemplate的现在分词 )； 注视，凝视； 考虑接受（发生某事的可能性）； 深思熟虑，沉思，苦思冥想

参考例句：

• You're too young to be contemplating retirement. 你考虑退休还太年轻。
• She stood contemplating the painting. 她站在那儿凝视那幅图画。

212 helping   

n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的

参考例句：

• The poor children regularly pony up for a second helping of my hamburger. 那些可怜的孩子们总是要求我把我的汉堡包再给他们一份。
• By doing this, they may at times be helping to restore competition. 这样一来, 他在某些时候,有助于竞争的加强。

213 tenacious   

adj.顽强的，固执的，记忆力强的，粘的

参考例句：

• We must learn from the tenacious fighting spirit of Lu Xun.我们要学习鲁迅先生韧性的战斗精神。
• We should be tenacious of our rights.我们应坚决维护我们的权利。

214 smuggle   

vt.私运；vi.走私

参考例句：

• Friends managed to smuggle him secretly out of the country.朋友们想方设法将他秘密送出国了。
• She has managed to smuggle out the antiques without getting caught.她成功将古董走私出境，没有被逮捕。

215 shrill   

adj.尖声的；刺耳的；v尖叫

参考例句：

• Whistles began to shrill outside the barn.哨声开始在谷仓外面尖叫。
• The shrill ringing of a bell broke up the card game on the cutter.刺耳的铃声打散了小汽艇的牌局。

216 jittery   

adj. 神经过敏的, 战战兢兢的

参考例句：

• However, nothing happened though he continued to feel jittery. 可是，自从拉上这辆车，并没有出什么错儿，虽然他心中嘀嘀咕咕的不安。 来自汉英文学 - 骆驼祥子
• The thirty-six Enterprise divebombers were being squandered in a jittery shot from the hip. 这三十六架“企业号”上的俯冲轰炸机正被孤注一掷。

217 sullen   

adj.愠怒的，闷闷不乐的，(天气等)阴沉的

参考例句：

• He looked up at the sullen sky.他抬头看了一眼阴沉的天空。
• Susan was sullen in the morning because she hadn't slept well.苏珊今天早上郁闷不乐，因为昨晚没睡好。

218 futility   

n.无用

参考例句：

• She could see the utter futility of trying to protest. 她明白抗议是完全无用的。
• The sheer futility of it all exasperates her. 它毫无用处，这让她很生气。

219 homage   

n.尊敬，敬意，崇敬

参考例句：

• We pay homage to the genius of Shakespeare.我们对莎士比亚的天才表示敬仰。
• The soldiers swore to pay their homage to the Queen.士兵们宣誓效忠于女王陛下。

220 trickling   

n.油画底色含油太多而成泡沫状突起v.滴( trickle的现在分词 )；淌；使)慢慢走；缓慢移动

参考例句：

• Tears were trickling down her cheeks. 眼泪顺着她的面颊流了下来。
• The engine was trickling oil. 发动机在滴油。 来自《简明英汉词典》

221 luxurious   

adj.精美而昂贵的；豪华的

参考例句：

• This is a luxurious car complete with air conditioning and telephone.这是一辆附有空调设备和电话的豪华轿车。
• The rich man lives in luxurious surroundings.这位富人生活在奢侈的环境中。

222 cringing   

adj.谄媚，奉承

参考例句：

• He had a cringing manner but a very harsh voice.他有卑屈谄媚的神情，但是声音却十分粗沙。
• She stepped towards him with a movement that was horribly cringing.她冲他走了一步，做出一个低三下四，令人作呕的动作。

223 velvet   

n.丝绒，天鹅绒；adj.丝绒制的，柔软的

参考例句：

• This material feels like velvet.这料子摸起来像丝绒。
• The new settlers wore the finest silk and velvet clothing.新来的移民穿着最华丽的丝绸和天鹅绒衣服。

224 aluminum   

n.(aluminium)铝

参考例句：

• The aluminum sheets cannot be too much thicker than 0.04 inches.铝板厚度不能超过0.04英寸。
• During the launch phase,it would ride in a protective aluminum shell.在发射阶段，它盛在一只保护的铝壳里。

225 lighting   

n.照明，光线的明暗，舞台灯光

参考例句：

• The gas lamp gradually lost ground to electric lighting.煤气灯逐渐为电灯所代替。
• The lighting in that restaurant is soft and romantic.那个餐馆照明柔和而且浪漫。

226 countless   

adj.无数的，多得不计其数的

参考例句：

• In the war countless innocent people lost their lives.在这场战争中无数无辜的人丧失了性命。
• I've told you countless times.我已经告诉你无数遍了。

227 evasions   

逃避( evasion的名词复数 )； 回避； 遁辞； 借口

参考例句：

• A little overwhelmed, I began the generalized evasions which that question deserves. 我有点不知所措，就开始说一些含糊其词的话来搪塞。
• His answers to my questions were all evasions. 他对我的问题的回答均为遁词。

228 evasion   

n.逃避，偷漏(税)

参考例句：

• The movie star is in prison for tax evasion.那位影星因为逃税而坐牢。
• The act was passed as a safeguard against tax evasion.这项法案旨在防止逃税行为。

229 civilized   

a.有教养的，文雅的

参考例句：

• Racism is abhorrent to a civilized society. 文明社会憎恶种族主义。
• rising crime in our so-called civilized societies 在我们所谓文明社会中日益增多的犯罪行为

230 petulant   

adj.性急的，暴躁的

参考例句：

• He picked the pen up with a petulant gesture.他生气地拿起那支钢笔。
• The thing had been remarked with petulant jealousy by his wife.

231 statistical   

adj.统计的，统计学的

参考例句：

• He showed the price fluctuations in a statistical table.他用统计表显示价格的波动。
• They're making detailed statistical analysis.他们正在做具体的统计分析。

232 rumors   

n.传闻( rumor的名词复数 )；[古]名誉；咕哝；[古]喧嚷v.传闻( rumor的第三人称单数 )；[古]名誉；咕哝；[古]喧嚷

参考例句：

• Rumors have it that the school was burned down. 有谣言说学校给烧掉了。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Rumors of a revolt were afloat. 叛变的谣言四起。 来自《简明英汉词典》

233 curb   

n.场外证券市场，场外交易；vt.制止，抑制

参考例句：

• I could not curb my anger.我按捺不住我的愤怒。
• You must curb your daughter when you are in church.你在教堂时必须管住你的女儿。

234 innate   

adj.天生的，固有的，天赋的

参考例句：

• You obviously have an innate talent for music.你显然有天生的音乐才能。
• Correct ideas are not innate in the mind.人的正确思想不是自己头脑中固有的。

235 brutality   

n.野蛮的行为，残忍，野蛮

参考例句：

• The brutality of the crime has appalled the public. 罪行之残暴使公众大为震惊。
• a general who was infamous for his brutality 因残忍而恶名昭彰的将军

236 humane   

adj.人道的，富有同情心的

参考例句：

• Is it humane to kill animals for food?宰杀牲畜来吃合乎人道吗？
• Their aim is for a more just and humane society.他们的目标是建立一个更加公正、博爱的社会。

237 brotherhood   

n.兄弟般的关系，手中情谊

参考例句：

• They broke up the brotherhood.他们断绝了兄弟关系。
• They live and work together in complete equality and brotherhood.他们完全平等和兄弟般地在一起生活和工作。

238 muffled   

adj.（声音）被隔的；听不太清的；（衣服）裹严的；蒙住的v.压抑，捂住( muffle的过去式和过去分词 )；用厚厚的衣帽包着（自己）

参考例句：

• muffled voices from the next room 从隔壁房间里传来的沉闷声音
• There was a muffled explosion somewhere on their right. 在他们的右面什么地方有一声沉闷的爆炸声。 来自《简明英汉词典》

239 mechanism   

n.机械装置；机构，结构

参考例句：

• The bones and muscles are parts of the mechanism of the body.骨骼和肌肉是人体的组成部件。
• The mechanism of the machine is very complicated.这台机器的结构是非常复杂的。

240 rotation   

n.旋转；循环，轮流

参考例句：

• Crop rotation helps prevent soil erosion.农作物轮作有助于防止水土流失。
• The workers in this workshop do day and night shifts in weekly rotation.这个车间的工人上白班和上夜班每周轮换一次。

241 standing   

n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的

参考例句：

• After the earthquake only a few houses were left standing.地震过后只有几幢房屋还立着。
• They're standing out against any change in the law.他们坚决反对对法律做任何修改。

242 salute   

vi.行礼，致意，问候，放礼炮；vt.向…致意，迎接，赞扬；n.招呼，敬礼，礼炮

参考例句：

• Merchant ships salute each other by dipping the flag.商船互相点旗致敬。
• The Japanese women salute the people with formal bows in welcome.这些日本妇女以正式的鞠躬向人们施礼以示欢迎。

243 complexity   

n.复杂(性)，复杂的事物

参考例句：

• Only now did he understand the full complexity of the problem.直到现在他才明白这一问题的全部复杂性。
• The complexity of the road map puzzled me.错综复杂的公路图把我搞糊涂了。

244 gauges   

n.规格( gauge的名词复数 )；厚度；宽度；标准尺寸v.（用仪器）测量( gauge的第三人称单数 )；估计；计量；划分

参考例句：

• A thermometer gauges the temperature. 温度计可测量温度。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The fuel gauges dropped swiftly. 燃料表指针迅速下降。 来自《简明英汉词典》

245 ponderous   

adj.沉重的，笨重的，(文章)冗长的

参考例句：

• His steps were heavy and ponderous.他的步伐沉重缓慢。
• It was easy to underestimate him because of his occasionally ponderous manner.由于他偶尔现出的沉闷的姿态，很容易使人小看了他。

246 ridges   

n.脊( ridge的名词复数 )；山脊；脊状突起；大气层的)高压脊

参考例句：

• The path winds along mountain ridges. 峰回路转。
• Perhaps that was the deepest truth in Ridges's nature. 在里奇斯的思想上，这大概可以算是天经地义第一条了。

247 generators   

n.发电机，发生器( generator的名词复数 )；电力公司

参考例句：

• The factory's emergency generators were used during the power cut. 工厂应急发电机在停电期间用上了。
• Power can be fed from wind generators into the electricity grid system. 电力可以从风力发电机流入输电网。 来自《简明英汉词典》

248 clattering   

发出咔哒声（clatter的现在分词形式）

参考例句：

• Typewriters keep clattering away. 打字机在不停地嗒嗒作响。
• The typewriter was clattering away. 打字机啪嗒啪嗒地响着。

249 unctuous   

adj.油腔滑调的，大胆的

参考例句：

• He speaks in unctuous tones.他说话油腔滑调。
• He made an unctuous assurance.他做了个虚请假意的承诺。

250 detrimental   

adj.损害的，造成伤害的

参考例句：

• We know that heat treatment is detrimental to milk.我们知道加热对牛奶是不利的。
• He wouldn't accept that smoking was detrimental to health.他不相信吸烟有害健康。

251 equitable   

adj.公平的；公正的

参考例句：

• This is an equitable solution to the dispute. 这是对该项争议的公正解决。
• Paying a person what he has earned is equitable. 酬其应得,乃公平之事。

252 apparently   

adv.显然地；表面上，似乎

参考例句：

• An apparently blind alley leads suddenly into an open space.山穷水尽，豁然开朗。
• He was apparently much surprised at the news.他对那个消息显然感到十分惊异。

253 antagonism   

n.对抗，敌对，对立

参考例句：

• People did not feel a strong antagonism for established policy.人们没有对既定方针产生强烈反应。
• There is still much antagonism between trades unions and the oil companies.工会和石油公司之间仍然存在着相当大的敌意。

254 solicitude   

n.焦虑

参考例句：

• Your solicitude was a great consolation to me.你对我的关怀给了我莫大的安慰。
• He is full of tender solicitude towards my sister.他对我妹妹满心牵挂。

255 alley   

n.小巷，胡同；小径，小路

参考例句：

• We live in the same alley.我们住在同一条小巷里。
• The blind alley ended in a brick wall.这条死胡同的尽头是砖墙。

256 posture   

n.姿势，姿态，心态，态度；v.作出某种姿势

参考例句：

• The government adopted an uncompromising posture on the issue of independence.政府在独立这一问题上采取了毫不妥协的态度。
• He tore off his coat and assumed a fighting posture.他脱掉上衣，摆出一副打架的架势。

257 insolence   

n.傲慢；无礼；厚颜；傲慢的态度

参考例句：

• I've had enough of your insolence, and I'm having no more. 我受够了你的侮辱，不能再容忍了。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• How can you suffer such insolence? 你怎么能容忍这种蛮横的态度？ 来自《简明英汉词典》

258 inexplicably   

adv.无法说明地，难以理解地，令人难以理解的是

参考例句：

• Inexplicably, Mary said she loved John. 真是不可思议，玛丽说她爱约翰。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Inexplicably, she never turned up. 令人不解的是，她从未露面。 来自辞典例句

259 vaguely   

adv.含糊地，暖昧地

参考例句：

• He had talked vaguely of going to work abroad.他含糊其词地说了到国外工作的事。
• He looked vaguely before him with unseeing eyes.他迷迷糊糊的望着前面，对一切都视而不见。

260 nagging   

adj.唠叨的，挑剔的；使人不得安宁的v.不断地挑剔或批评（某人）( nag的现在分词 )；不断地烦扰或伤害（某人）；无休止地抱怨；不断指责

参考例句：

• Stop nagging—I'll do it as soon as I can. 别唠叨了—我会尽快做的。
• I've got a nagging pain in my lower back. 我后背下方老是疼。 来自《简明英汉词典》

261 cult   

n.异教，邪教；时尚，狂热的崇拜

参考例句：

• Her books aren't bestsellers,but they have a certain cult following.她的书算不上畅销书，但有一定的崇拜者。
• The cult of sun worship is probably the most primitive one.太阳崇拜仪式或许是最为原始的一种。

262 peculiar   

adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的

参考例句：

• He walks in a peculiar fashion.他走路的样子很奇特。
• He looked at me with a very peculiar expression.他用一种很奇怪的表情看着我。

263 snobbishness   

势利； 势利眼

参考例句：

• We disdain a man for his snobbishness. 我们鄙夷势利小人。
• Maybe you have social faults such as snobbishness, talkativeness, and, etc. which drive away new acquaintances. 也许你有社交方面的缺点，诸如势利、饶舌、出语粗俗等，使你的新相识退避三舍。

264 belligerently   

参考例句：

• Cars zoomed helter-skelter, honking belligerently. 大街上来往车辆穿梭不停，喇叭声刺耳。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Harass, threaten, insult, or behave belligerently towards others. 向其它交战地折磨，威胁，侮辱，或表现。 来自互联网

265 justify   

vt.证明…正当(或有理)，为…辩护

参考例句：

• He tried to justify his absence with lame excuses.他想用站不住脚的借口为自己的缺席辩解。
• Can you justify your rude behavior to me?你能向我证明你的粗野行为是有道理的吗？

266 gambling   

n.赌博；投机

参考例句：

• They have won a lot of money through gambling.他们赌博赢了很多钱。
• The men have been gambling away all night.那些人赌了整整一夜。

267 joint   

adj.联合的，共同的；n.关节，接合处；v.连接，贴合

参考例句：

• I had a bad fall,which put my shoulder out of joint.我重重地摔了一跤，肩膀脫臼了。
• We wrote a letter in joint names.我们联名写了封信。

268 spurts   

短暂而突然的活动或努力( spurt的名词复数 )； 突然奋起

参考例句：

• Great spurts of gas shoot out of the sun. 太阳气体射出形成大爆发。
• Spurts of warm rain blew fitfully against their faces. 阵阵温热的雨点拍打在他们脸上。

269 oozed   

v.（浓液等）慢慢地冒出，渗出( ooze的过去式和过去分词 )；使（液体）缓缓流出；（浓液）渗出，慢慢流出

参考例句：

• Blood oozed out of the wound. 血从伤口慢慢流出来。
• Mud oozed from underground. 泥浆从地下冒出来。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

270 materialistic   

a.唯物主义的，物质享乐主义的

参考例句：

• She made him both soft and materialistic. 她把他变成女性化而又实际化。
• Materialistic dialectics is an important part of constituting Marxism. 唯物辩证法是马克思主义的重要组成部分。

271 glazed   

adj.光滑的，像玻璃的；上过釉的；呆滞无神的v.装玻璃( glaze的过去式)；上釉于，上光；（目光）变得呆滞无神

参考例句：

• eyes glazed with boredom 厌倦无神的眼睛
• His eyes glazed over at the sight of her. 看到她时，他的目光就变得呆滞。 来自《简明英汉词典》

272 resentment   

n.怨愤，忿恨

参考例句：

• All her feelings of resentment just came pouring out.她一股脑儿倾吐出所有的怨恨。
• She cherished a deep resentment under the rose towards her employer.她暗中对她的雇主怀恨在心。

273 imperative   

n.命令，需要；规则；祈使语气；adj.强制的；紧急的

参考例句：

• He always speaks in an imperative tone of voice.他老是用命令的口吻讲话。
• The events of the past few days make it imperative for her to act.过去这几天发生的事迫使她不得不立即行动。

274 propounding   

v.提出（问题、计划等）供考虑[讨论]，提议( propound的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• He won the prize by propounding the theory. 他因提出该学说而获奖。 来自互联网

275 qualified   

adj.合格的，有资格的，胜任的，有限制的

参考例句：

• He is qualified as a complete man of letters.他有资格当真正的文学家。
• We must note that we still lack qualified specialists.我们必须看到我们还缺乏有资质的专家。

276 gimmick   

n.(为引人注意而搞的)小革新，小发明

参考例句：

• He dismissed the event as just a publicity gimmick.他不理会这件事，只当它是一种宣传手法。
• It is just a public relations gimmick.这只不过是一种公关伎俩。

277 pittance   

n.微薄的薪水，少量

参考例句：

• Her secretaries work tirelessly for a pittance.她的秘书们为一点微薄的工资不知疲倦地工作。
• The widow must live on her slender pittance.那寡妇只能靠自己微薄的收入过活。

278 chunk   

n.厚片，大块，相当大的部分（数量）

参考例句：

• They had to be careful of floating chunks of ice.他们必须当心大块浮冰。
• The company owns a chunk of farmland near Gatwick Airport.该公司拥有盖特威克机场周边的大片农田。

279 hatred   

n.憎恶，憎恨，仇恨

参考例句：

• He looked at me with hatred in his eyes.他以憎恨的眼光望着我。
• The old man was seized with burning hatred for the fascists.老人对法西斯主义者充满了仇恨。

280 swelled   

增强( swell的过去式和过去分词 )； 肿胀； （使）凸出； 充满（激情）

参考例句：

• The infection swelled his hand. 由于感染，他的手肿了起来。
• After the heavy rain the river swelled. 大雨过后，河水猛涨。

281 petulantly   

参考例句：

• \"No; nor will she miss now,\" cries The Vengeance, petulantly. “不会的，现在也不会错过，”复仇女神气冲冲地说。 来自英汉文学 - 双城记

282 astonishment   

n.惊奇，惊异

参考例句：

• They heard him give a loud shout of astonishment.他们听见他惊奇地大叫一声。
• I was filled with astonishment at her strange action.我对她的奇怪举动不胜惊异。

283 degradation   

n.降级；低落；退化；陵削；降解；衰变

参考例句：

• There are serious problems of land degradation in some arid zones.在一些干旱地带存在严重的土地退化问题。
• Gambling is always coupled with degradation.赌博总是与堕落相联系。

284 remains   

n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹

参考例句：

• He ate the remains of food hungrily.他狼吞虎咽地吃剩余的食物。
• The remains of the meal were fed to the dog.残羹剩饭喂狗了。

285 recoiled   

v.畏缩( recoil的过去式和过去分词 )；退缩；报应；返回

参考例句：

• She recoiled from his touch. 她躲开他的触摸。
• Howard recoiled a little at the sharpness in my voice. 听到我的尖声，霍华德往后缩了一下。 来自《简明英汉词典》

286 casually   

adv.漠不关心地，无动于衷地，不负责任地

参考例句：

• She remarked casually that she was changing her job.她当时漫不经心地说要换工作。
• I casually mentioned that I might be interested in working abroad.我不经意地提到我可能会对出国工作感兴趣。

287 tilt   

v.(使)倾侧；(使)倾斜；n.倾侧；倾斜

参考例句：

• She wore her hat at a tilt over her left eye.她歪戴着帽子遮住左眼。
• The table is at a slight tilt.这张桌子没放平，有点儿歪.

288 devoid   

adj.全无的，缺乏的

参考例句：

• He is completely devoid of humour.他十分缺乏幽默。
• The house is totally devoid of furniture.这所房子里什么家具都没有。

289 wizened   

adj.凋谢的；枯槁的

参考例句：

• That wizened and grotesque little old man is a notorious miser.那个干瘪难看的小老头是个臭名远扬的吝啬鬼。
• Mr solomon was a wizened little man with frizzy gray hair.所罗门先生是一个干瘪矮小的人，头发鬈曲灰白。

290 prerogative   

n.特权

参考例句：

• It is within his prerogative to do so.他是有权这样做的。
• Making such decisions is not the sole prerogative of managers.作这类决定并不是管理者的专有特权。

291 dispensing   

v.分配( dispense的现在分词 )；施与；配（药）

参考例句：

• A dispensing optician supplies glasses, but doesn't test your eyes. 配镜师为你提供眼镜，但不检查眼睛。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The firm has been dispensing ointments. 本公司配制药膏。 来自《简明英汉词典》

292 condemned   

adj. 被责难的, 被宣告有罪的 动词condemn的过去式和过去分词

参考例句：

• He condemned the hypocrisy of those politicians who do one thing and say another. 他谴责了那些说一套做一套的政客的虚伪。
• The policy has been condemned as a regressive step. 这项政策被认为是一种倒退而受到谴责。

293 austerely   

adv.严格地，朴质地

参考例句：

• The austerely lighted garage was quiet. 灯光黯淡的车库静悄悄的。 来自辞典例句
• Door of Ministry of Agriculture and produce will be challenged austerely. 农业部门及农产品将受到严重的挑战。 来自互联网

294 austere   

adj.艰苦的；朴素的，朴实无华的；严峻的

参考例句：

• His way of life is rather austere.他的生活方式相当简朴。
• The room was furnished in austere style.这间屋子的陈设都很简单朴素。

295 scrupulous   

adj.审慎的，小心翼翼的，完全的，纯粹的

参考例句：

• She is scrupulous to a degree.她非常谨慎。
• Poets are not so scrupulous as you are.诗人并不像你那样顾虑多。

296 conspirators   

n.共谋者，阴谋家( conspirator的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The conspirators took no part in the fighting which ensued. 密谋者没有参加随后发生的战斗。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The French conspirators were forced to escape very hurriedly. 法国同谋者被迫匆促逃亡。 来自辞典例句

297 condemnation   

n.谴责; 定罪

参考例句：

• There was widespread condemnation of the invasion. 那次侵略遭到了人们普遍的谴责。
• The jury's condemnation was a shock to the suspect. 陪审团宣告有罪使嫌疑犯大为震惊。

298 steadily   

adv.稳定地；不变地；持续地

参考例句：

• The scope of man's use of natural resources will steadily grow.人类利用自然资源的广度将日益扩大。
• Our educational reform was steadily led onto the correct path.我们的教学改革慢慢上轨道了。

299 bribe   

n.贿赂；v.向…行贿，买通

参考例句：

• He tried to bribe the policeman not to arrest him.他企图贿赂警察不逮捕他。
• He resolutely refused their bribe.他坚决不接受他们的贿赂。

300 bribery   

n.贿络行为，行贿，受贿

参考例句：

• FBI found out that the senator committed bribery.美国联邦调查局查明这个参议员有受贿行为。
• He was charged with bribery.他被指控受贿。

301 farce   

n.闹剧，笑剧，滑稽戏；胡闹

参考例句：

• They played a shameful role in this farce.他们在这场闹剧中扮演了可耻的角色。
• The audience roared at the farce.闹剧使观众哄堂大笑。

302 corrupting   

（使）败坏( corrupt的现在分词 )； （使）腐化； 引起（计算机文件等的）错误； 破坏

参考例句：

• It would be corrupting discipline to leave him unpunished. 不惩治他会败坏风纪。
• It would be corrupting military discipline to leave him unpunished. 不惩治他会败坏军纪。

303 guardians   

监护人( guardian的名词复数 )； 保护者，维护者

参考例句：

• Farmers should be guardians of the countryside. 农民应是乡村的保卫者。
• The police are guardians of law and order. 警察是法律和秩序的护卫者。

304 bureaucrats   

n.官僚( bureaucrat的名词复数 )；官僚主义；官僚主义者；官僚语言

参考例句：

• That is the fate of the bureaucrats, not the inspiration of statesmen. 那是官僚主义者的命运，而不是政治家的灵感。 来自辞典例句
• Big business and dozens of anonymous bureaucrats have as much power as Japan's top elected leaders. 大企业和许多不知名的官僚同日本选举出来的最高层领导者们的权力一样大。 来自辞典例句

305 peddled   

（沿街）叫卖( peddle的过去式和过去分词 )； 兜售； 宣传； 散播

参考例句：

• He has peddled the myth that he is supporting the local population. 他散布说他支持当地群众。
• The farmer peddled his fruit from house to house. 那个农民挨家挨户兜售他的水果。

306 corruption   

n.腐败，堕落，贪污

参考例句：

• The people asked the government to hit out against corruption and theft.人民要求政府严惩贪污盗窃。
• The old man reviled against corruption.那老人痛斥了贪污舞弊。

307 liberating   

解放，释放( liberate的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• Revolution means liberating the productive forces. 革命就是为了解放生产力。
• They had already taken on their shoulders the burden of reforming society and liberating mankind. 甚至在这些集会聚谈中，他们就已经夸大地把改革社会、解放人群的责任放在自己的肩头了。 来自汉英文学 - 家（1-26） - 家（1-26）

308 chilly   

adj.凉快的，寒冷的

参考例句：

• I feel chilly without a coat.我由于没有穿大衣而感到凉飕飕的。
• I grew chilly when the fire went out.炉火熄灭后，寒气逼人。

309 drizzle   

v.下毛毛雨；n.毛毛雨，蒙蒙细雨

参考例句：

• The shower tailed off into a drizzle.阵雨越来越小，最后变成了毛毛雨。
• Yesterday the radio forecast drizzle,and today it is indeed raining.昨天预报有小雨，今天果然下起来了。

310 smoothly   

adv.平滑地，顺利地，流利地，流畅地

参考例句：

• The workmen are very cooperative,so the work goes on smoothly.工人们十分合作，所以工作进展顺利。
• Just change one or two words and the sentence will read smoothly.这句话只要动一两个字就顺了。

311 gangling   

adj.瘦长得难看的

参考例句：

• He is a gangling youth.他是一个瘦长难看的年轻人。
• His gangling,awkward gait has earned him the name Spiderman.他又瘦又高，动作笨拙难看，因此有了“蜘蛛人”的外号。

312 coltish   

adj.似小马的；不受拘束的；活泼的

参考例句：

• I feel big to the shoe makes me coltish.我觉得大鞋让我不受拘束。
• Jo,fifteen,was tall,thin,and coltish,and gloried in an unconcealed scorn of polite conventions.15岁的乔是个高瘦活泼女孩，得意于对传统礼仪的蔑视。

313 taut   

adj.拉紧的，绷紧的，紧张的

参考例句：

• The bowstring is stretched taut.弓弦绷得很紧。
• Scarlett's taut nerves almost cracked as a sudden noise sounded in the underbrush near them. 思嘉紧张的神经几乎一下绷裂了，因为她听见附近灌木丛中突然冒出的一个声音。

314 presumptuous   

adj.胆大妄为的，放肆的，冒昧的，冒失的

参考例句：

• It would be presumptuous for anybody to offer such a view.任何人提出这种观点都是太放肆了。
• It was presumptuous of him to take charge.他自拿主张，太放肆了。

315 quotation   

n.引文，引语，语录；报价，牌价，行情

参考例句：

• He finished his speech with a quotation from Shakespeare.他讲话结束时引用了莎士比亚的语录。
• The quotation is omitted here.此处引文从略。

316 scrap   

n.碎片；废料；v.废弃，报废

参考例句：

• A man comes round regularly collecting scrap.有个男人定时来收废品。
• Sell that car for scrap.把那辆汽车当残品卖了吧。

317 maneuver   

n.策略[pl.]演习；v.(巧妙)控制；用策略

参考例句：

• All the fighters landed safely on the airport after the military maneuver.在军事演习后，所有战斗机都安全降落在机场上。
• I did get her attention with this maneuver.我用这个策略确实引起了她的注意。

318 vapor   

n.蒸汽，雾气

参考例句：

• The cold wind condenses vapor into rain.冷风使水蒸气凝结成雨。
• This new machine sometimes transpires a lot of hot vapor.这部机器有时排出大量的热气。

319 consolation   

n.安慰，慰问

参考例句：

• The children were a great consolation to me at that time.那时孩子们成了我的莫大安慰。
• This news was of little consolation to us.这个消息对我们来说没有什么安慰。

320 trickles   

n.细流( trickle的名词复数 )；稀稀疏疏缓慢来往的东西v.滴( trickle的第三人称单数 )；淌；使)慢慢走；缓慢移动

参考例句：

• Trickles of sweat rained down my head and neck. 我颈上头上的汗珠，更同盛雨似的，一颗一颗的钻出来了。 来自汉英文学 - 中国现代小说
• Water trickles through an underground grotto. 水沿着地下岩洞流淌。 来自辞典例句

321 wagons   

n.四轮的运货马车( wagon的名词复数 )；铁路货车；小手推车

参考例句：

• The wagons were hauled by horses. 那些货车是马拉的。
• They drew their wagons into a laager and set up camp. 他们把马车围成一圈扎起营地。

322 rusty   

adj.生锈的；锈色的；荒废了的

参考例句：

• The lock on the door is rusty and won't open.门上的锁锈住了。
• I haven't practiced my French for months and it's getting rusty.几个月不用，我的法语又荒疏了。

323 triumphant   

adj.胜利的，成功的；狂欢的，喜悦的

参考例句：

• The army made a triumphant entry into the enemy's capital.部队胜利地进入了敌方首都。
• There was a positively triumphant note in her voice.她的声音里带有一种极为得意的语气。

324 sleepless   

adj.不睡眠的，睡不著的，不休息的

参考例句：

• The situation gave her many sleepless nights.这种情况害她一连好多天睡不好觉。
• One evening I heard a tale that rendered me sleepless for nights.一天晚上，我听说了一个传闻，把我搞得一连几夜都不能入睡。

325 waterproof   

n.防水材料；adj.防水的；v.使...能防水

参考例句：

• My mother bought me a waterproof watch.我妈妈给我买了一块防水手表。
• All the electronics are housed in a waterproof box.所有电子设备都储放在一个防水盒中。

326 subsidy   

n.补助金，津贴

参考例句：

• The university will receive a subsidy for research in artificial intelligence.那个大学将得到一笔人工智能研究的补助费。
• The living subsidy for senior expert's family is included in the remuneration.报酬已包含高级专家家人的生活补贴。

327 plowed   

v.耕( plow的过去式和过去分词 )；犁耕；费力穿过

参考例句：

• They plowed nearly 100,000 acres of virgin moorland. 他们犁了将近10万英亩未开垦的高沼地。 来自辞典例句
• He plowed the land and then sowed the seeds. 他先翻土，然后播种。 来自辞典例句

328 ripening   

v.成熟，使熟( ripen的现在分词 )；熟化；熟成

参考例句：

• The corn is blossoming [ripening]. 玉米正在开花[成熟]。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• When the summer crop is ripening, the autumn crop has to be sowed. 夏季作物成熟时，就得播种秋季作物。 来自《简明英汉词典》

329 sociologist   

n.研究社会学的人，社会学家

参考例句：

• His mother was a sociologist,researching socialism.他的母亲是个社会学家，研究社会主义。
• Max Weber is a great and outstanding sociologist.马克斯·韦伯是一位伟大的、杰出的社会学家。

330 conversion   

n.转化，转换，转变

参考例句：

• He underwent quite a conversion.他彻底变了。
• Waste conversion is a part of the production process.废物处理是生产过程的一个组成部分。

331 Buddhism   

n.佛教（教义）

参考例句：

• Buddhism was introduced into China about 67 AD.佛教是在公元67年左右传入中国的。
• Many people willingly converted to Buddhism.很多人情愿皈依佛教。

332 nutritious   

adj.有营养的，营养价值高的

参考例句：

• Fresh vegetables are very nutritious.新鲜蔬菜富于营养。
• Hummingbirds have discovered that nectar and pollen are very nutritious.蜂鸟发现花蜜和花粉是很有营养的。

333 extravagant   

adj.奢侈的；过分的；(言行等)放肆的

参考例句：

• They tried to please him with fulsome compliments and extravagant gifts.他们想用溢美之词和奢华的礼品来取悦他。
• He is extravagant in behaviour.他行为放肆。

334 wasteful   

adj.（造成）浪费的，挥霍的

参考例句：

• It is a shame to be so wasteful.这样浪费太可惜了。
• Duties have been reassigned to avoid wasteful duplication of work.为避免重复劳动浪费资源，任务已经重新分派。

335 staple   

n.主要产物，常用品，主要要素，原料，订书钉，钩环；adj.主要的，重要的；vt.分类

参考例句：

• Tea is the staple crop here.本地产品以茶叶为大宗。
• Potatoes are the staple of their diet.土豆是他们的主要食品。

336 wholesome   

adj.适合；卫生的；有益健康的；显示身心健康的

参考例句：

• In actual fact the things I like doing are mostly wholesome.实际上我喜欢做的事大都是有助于增进身体健康的。
• It is not wholesome to eat without washing your hands.不洗手吃饭是不卫生的。

337 foodstuff   

n.食料，食品

参考例句：

• They handled groceries and foodstuff.他们经营食品杂货。
• Construct a international foodstuff promotion and exhibition trade center.建成国际食品会展经贸中心。

338 subsisted   

v.（靠很少的钱或食物）维持生活，生存下去( subsist的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• Before liberation he subsisted on wild potatoes. 解放前他靠吃野薯度日。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• Survivors of the air crash subsisted on wild fruits. 空难事件的幸存者以野果维持生命。 来自辞典例句

339 spikes   

n.穗( spike的名词复数 )；跑鞋；（防滑）鞋钉；尖状物v.加烈酒于( spike的第三人称单数 )；偷偷地给某人的饮料加入（更多）酒精（ 或药物）；把尖状物钉入；打乱某人的计划

参考例句：

• a row of iron spikes on a wall 墙头的一排尖铁
• There is a row of spikes on top of the prison wall to prevent the prisoners escaping. 监狱墙头装有一排尖钉，以防犯人逃跑。 来自《简明英汉词典》

340 screwdrivers   

n.螺丝刀( screwdriver的名词复数 )；螺丝起子；改锥；伏特加橙汁鸡尾酒

参考例句：

• No, I have everything: hammer, screwdrivers, all that stuff. 不用了，我什么都有了：锤子、螺丝刀，全套家伙。 来自休闲英语会话
• Aussies are injured each year by using sharp knives instead of screwdrivers. 每年有58个澳洲佬因使用锋利的刀子来代替螺丝刀而受伤。 来自互联网

341 morale   

n.道德准则，士气，斗志

参考例句：

• The morale of the enemy troops is sinking lower every day.敌军的士气日益低落。
• He tried to bolster up their morale.他尽力鼓舞他们的士气。

342 ERECTED   

adj. 直立的，竖立的，笔直的 vt. 使 ... 直立，建立

参考例句：

• A monument to him was erected in St Paul's Cathedral. 在圣保罗大教堂为他修了一座纪念碑。
• A monument was erected to the memory of that great scientist. 树立了一块纪念碑纪念那位伟大的科学家。

343 erect   

n./v.树立，建立，使竖立；adj.直立的，垂直的

参考例句：

• She held her head erect and her back straight.她昂着头，把背挺得笔直。
• Soldiers are trained to stand erect.士兵们训练站得笔直。

344 superstitious   

adj.迷信的

参考例句：

• They aim to deliver the people who are in bondage to superstitious belief.他们的目的在于解脱那些受迷信束缚的人。
• These superstitious practices should be abolished as soon as possible.这些迷信做法应尽早取消。

345 laymen   

门外汉，外行人( layman的名词复数 )； 普通教徒（有别于神职人员）

参考例句：

• a book written for professionals and laymen alike 一本内行外行都可以读的书
• Avoid computer jargon when you write for laymen. 写东西给一般人看时，应避免使用电脑术语。

346 snarled   

v.（指狗）吠，嗥叫， （人）咆哮( snarl的过去式和过去分词 )；咆哮着说，厉声地说

参考例句：

• The dog snarled at us. 狗朝我们低声吼叫。
• As I advanced towards the dog, It'snarled and struck at me. 我朝那条狗走去时，它狂吠着向我扑来。 来自《简明英汉词典》

347 sect   

n.派别，宗教，学派，派系

参考例句：

• When he was sixteen he joined a religious sect.他16岁的时候加入了一个宗教教派。
• Each religious sect in the town had its own church.该城每一个宗教教派都有自己的教堂。

348 crumbling   

adj.摇摇欲坠的

参考例句：

• an old house with crumbling plaster and a leaking roof 一所灰泥剥落、屋顶漏水的老房子
• The boat was tied up alongside a crumbling limestone jetty. 这条船停泊在一个摇摇欲坠的石灰岩码头边。

349 ordeal   

n.苦难经历，（尤指对品格、耐力的）严峻考验

参考例句：

• She managed to keep her sanity throughout the ordeal.在那场磨难中她始终保持神志正常。
• Being lost in the wilderness for a week was an ordeal for me.在荒野里迷路一星期对我来说真是一场磨难。

350 impervious   

adj.不能渗透的，不能穿过的，不易伤害的

参考例句：

• He was completely impervious to criticism.他对批评毫不在乎。
• This material is impervious to gases and liquids.气体和液体都透不过这种物质。

351 tunic   

n.束腰外衣

参考例句：

• The light loose mantle was thrown over his tunic.一件轻质宽大的斗蓬披在上衣外面。
• Your tunic and hose match ill with that jewel,young man.你的外套和裤子跟你那首饰可不相称呢，年轻人。

352 briefcase   

n.手提箱，公事皮包

参考例句：

• He packed a briefcase with what might be required.他把所有可能需要的东西都装进公文包。
• He requested the old man to look after the briefcase.他请求那位老人照看这个公事包。

353 possessed   

adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的

参考例句：

• He flew out of the room like a man possessed.他像着了魔似地猛然冲出房门。
• He behaved like someone possessed.他行为举止像是魔怔了。

354 adhesive   

n.粘合剂；adj.可粘着的，粘性的

参考例句：

• You'll need a strong adhesive to mend that chair. 你需要一种粘性很强的东西来修理那把椅子。
• Would you give me an adhesive stamp?请给我一枚带胶邮票好吗？

355 projector   

n.投影机，放映机，幻灯机

参考例句：

• There is a new projector in my office.我的办公室里有一架新的幻灯机。
• How long will it take to set up the projector?把这个放映机安放好需要多长时间？

356 briefly   

adv.简单地，简短地

参考例句：

• I want to touch briefly on another aspect of the problem.我想简单地谈一下这个问题的另一方面。
• He was kidnapped and briefly detained by a terrorist group.他被一个恐怖组织绑架并短暂拘禁。

357 unnatural   

adj.不自然的；反常的

参考例句：

• Did her behaviour seem unnatural in any way?她有任何反常表现吗？
• She has an unnatural smile on her face.她脸上挂着做作的微笑。

358 strand   

vt.使（船）搁浅，使（某人）困于（某地）

参考例句：

• She tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ears.她把一缕散发夹到了耳后。
• The climbers had been stranded by a storm.登山者被暴风雨困住了。

359 intelligible   

adj.可理解的，明白易懂的，清楚的

参考例句：

• This report would be intelligible only to an expert in computing.只有计算机运算专家才能看懂这份报告。
• His argument was barely intelligible.他的论点不易理解。

360 tangled   

adj. 纠缠的，紊乱的 动词tangle的过去式和过去分词

参考例句：

• Your hair's so tangled that I can't comb it. 你的头发太乱了，我梳不动。
• A movement caught his eye in the tangled undergrowth. 乱灌木丛里的晃动引起了他的注意。

361 compliant   

adj.服从的，顺从的

参考例句：

• I don't respect people who are too compliant.我看不起那种唯命是从，唯唯诺诺的人。
• For years I had tried to be a compliant and dutiful wife.几年来，我努力做一名顺从和尽职尽职的妻子。

362 pliant   

adj.顺从的；可弯曲的

参考例句：

• She's proud and stubborn,you know,under that pliant exterior.你要知道，在温顺的外表下，她既自傲又固执。
• They weave a basket out of osiers with pliant young willows.他们用易弯的柳枝编制篮子。

363 depot   

n.仓库，储藏处；公共汽车站；火车站

参考例句：

• The depot is only a few blocks from here.公共汽车站离这儿只有几个街区。
• They leased the building as a depot.他们租用这栋大楼作仓库。

364 scuttle   

v.急赶，疾走，逃避；n.天窗；舷窗

参考例句：

• There was a general scuttle for shelter when the rain began to fall heavily.下大雨了，人们都飞跑着寻找躲雨的地方。
• The scuttle was open,and the good daylight shone in.明朗的亮光从敞开的小窗中照了进来。

365 delegations   

n.代表团( delegation的名词复数 )；委托，委派

参考例句：

• In the past 15 years, China has sent 280 women delegations abroad. 十五年来，中国共派280批妇女代表团出访。 来自汉英非文学 - 白皮书
• The Sun Ray decision follows the federal pattern of tolerating broad delegations but insisting on safeguards. “阳光”案的判决仿效联邦容许广泛授权的做法，但又坚持保护措施。 来自英汉非文学 - 行政法

366 strings   

n.弦

参考例句：

• He sat on the bed,idly plucking the strings of his guitar.他坐在床上，随意地拨着吉他的弦。
• She swept her fingers over the strings of the harp.她用手指划过竖琴的琴弦。

367 caterpillars   

n.毛虫( caterpillar的名词复数 )；履带

参考例句：

• Caterpillars eat the young leaves of this plant. 毛毛虫吃这种植物的嫩叶。
• Caterpillars change into butterflies or moths. 毛虫能变成蝴蝶或蛾子。 来自辞典例句

368 dribble   

v.点滴留下，流口水；n.口水

参考例句：

• Melted wax dribbled down the side of the candle.熔化了的蜡一滴滴从蜡烛边上流下。
• He wiped a dribble of saliva from his chin.他擦掉了下巴上的几滴口水。

369 clattered   

发出咔哒声（clatter的过去式与过去分词形式）

参考例句：

• He dropped the knife and it clattered on the stone floor. 他一失手，刀子当啷一声掉到石头地面上。
• His hand went limp and the knife clattered to the ground. 他的手一软，刀子当啷一声掉到地上。

370 fixtures   

（房屋等的）固定装置( fixture的名词复数 )； 如（浴盆、抽水马桶）； 固定在某位置的人或物； （定期定点举行的）体育活动

参考例句：

• The insurance policy covers the building and any fixtures contained therein. 保险单为这座大楼及其中所有的设施保了险。
• The fixtures had already been sold and the sum divided. 固定设备已经卖了，钱也分了。 来自英汉文学 - 嘉莉妹妹

371 paralytic   

adj. 瘫痪的 n. 瘫痪病人

参考例句：

• She was completely paralytic last night.她昨天晚上喝得酩酊大醉。
• She rose and hobbled to me on her paralytic legs and kissed me.她站起来，拖着她那麻痹的双腿一瘸一拐地走到我身边，吻了吻我。

372 realization   

n.实现；认识到，深刻了解

参考例句：

• We shall gladly lend every effort in our power toward its realization.我们将乐意为它的实现而竭尽全力。
• He came to the realization that he would never make a good teacher.他逐渐认识到自己永远不会成为好老师。

373 kernels   

谷粒( kernel的名词复数 )； 仁； 核； 要点

参考例句：

• These stones contain kernels. 这些核中有仁。
• Resolving kernels and standard errors can also be computed for each block. 还可以计算每个块体的分辨核和标准误差。

374 unlimited   

adj.无限的，不受控制的，无条件的

参考例句：

• They flew over the unlimited reaches of the Arctic.他们飞过了茫茫无边的北极上空。
• There is no safety in unlimited technological hubris.在技术方面自以为是会很危险。

375 evaded   

逃避( evade的过去式和过去分词 )； 避开； 回避； 想不出

参考例句：

• For two weeks they evaded the press. 他们有两周一直避而不见记者。
• The lion evaded the hunter. 那狮子躲开了猎人。

376 formerly   

adv.从前，以前

参考例句：

• We now enjoy these comforts of which formerly we had only heard.我们现在享受到了过去只是听说过的那些舒适条件。
• This boat was formerly used on the rivers of China.这船从前航行在中国内河里。

377 demolishing   

v.摧毁( demolish的现在分词 )；推翻；拆毁（尤指大建筑物）；吃光

参考例句：

• The machine was designed specially for demolishing old buildings. 这种机器是专为拆毁旧楼房而设计的。 来自《用法词典》
• Conventional demolishing work would have caused considerable interruptions in traffic. 如果采用一般的拆除方法就要引起交通的严重中断。 来自辞典例句

378 gutted   

adj.容易消化的v.毁坏（建筑物等）的内部( gut的过去式和过去分词 )；取出…的内脏

参考例句：

• Disappointed? I was gutted! 失望？我是伤心透了！
• The invaders gutted the historic building. 侵略者们将那幢历史上有名的建筑洗劫一空。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

379 acrid   

adj.辛辣的，尖刻的，刻薄的

参考例句：

• There is an acrid tone to your remarks.你说这些话的口气带有讥刺意味。
• The room was filled with acrid smoke.房里充满刺鼻的烟。

380 prematurely   

adv.过早地，贸然地

参考例句：

• She was born prematurely with poorly developed lungs. 她早产，肺部未发育健全。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• His hair was prematurely white, but his busy eyebrows were still jet-black. 他的头发已经白了，不过两道浓眉还是乌黑乌黑的。 来自辞典例句

381 moldy   

adj.发霉的

参考例句：

• She chucked the moldy potatoes in the dustbin.她把发霉的土豆扔进垃圾箱。
• Oranges can be kept for a long time without going moldy.橙子可以存放很长时间而不腐烂。

382 breach   

n.违反，不履行；破裂；vt.冲破，攻破

参考例句：

• We won't have any breach of discipline.我们不允许任何破坏纪律的现象。
• He was sued for breach of contract.他因不履行合同而被起诉。

383 strands   

n.（线、绳、金属线、毛发等的）股( strand的名词复数 )；缕；海洋、湖或河的)岸；（观点、计划、故事等的）部份v.使滞留，使搁浅( strand的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• Twist a length of rope from strands of hemp. 用几股麻搓成了一段绳子。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• She laced strands into a braid. 她把几股线编织成一根穗带。 来自《简明英汉词典》

384 luster   

n.光辉；光泽，光亮；荣誉

参考例句：

• His great books have added luster to the university where he teaches.他的巨著给他任教的大学增了光。
• Mercerization enhances dyeability and luster of cotton materials.丝光处理扩大棉纤维的染色能力，增加纤维的光泽。

385 vein   

n.血管，静脉；叶脉，纹理；情绪；vt.使成脉络

参考例句：

• The girl is not in the vein for singing today.那女孩今天没有心情唱歌。
• The doctor injects glucose into the patient's vein.医生把葡萄糖注射入病人的静脉。

386 chambers   

n.房间( chamber的名词复数 )；（议会的）议院；卧室；会议厅

参考例句：

• The body will be removed into one of the cold storage chambers. 尸体将被移到一个冷冻间里。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Mr Chambers's readable book concentrates on the middle passage: the time Ransome spent in Russia. Chambers先生的这本值得一看的书重点在中间：Ransome在俄国的那几年。 来自互联网

387 linen   

n.亚麻布，亚麻线，亚麻制品；adj.亚麻布制的，亚麻的

参考例句：

• The worker is starching the linen.这名工人正在给亚麻布上浆。
• Fine linen and cotton fabrics were known as well as wool.精细的亚麻织品和棉织品像羊毛一样闻名遐迩。

388 tablecloth   

n.桌布，台布

参考例句：

• He sat there ruminating and picking at the tablecloth.他坐在那儿沉思，轻轻地抚弄着桌布。
• She smoothed down a wrinkled tablecloth.她把起皱的桌布熨平了。

389 butt   

n.笑柄；烟蒂；枪托；臀部；v.用头撞或顶

参考例句：

• The water butt catches the overflow from this pipe.大水桶盛接管子里流出的东西。
• He was the butt of their jokes.他是他们的笑柄。

390 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

391 lumbering   

n.采伐林木

参考例句：

• Lumbering and, later, paper-making were carried out in smaller cities. 木材业和后来的造纸都由较小的城市经营。
• Lumbering is very important in some underdeveloped countries. 在一些不发达的国家，伐木业十分重要。

392 pretense   

n.矫饰，做作，借口

参考例句：

• You can't keep up the pretense any longer.你无法继续伪装下去了。
• Pretense invariably impresses only the pretender.弄虚作假欺骗不了真正的行家。

393 furtive   

adj.鬼鬼崇崇的，偷偷摸摸的

参考例句：

• The teacher was suspicious of the student's furtive behaviour during the exam.老师怀疑这个学生在考试时有偷偷摸摸的行为。
• His furtive behaviour aroused our suspicion.他鬼鬼祟祟的行为引起了我们的怀疑。

394 luncheons   

n.午餐，午宴( luncheon的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Edith Helm was not invited to these intimate luncheons. 伊迪丝·赫尔姆没有被邀请出度反映亲密关系的午餐会。
• The weekly luncheons became a regular institution. 这每周一次午餐变成了一种经常的制度。

395 lethargically   

参考例句：

• He hung around the house lethargically. 他昏昏沉沉地在房子四周徘徊。 来自互联网

396 inquiry   

n.打听，询问，调查，查问

参考例句：

• Many parents have been pressing for an inquiry into the problem.许多家长迫切要求调查这个问题。
• The field of inquiry has narrowed down to five persons.调查的范围已经缩小到只剩5个人了。

397 justification   

n.正当的理由；辩解的理由

参考例句：

• There's no justification for dividing the company into smaller units. 没有理由把公司划分成小单位。
• In the young there is a justification for this feeling. 在年轻人中有这种感觉是有理由的。

398 retrench   

v.节省，削减

参考例句：

• Shortly afterwards,cuts in defence spending forced the aerospace industry to retrench.不久之后，国防开支的削减迫使航空航天业紧缩开支。
• Inflation has forced us to retrench.因通货膨胀我们不得不紧缩开支。

399 intervals   

n.[军事]间隔( interval的名词复数 )；间隔时间；[数学]区间；（戏剧、电影或音乐会的）幕间休息

参考例句：

• The forecast said there would be sunny intervals and showers. 预报间晴，有阵雨。
• Meetings take place at fortnightly intervals. 每两周开一次会。

400 delude   

vt.欺骗；哄骗

参考例句：

• You won't delude him into believing it.你不能诱使他相信此事。
• Don't delude yourself into believing that she will marry you.不要自欺，别以为她会嫁给你。

401 adversary   

adj.敌手，对手

参考例句：

• He saw her as his main adversary within the company.他将她视为公司中主要的对手。
• They will do anything to undermine their adversary's reputation.他们会不择手段地去损害对手的名誉。

402 overdo   

vt.把...做得过头，演得过火

参考例句：

• Do not overdo your privilege of reproving me.不要过分使用责备我的特权。
• The taxi drivers' association is urging its members,who can work as many hours as they want,not to overdo it.出租车司机协会劝告那些工作时长不受限制的会员不要疲劳驾驶。

403 arrogance   

n.傲慢，自大

参考例句：

• His arrogance comes out in every speech he makes.他每次讲话都表现得骄傲自大。
• Arrogance arrested his progress.骄傲阻碍了他的进步。

404 humility   

n.谦逊，谦恭

参考例句：

• Humility often gains more than pride.谦逊往往比骄傲收益更多。
• His voice was still soft and filled with specious humility.他的声音还是那么温和，甚至有点谦卑。

405 texture   

n.(织物)质地；(材料)构造；结构；肌理

参考例句：

• We could feel the smooth texture of silk.我们能感觉出丝绸的光滑质地。
• Her skin has a fine texture.她的皮肤细腻。

406 elegance   

n.优雅；优美，雅致；精致，巧妙

参考例句：

• The furnishings in the room imparted an air of elegance.这个房间的家具带给这房间一种优雅的气氛。
• John has been known for his sartorial elegance.约翰因为衣着讲究而出名。

407 jewelry   

n.（jewllery）（总称）珠宝

参考例句：

• The burglars walked off with all my jewelry.夜盗偷走了我的全部珠宝。
• Jewelry and lace are mostly feminine belongings.珠宝和花边多数是女性用品。

408 flicker   

vi./n.闪烁，摇曳，闪现

参考例句：

• There was a flicker of lights coming from the abandoned house.这所废弃的房屋中有灯光闪烁。
• At first,the flame may be a small flicker,barely shining.开始时，光辉可能是微弱地忽隐忽现，几乎并不灿烂。

409 gems   

growth； economy； management； and customer satisfaction 增长

参考例句：

• a crown studded with gems 镶有宝石的皇冠
• The apt citations and poetic gems have adorned his speeches. 贴切的引语和珠玑般的诗句为他的演说词增添文采。

410 ornament   

v.装饰，美化；n.装饰，装饰物

参考例句：

• The flowers were put on the table for ornament.花放在桌子上做装饰用。
• She wears a crystal ornament on her chest.她的前胸戴了一个水晶饰品。

411 cape   

n.海角，岬；披肩，短披风

参考例句：

• I long for a trip to the Cape of Good Hope.我渴望到好望角去旅行。
• She was wearing a cape over her dress.她在外套上披着一件披肩。

412 arrogantly   

adv.傲慢地

参考例句：

• The consular porter strode arrogantly ahead with his light swinging. 领事馆的门房提着摇来晃去的灯，在前面大摇大摆地走着。
• It made his great nose protrude more arrogantly. 这就使得他的大鼻子更加傲慢地翘起来。

413 patrician   

adj.贵族的，显贵的；n.贵族；有教养的人；罗马帝国的地方官

参考例句：

• The old patrician was buried in the family vault.这位老贵族埋在家族的墓地里。
• Its patrician dignity was a picturesque sham.它的贵族的尊严只是一套华丽的伪装。

414 sables   

n.紫貂( sable的名词复数 )；紫貂皮；阴暗的；暗夜

参考例句：

• Able sables staple apples on stable tables. 能干的黑貂把苹果钉在牢固的桌子上。 来自互联网

415 waxworks   

n.公共供水系统；蜡制品，蜡像( waxwork的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Madame Tussaud is one of most famous waxworks in the world. 杜莎夫人蜡像馆是世界上最著名的蜡像馆之一。 来自互联网
• A lot of people in the waxworks will get the axe. 蜡像馆里的很多人将被解雇。 来自互联网

416 advertising   

n.广告业；广告活动 a.广告的；广告业务的

参考例句：

• Can you give me any advice on getting into advertising? 你能指点我如何涉足广告业吗?
• The advertising campaign is aimed primarily at young people. 这个广告宣传运动主要是针对年轻人的。

417 burlesque   

v.嘲弄，戏仿；n.嘲弄，取笑，滑稽模仿

参考例句：

• Our comic play was a burlesque of a Shakespearean tragedy.我们的喜剧是对莎士比亚一出悲剧的讽刺性模仿。
• He shouldn't burlesque the elder.他不应模仿那长者。

418 compute   

v./n.计算，估计

参考例句：

• I compute my losses at 500 dollars.我估计我的损失有五百元。
• The losses caused by the floods were beyond compute.洪水造成的损失难以估量。

419 ranches   

大农场， （兼种果树，养鸡等的）大牧场( ranch的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• They hauled feedlot manure from the ranches to fertilize their fields. 他们从牧场的饲养场拖走肥料去肥田。
• Many abandoned ranches are purchased or leased by other poultrymen. 许多被放弃的牧场会由其他家禽监主收买或租用。

420 primly   

adv.循规蹈矩地，整洁地

参考例句：

• He didn't reply, but just smiled primly. 他没回答，只是拘谨地笑了笑。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He wore prim suits with neckties set primly against the collar buttons of his white shirts. 他穿着整洁的外套，领结紧贴着白色衬衫领口的钮扣。 来自互联网

421 dismantled   

拆开( dismantle的过去式和过去分词 )； 拆卸； 废除； 取消

参考例句：

• The plant was dismantled of all its equipment and furniture. 这家工厂的设备和家具全被拆除了。
• The Japanese empire was quickly dismantled. 日本帝国很快被打垮了。

422 dismantle   

vt.拆开，拆卸；废除，取消

参考例句：

• He asked for immediate help from the United States to dismantle the warheads.他请求美国立即提供援助，拆除这批弹头。
• The mower firmly refused to mow,so I decided to dismantle it.修完后割草机还是纹丝不动，于是，我决定把它拆开。

423 sprawled   

v.伸开四肢坐[躺]( sprawl的过去式和过去分词)；蔓延；杂乱无序地拓展；四肢伸展坐着（或躺着）

参考例句：

• He was sprawled full-length across the bed. 他手脚摊开横躺在床上。
• He was lying sprawled in an armchair, watching TV. 他四肢伸开正懒散地靠在扶手椅上看电视。

424 tolerance   

n.宽容；容忍，忍受；耐药力；公差

参考例句：

• Tolerance is one of his strengths.宽容是他的一个优点。
• Human beings have limited tolerance of noise.人类对噪音的忍耐力有限。

425 sullenly   

不高兴地，绷着脸，忧郁地

参考例句：

• 'so what?" Tom said sullenly. “那又怎么样呢？”汤姆绷着脸说。
• Emptiness after the paper, I sIt'sullenly in front of the stove. 报看完，想不出能找点什么事做，只好一人坐在火炉旁生气。

426 seceding   

v.脱离，退出( secede的现在分词 )

参考例句：

427 gadgets   

n.小机械，小器具（ gadget的名词复数 ）

参考例句：

• Certainly. The idea is not to have a house full of gadgets. 当然。设想是房屋不再充满小配件。 来自超越目标英语 第4册
• This meant more gadgets and more experiments. 这意味着要设计出更多的装置，做更多的实验。 来自英汉非文学 - 科学史

428 dame   

n.女士

参考例句：

• The dame tell of her experience as a wife and mother.这位年长妇女讲了她作妻子和母亲的经验。
• If you stick around,you'll have to marry that dame.如果再逗留多一会，你就要跟那个夫人结婚。

429 retrenching   

v.紧缩开支( retrench的现在分词 )；削减（费用）；节省

参考例句：

430 hysterically   

ad. 歇斯底里地

参考例句：

• The children giggled hysterically. 孩子们歇斯底里地傻笑。
• She sobbed hysterically, and her thin body was shaken. 她歇斯底里地抽泣着，她瘦弱的身体哭得直颤抖。

431 technological   

adj.技术的；工艺的

参考例句：

• A successful company must keep up with the pace of technological change.一家成功的公司必须得跟上技术变革的步伐。
• Today,the pace of life is increasing with technological advancements.当今， 随着科技进步，生活节奏不断增快。

432 jargon   

n.术语，行话

参考例句：

• They will not hear critics with their horrible jargon.他们不愿意听到评论家们那些可怕的行话。
• It is important not to be overawed by the mathematical jargon.要紧的是不要被数学的术语所吓倒.

433 stupor   

v.昏迷；不省人事

参考例句：

• As the whisky took effect, he gradually fell into a drunken stupor.随着威士忌酒力发作，他逐渐醉得不省人事。
• The noise of someone banging at the door roused her from her stupor.梆梆的敲门声把她从昏迷中唤醒了。

434 stagnant   

adj.不流动的，停滞的，不景气的

参考例句：

• Due to low investment,industrial output has remained stagnant.由于投资少，工业生产一直停滞不前。
• Their national economy is stagnant.他们的国家经济停滞不前。

435 fiber   

n.纤维，纤维质

参考例句：

• The basic structural unit of yarn is the fiber.纤维是纱的基本结构单元。
• The material must be free of fiber clumps.这种材料必须无纤维块。

436 feudal   

adj.封建的，封地的，领地的

参考例句：

• Feudal rulers ruled over the country several thousand years.封建统治者统治这个国家几千年。
• The feudal system lasted for two thousand years in China.封建制度在中国延续了两千年之久。

437 baron   

n.男爵；(商业界等)巨头，大王

参考例句：

• Henry Ford was an automobile baron.亨利·福特是一位汽车业巨头。
• The baron lived in a strong castle.男爵住在一座坚固的城堡中。

438 goblets   

n.高脚酒杯( goblet的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Oh the goblets of the breast! Oh the eyes of absence! 噢，乳房的杯盏！噢，失神的双眼！ 来自互联网
• Divide the digestive biscuit crumbs mixture between 6 goblets. 消化？底分成6双玻璃杯中。 来自互联网

439 prospect   

n.前景，前途；景色，视野

参考例句：

• This state of things holds out a cheerful prospect.事态呈现出可喜的前景。
• The prospect became more evident.前景变得更加明朗了。

440 indifference   

n.不感兴趣，不关心，冷淡，不在乎

参考例句：

• I was disappointed by his indifference more than somewhat.他的漠不关心使我很失望。
• He feigned indifference to criticism of his work.他假装毫不在意别人批评他的作品。

441 courteous   

adj.彬彬有礼的，客气的

参考例句：

• Although she often disagreed with me,she was always courteous.尽管她常常和我意见不一，但她总是很谦恭有礼。
• He was a kind and courteous man.他为人友善，而且彬彬有礼。

442 lustrous   

adj.有光泽的；光辉的

参考例句：

• Mary has a head of thick,lustrous,wavy brown hair.玛丽有一头浓密、富有光泽的褐色鬈发。
• This mask definitely makes the skin fair and lustrous.这款面膜可以异常有用的使肌肤变亮和有光泽。

443 swirl   

v.(使)打漩，(使)涡卷；n.漩涡，螺旋形

参考例句：

• The car raced roughly along in a swirl of pink dust.汽车在一股粉红色尘土的漩涡中颠簸着快速前进。
• You could lie up there,watching the flakes swirl past.你可以躺在那儿，看着雪花飘飘。

444 skyscrapers   

n.摩天大楼

参考例句：

• A lot of skyscrapers in Manhattan are rising up to the skies. 曼哈顿有许多摩天大楼耸入云霄。
• On all sides, skyscrapers rose like jagged teeth. 四周耸起的摩天大楼参差不齐。

445 drawn   

v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的

参考例句：

• All the characters in the story are drawn from life.故事中的所有人物都取材于生活。
• Her gaze was drawn irresistibly to the scene outside.她的目光禁不住被外面的风景所吸引。

446 preposterous   

adj.荒谬的，可笑的

参考例句：

• The whole idea was preposterous.整个想法都荒唐透顶。
• It would be preposterous to shovel coal with a teaspoon.用茶匙铲煤是荒谬的。

447 splendor   

n.光彩；壮丽，华丽；显赫，辉煌

参考例句：

• Never in his life had he gazed on such splendor.他生平从没有见过如此辉煌壮丽的场面。
• All the splendor in the world is not worth a good friend.人世间所有的荣华富贵不如一个好朋友。

448 abject   

adj.极可怜的，卑屈的

参考例句：

• This policy has turned out to be an abject failure.这一政策最后以惨败而告终。
• He had been obliged to offer an abject apology to Mr.Alleyne for his impertinence.他不得不低声下气，为他的无礼举动向艾莱恩先生请罪。

449 flare   

v.闪耀，闪烁；n.潮红；突发

参考例句：

• The match gave a flare.火柴发出闪光。
• You need not flare up merely because I mentioned your work.你大可不必因为我提到你的工作就动怒。

450 Flared   

adj. 端部张开的, 爆发的, 加宽的, 漏斗式的 动词flare的过去式和过去分词

参考例句：

• The match flared and went out. 火柴闪亮了一下就熄了。
• The fire flared up when we thought it was out. 我们以为火已经熄灭，但它突然又燃烧起来。

451 stagnation   

n. 停滞

参考例句：

• Poor economic policies led to a long period of stagnation and decline. 糟糕的经济政策道致了长时间的经济萧条和下滑。
• Motion is absolute while stagnation is relative. 运动是绝对的，而静止是相对的。

452 exemptions   

n.（义务等的）免除( exemption的名词复数 )；免（税）；（收入中的）免税额

参考例句：

• The exemptions for interpretive rules, policy statements, and procedural rules have just been discussed. 有关解释性规则、政策说明和程序规则的免责我们刚刚讨论过。 来自英汉非文学 - 行政法
• A: The regulation outlines specific exemptions for some WPM. 答：该规定概述了某些木质包装材料的特定的例外情形。 来自互联网

453 wrecking   

破坏

参考例句：

• He teed off on his son for wrecking the car. 他严厉训斥他儿子毁坏了汽车。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Instead of wrecking the valley, the waters are put to use making electricity. 现在河水不但不在流域内肆疟，反而被人们用来生产电力。 来自辞典例句

454 huddling   

n. 杂乱一团, 混乱, 拥挤 v. 推挤, 乱堆, 草率了事

参考例句：

• Twenty or thirty monkeys are huddling along the thick branch. 三十只猴子挤在粗大的树枝上。
• The defenders are huddling down for cover. 捍卫者为了掩护缩成一团。

455 maze   

n.迷宫，八阵图，混乱，迷惑

参考例句：

• He found his way through the complex maze of corridors.他穿过了迷宮一样的走廊。
• She was lost in the maze for several hours.一连几小时，她的头脑处于一片糊涂状态。

456 vaults   

n.拱顶( vault的名词复数 )；地下室；撑物跳高；墓穴

参考例句：

• It was deposited in the vaults of a bank. 它存在一家银行的保险库里。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• They think of viruses that infect an organization from the outside.They envision hackers breaking into their information vaults. 他们考虑来自外部的感染公司的病毒，他们设想黑客侵入到信息宝库中。 来自《简明英汉词典》

457 planks   

（厚）木板( plank的名词复数 )； 政纲条目，政策要点

参考例句：

• The house was built solidly of rough wooden planks. 这房子是用粗木板牢固地建造的。
• We sawed the log into planks. 我们把木头锯成了木板。

458 deposed   

v.罢免( depose的过去式和过去分词 )；（在法庭上）宣誓作证

参考例句：

• The president was deposed in a military coup. 总统在军事政变中被废黜。
• The head of state was deposed by the army. 国家元首被军队罢免了。 来自《简明英汉词典》

459 exacting   

adj.苛求的，要求严格的

参考例句：

• He must remember the letters and symbols with exacting precision.他必须以严格的精度记住每个字母和符号。
• The public has been more exacting in its demands as time has passed.随着时间的推移，公众的要求更趋严格。

460 conceal   

v.隐藏，隐瞒，隐蔽

参考例句：

• He had to conceal his identity to escape the police.为了躲避警方，他只好隐瞒身份。
• He could hardly conceal his joy at his departure.他几乎掩饰不住临行时的喜悦。

461 bent   

n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的

参考例句：

• He was fully bent upon the project.他一心扑在这项计划上。
• We bent over backward to help them.我们尽了最大努力帮助他们。

462 relaxation   

n.松弛，放松；休息；消遣；娱乐

参考例句：

• The minister has consistently opposed any relaxation in the law.部长一向反对法律上的任何放宽。
• She listens to classical music for relaxation.她听古典音乐放松。

463 vertical   

adj.垂直的，顶点的，纵向的；n.垂直物，垂直的位置

参考例句：

• The northern side of the mountain is almost vertical.这座山的北坡几乎是垂直的。
• Vertical air motions are not measured by this system.垂直气流的运动不用这种系统来测量。

464 protruded   

v.（使某物）伸出，（使某物）突出( protrude的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• The child protruded his tongue. 那小孩伸出舌头。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The creature's face seemed to be protruded, because of its bent carriage. 那人的脑袋似乎向前突出，那是因为身子佝偻的缘故。 来自英汉文学

465 streaks   

n.（与周围有所不同的）条纹( streak的名词复数 )；（通常指不好的）特征（倾向）；（不断经历成功或失败的）一段时期v.快速移动( streak的第三人称单数 )；使布满条纹

参考例句：

• streaks of grey in her hair 她头上的绺绺白发
• Bacon has streaks of fat and streaks of lean. 咸肉中有几层肥的和几层瘦的。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》

466 streak   

n.条理，斑纹，倾向，少许，痕迹；v.加条纹，变成条纹，奔驰，快速移动

参考例句：

• The Indians used to streak their faces with paint.印第安人过去常用颜料在脸上涂条纹。
• Why did you streak the tree?你为什么在树上刻条纹？

467 contraction   

n.缩略词，缩写式，害病

参考例句：

• The contraction of this muscle raises the lower arm.肌肉的收缩使前臂抬起。
• The forces of expansion are balanced by forces of contraction.扩张力和收缩力相互平衡。

468 beads   

n.（空心）小珠子( bead的名词复数 )；水珠；珠子项链

参考例句：

• a necklace of wooden beads 一条木珠项链
• Beads of perspiration stood out on his forehead. 他的前额上挂着汗珠。

469 laborer   

n.劳动者，劳工

参考例句：

• Her husband had been a farm laborer.她丈夫以前是个农场雇工。
• He worked as a casual laborer and did not earn much.他当临时工，没有赚多少钱。

470 determined   

adj.坚定的；有决心的

参考例句：

• I have determined on going to Tibet after graduation.我已决定毕业后去西藏。
• He determined to view the rooms behind the office.他决定查看一下办公室后面的房间。

471 paradox   

n.似乎矛盾却正确的说法；自相矛盾的人(物)

参考例句：

• The story contains many levels of paradox.这个故事存在多重悖论。
• The paradox is that Japan does need serious education reform.矛盾的地方是日本确实需要教育改革。

472 clearance   

n.净空；许可(证)；清算；清除，清理

参考例句：

• There was a clearance of only ten centimetres between the two walls.两堵墙之间只有十厘米的空隙。
• The ship sailed as soon as it got clearance. 那艘船一办好离港手续立刻启航了。

473 humiliation   

n.羞辱

参考例句：

• He suffered the humiliation of being forced to ask for his cards.他蒙受了被迫要求辞职的羞辱。
• He will wish to revenge his humiliation in last Season's Final.他会为在上个季度的决赛中所受的耻辱而报复的。

474 greasy   

adj. 多脂的，油脂的

参考例句：

• He bought a heavy-duty cleanser to clean his greasy oven.昨天他买了强力清洁剂来清洗油污的炉子。
• You loathe the smell of greasy food when you are seasick.当你晕船时，你会厌恶油腻的气味。

475 exhaustion   

n.耗尽枯竭，疲惫，筋疲力尽，竭尽，详尽无遗的论述

参考例句：

• She slept the sleep of exhaustion.她因疲劳而酣睡。
• His exhaustion was obvious when he fell asleep standing.他站着睡着了，显然是太累了。

476 apprehensive   

adj.担心的，恐惧的，善于领会的

参考例句：

• She was deeply apprehensive about her future.她对未来感到非常担心。
• He was rather apprehensive of failure.他相当害怕失败。

477 resonant   

adj.(声音)洪亮的，共鸣的

参考例句：

• She has a resonant voice.她的嗓子真亮。
• He responded with a resonant laugh.他报以洪亮的笑声。

478 sooted   

v.煤烟，烟灰( soot的过去分词 )

参考例句：

• The flue has become sooted up. 烟道里都是黑灰。 来自辞典例句

479 flaunting   

adj.招摇的，扬扬得意的，夸耀的v.炫耀，夸耀( flaunt的现在分词 )；有什么能耐就施展出来

参考例句：

• He did not believe in flaunting his wealth. 他不赞成摆阔。
• She is fond of flaunting her superiority before her friends and schoolmates. 她好在朋友和同学面前逞强。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

480 overalls   

n.（复）工装裤；长罩衣

参考例句：

• He is in overalls today.他今天穿的是工作裤。
• He changed his overalls for a suit.他脱下工装裤，换上了一套西服。

481 awareness   

n.意识，觉悟，懂事，明智

参考例句：

• There is a general awareness that smoking is harmful.人们普遍认识到吸烟有害健康。
• Environmental awareness has increased over the years.这些年来人们的环境意识增强了。

482 serenity   

n.宁静，沉着，晴朗

参考例句：

• Her face,though sad,still evoked a feeling of serenity.她的脸色虽然悲伤，但仍使人感觉安详。
• She escaped to the comparative serenity of the kitchen.她逃到相对安静的厨房里。

483 simplicity   

n.简单，简易；朴素；直率，单纯

参考例句：

• She dressed with elegant simplicity.她穿着朴素高雅。
• The beauty of this plan is its simplicity.简明扼要是这个计划的一大特点。

484 ingenuity   

n.别出心裁；善于发明创造

参考例句：

• The boy showed ingenuity in making toys.那个小男孩做玩具很有创造力。
• I admire your ingenuity and perseverance.我钦佩你的别出心裁和毅力。

485 confession   

n.自白，供认，承认

参考例句：

• Her confession was simply tantamount to a casual explanation.她的自白简直等于一篇即席说明。
• The police used torture to extort a confession from him.警察对他用刑逼供。

486 irresistible   

adj.非常诱人的，无法拒绝的，无法抗拒的

参考例句：

• The wheel of history rolls forward with an irresistible force.历史车轮滚滚向前，势不可挡。
• She saw an irresistible skirt in the store window.她看见商店的橱窗里有一条叫人着迷的裙子。

487 exultant   

adj.欢腾的，狂欢的，大喜的

参考例句：

• The exultant crowds were dancing in the streets.欢欣的人群在大街上跳起了舞。
• He was exultant that she was still so much in his power.他仍然能轻而易举地摆布她，对此他欣喜若狂。

488 granite   

adj.花岗岩，花岗石

参考例句：

• They squared a block of granite.他们把一块花岗岩加工成四方形。
• The granite overlies the older rocks.花岗岩躺在磨损的岩石上面。

489 shudder   

v.战粟，震动，剧烈地摇晃；n.战粟，抖动

参考例句：

• The sight of the coffin sent a shudder through him.看到那副棺材，他浑身一阵战栗。
• We all shudder at the thought of the dreadful dirty place.我们一想到那可怕的肮脏地方就浑身战惊。

490 glistening   

adj.闪耀的，反光的v.湿物闪耀，闪亮( glisten的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• Her eyes were glistening with tears. 她眼里闪着晶莹的泪花。
• Her eyes were glistening with tears. 她眼睛中的泪水闪着柔和的光。 来自《用法词典》

491 defiantly   

adv.挑战地，大胆对抗地

参考例句：

• Braving snow and frost, the plum trees blossomed defiantly. 红梅傲雪凌霜开。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• She tilted her chin at him defiantly. 她向他翘起下巴表示挑衅。 来自《简明英汉词典》

492 enjoyment   

n.乐趣；享有；享用

参考例句：

• Your company adds to the enjoyment of our visit. 有您的陪同，我们这次访问更加愉快了。
• After each joke the old man cackled his enjoyment.每逢讲完一个笑话，这老人就呵呵笑着表示他的高兴。

493 vibrations   

n.摆动( vibration的名词复数 )；震动；感受；（偏离平衡位置的）一次性往复振动

参考例句：

• We could feel the vibrations from the trucks passing outside. 我们可以感到外面卡车经过时的颤动。
• I am drawn to that girl; I get good vibrations from her. 我被那女孩吸引住了，她使我产生良好的感觉。 来自《简明英汉词典》

494 sensory   

adj.知觉的，感觉的，知觉器官的

参考例句：

• Human powers of sensory discrimination are limited.人类感官分辨能力有限。
• The sensory system may undergo long-term adaptation in alien environments.感觉系统对陌生的环境可能经过长时期才能适应。

495 incapable   

adj.无能力的，不能做某事的

参考例句：

• He would be incapable of committing such a cruel deed.他不会做出这么残忍的事。
• Computers are incapable of creative thought.计算机不会创造性地思维。

496 spotlight   

n.公众注意的中心，聚光灯，探照灯，视听，注意，醒目

参考例句：

• This week the spotlight is on the world of fashion.本周引人瞩目的是时装界。
• The spotlight followed her round the stage.聚光灯的光圈随着她在舞台上转。

497 intimacy   

n.熟悉，亲密，密切关系，亲昵的言行

参考例句：

• His claims to an intimacy with the President are somewhat exaggerated.他声称自己与总统关系密切，这有点言过其实。
• I wish there were a rule book for intimacy.我希望能有个关于亲密的规则。

498 mesh   

n.网孔，网丝，陷阱；vt.以网捕捉，啮合，匹配；vi.适合； [计算机]网络

参考例句：

• Their characters just don't mesh.他们的性格就是合不来。
• This is the net having half inch mesh.这是有半英寸网眼的网。

499 gasp   

n.喘息，气喘；v.喘息；气吁吁他说

参考例句：

• She gave a gasp of surprise.她吃惊得大口喘气。
• The enemy are at their last gasp.敌人在做垂死的挣扎。

500 gasped   

v.喘气( gasp的过去式和过去分词 )；喘息；倒抽气；很想要

参考例句：

• She gasped at the wonderful view. 如此美景使她惊讶得屏住了呼吸。
• People gasped with admiration at the superb skill of the gymnasts. 体操运动员的高超技艺令人赞叹。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

501 slant   

v.倾斜，倾向性地编写或报道；n.斜面，倾向

参考例句：

• The lines are drawn on a slant.这些线条被画成斜线。
• The editorial had an antiunion slant.这篇社论有一种反工会的倾向。

502 ramp   

n.暴怒，斜坡，坡道；vi.作恐吓姿势，暴怒，加速；vt.加速

参考例句：

• That driver drove the car up the ramp.那司机将车开上了斜坡。
• The factory don't have that capacity to ramp up.这家工厂没有能力加速生产。

503 slumped   

大幅度下降，暴跌( slump的过去式和过去分词 )； 沉重或突然地落下[倒下]

参考例句：

• Sales have slumped this year. 今年销售量锐减。
• The driver was slumped exhausted over the wheel. 司机伏在方向盘上，疲惫得睡着了。

504 vagrants   

流浪者( vagrant的名词复数 )； 无业游民； 乞丐； 无赖

参考例句：

• Police kept a close watch on the vagrants. 警察严密监视那些流浪者。
• O Troupe of little vagrants of the world, leave your footprints in my words. 世界上的一队小小的漂泊者呀，请留下你们的足印在我的文字里。

505 chauffeurs   

n.受雇于人的汽车司机( chauffeur的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Rich car buyers in China prefer to be driven by chauffeurs. 中国富裕的汽车购买者喜欢配备私人司机。 来自互联网
• Chauffeurs need to have good driving skills and know the roads well. 司机需要有好的驾驶技术并且对道路很熟悉。 来自互联网

506 slanting   

倾斜的，歪斜的

参考例句：

• The rain is driving [slanting] in from the south. 南边潲雨。
• The line is slanting to the left. 这根线向左斜了。

507 pounced   

v.突然袭击( pounce的过去式和过去分词 )；猛扑；一眼看出；抓住机会（进行抨击）

参考例句：

• As soon as I opened my mouth, the teacher pounced on me. 我一张嘴就被老师抓住呵斥了。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The police pounced upon the thief. 警察向小偷扑了过去。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

508 consigned   

v.把…置于（令人不快的境地）( consign的过去式和过去分词 )；把…托付给；把…托人代售；丟弃

参考例句：

• I consigned her letter to the waste basket. 我把她的信丢进了废纸篓。
• The father consigned the child to his sister's care. 那位父亲把孩子托付给他妹妹照看。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》

509 unpaid   

adj.未付款的，无报酬的

参考例句：

• Doctors work excessive unpaid overtime.医生过度加班却无报酬。
• He's doing a month's unpaid work experience with an engineering firm.他正在一家工程公司无偿工作一个月以获得工作经验。

510 jolt   

v.（使）摇动，（使）震动，（使）颠簸

参考例句：

• We were worried that one tiny jolt could worsen her injuries.我们担心稍微颠簸一下就可能会使她的伤势恶化。
• They were working frantically in the fear that an aftershock would jolt the house again.他们拼命地干着，担心余震可能会使房子再次受到震动。

511 awakening   

n.觉醒，醒悟 adj.觉醒中的；唤醒的

参考例句：

• the awakening of interest in the environment 对环境产生的兴趣
• People are gradually awakening to their rights. 人们正逐渐意识到自己的权利。

512 relegates   

v.使降级( relegate的第三人称单数 )；使降职；转移；把…归类

参考例句：

• This supercilious attitude relegates me to the level of the commonplace. 这种目空一切的心态把我归入大路货的档次。 来自互联网
• The enzyme then relegates the ends of the cleaved strand and releases itself from the DNA. 该酶从被解链的末端脱落并从DNA上释放出来。 来自互联网

513 shuddering   

v.战栗( shudder的现在分词 )；发抖；（机器、车辆等）突然震动；颤动

参考例句：

• 'I am afraid of it,'she answered, shuddering. “我害怕，”她发着抖，说。 来自英汉文学 - 双城记
• She drew a deep shuddering breath. 她不由得打了个寒噤，深深吸了口气。 来自飘（部分）

514 deserted   

adj.荒芜的，荒废的，无人的，被遗弃的

参考例句：

• The deserted village was filled with a deathly silence.这个荒废的村庄死一般的寂静。
• The enemy chieftain was opposed and deserted by his followers.敌人头目众叛亲离。

515 shuffled   

v.洗（纸牌）( shuffle的过去式和过去分词 )；拖着脚步走；粗心地做；摆脱尘世的烦恼

参考例句：

• He shuffled across the room to the window. 他拖着脚走到房间那头的窗户跟前。
• Simon shuffled awkwardly towards them. 西蒙笨拙地拖着脚朝他们走去。 来自《简明英汉词典》

516 ragged   

adj.衣衫褴褛的，粗糙的，刺耳的

参考例句：

• A ragged shout went up from the small crowd.这一小群人发出了刺耳的喊叫。
• Ragged clothing infers poverty.破衣烂衫意味着贫穷。

517 compassion   

n.同情，怜悯

参考例句：

• He could not help having compassion for the poor creature.他情不自禁地怜悯起那个可怜的人来。
• Her heart was filled with compassion for the motherless children.她对于没有母亲的孩子们充满了怜悯心。