CHAPTER X IN THE NAME OF THE BEST AMONG US

Dagny walked straight toward the guard who stood at the door of "Project F". Her steps sounded pourposeful, even and open, rining in the silence of the path among the trees. She raised her head to a ray of moonlight, to let him recognize her face.  "Let me in," she said.  "No admittance," he answered in the voice of a robot. "By order or Dr. Ferris."  "I am here by order of Mr. Thompson."  "Huh? . . . I . . . I don't know anything about that."  "I do."  "I mean, Dr. Ferris hasn't told me . . . ma'am."  "I am telling you."  "But I'm not supposed to take any orders from anyone excepting Dr. Ferris."  "Do you wish to disobey Mr. Thompson?"  "Oh, no, ma'am! But . . . but if Dr. Ferris said to let nobody in, that means nobody-" He added uncertainly and pleadingly, "-doesn't it?"  "Do you know that my name is Dagny Taggart and that you've seen my pictures in the papers with Mr. Thompson and all the top leaders of the country?"  "Yes, ma'am."  "Then decide whether you wish to disobey their orders."  "Oh, no, ma'am! I don't!"  "Then let me in."  "But I can't disobey Dr. Ferris, either!"  "Then choose."  "But I can't choose ma'am! Who am I to choose?"  "You'll have to."  "Look," he said hastily, pulling a key from his pocket and turning to the door, "I'll ask the chief. He-"  "No." she said.  Some quality in the tone of her voice made him whirl back to her: she was holding a gun pointed² levelly at his heart.  "Listen carefully," she said. "Either you let me in or I shoot you. You may try to shoot me first, if you can. You have that choice-and no other. Now decide."  His mouth fell open and the key dropped from his hand.  "Get out of my way," she said.  He shook his head frantically⁴, pressing his back against the door.  "Oh Christ, ma'am!" he gulped⁵ in the whine⁶ of a desperate plea. "I can't shoot at you, seeing as you come from Mr. Thompson! And I can't let you in against the word of Dr. Ferris! What am I to do? I'm only a little fellow! I'm only obeying orders! It's not up to me!"  "It's your life." she said.  "If you let me ask the chief, he'll tell me, he'll-"  "I won't let you ask anyone."  "But how do I know that you really have an order from Mr. Thompson?"  "You don't. Maybe I haven't. Maybe I'm acting⁷ on my own-and you'll be punished for obeying me. Maybe I have-and you'll be thrown in jail for disobeying. Maybe Dr.. Ferris and Mr. Thompson agree about this. Maybe they don't-and you have to defy one or the other. These are the things you have to decide. There is no one to ask, no one to call, no one to tell you. You will have to decide them yourself."  "But I can't decide! Why me?"  "Because it's your body that's barring my way."  "But I can't decide! I'm not supposed to decide!"  "I'll count to three," she said. "Then I'll shoot."  "Wait! Wait! I haven't said yes or no!" he cried, cringing⁸ tighter against the door, as if immobility of mind and body were his best protection, "One-" she counted; she could see his eyes staring at her in terror -"Two-" she could see that the gun held less terror for him than the alternative she offered-"Three."  Calmly and impersonally⁹, she, who would have hesitated to fire at an animal, pulled the trigger and fired straight at the heart of a man who had wanted to exist without the responsibility of consciousness.  Her gun was equipped with a silencer; there was no sound to attract anyone's attention, only the thud of a body falling at her feet. She picked up the key from the ground-then waited for a few brief moments, as had been agreed upon.  Francisco was first to join her, coming from behind a corner of the building, then Hank Rearden, then Ragnar Danneskjold. There had been four guards posted at intervals¹⁰ among the trees, around the building. They were now disposed of: one was dead, three were left in the brush, bound and gagged.  She handed the key to Francisco without a word. He unlocked the door and went in, alone, leaving the door open to the width of an inch. The three others waited outside, by that opening.  The hall was lighted by a single naked bulb stuck in the middle of the ceiling. A guard stood at the foot of the stairs leading to the second floor.  "Who are you?" he cried at the sight of Francisco entering as if he owned the place. "Nobody's supposed to come in here tonight!"  "I did," said Francisco.  "Why did Rusty¹¹ let you in?"  "He must have had his reasons."  "He wasn't supposed to!"  "Somebody has changed your suppositions." Francisco's eyes were taking a lightning inventory¹² of the place. A second guard stood on the landing at the turn of the stairs, looking down at them and listening.  "What's your business?"  "Copper¹³-mining."  "Huh? I mean, who are you?"  "The name's too long to tell you. I'll tell it to your chief. Where is he?"  "I'm asking the questions!" But he backed a step away. "Don't . . .don't you act like a big shot or I'll-"  "Hey, Pete, he is!" cried the second guard, paralyzed by Francisco's manner.  The first one was struggling to ignore it; his voice grew louder with the growth of his fear, as he snapped at Francisco, "What are you after?"  "I said I’ll tell it to your chief. Where is he?"  "I'm asking the questions!"  "I'm not answering them."  "Oh, you're not, are you?" snarled¹⁴ Pete, who had but one recourse when in doubt: his hand jerked to the gun on his hip¹⁵.  Francisco's hand was too fast for the two men to see its motion, and his gun was too silent. What they saw and heard next was the gun flying out of Pete's hand, along with a splatter of blood from his shattered fingers, and his muffled¹⁶ howl of pain. He collapsed¹⁷, groaning¹⁸.  In the instant when the second guard grasped it, he saw that Francisco's gun was aimed at him.  "Don't shoot, mister!" he cried.  "Come down here with your hands up," ordered Francisco, holding his gun aimed with one hand and waving a signal to the crack of the door with the other.  By the time the guard descended¹⁹ the stairs, Rearden was there to disarm²⁰ him, and Danneskjold to tie his hands and feet. The sight of Dagny seemed to frighten him more than the rest; he could not understand it: the three men wore caps and windbreakers, and, but for their manner, could be taken for a gang of highwaymen; the presence of a lady was inexplicable²¹.  "Now," said Francisco, "where is your chief?"  The guard jerked his head in the direction of the stairs. "Up there."  "How many guards are there in the building?"  "Nine."  "Where are they?"  "One's on the cellar stairs. The others are all up there."  "Where?"  "In the big laboratory. The one with the window."  "All of them?"  "Yes."  "What are these rooms?" He pointed at the doors leading off the hall.  "They're labs, too. They're locked for the night."  "Who's got the key?"  "Him." He jerked his head at Pete.  Rearden and Danneskjold took the key from Pete's pocket and hurried soundlessly to check the rooms, while Francisco continued, "Are there any other men in the building?"  "No."  "Isn't there a prisoner here?"  "Oh . . . yeah, I guess so. There must be, or they wouldn't've kept us all on duty."  "Is he still here?"  "That, I don't know. They'd never tell us."  "Is Dr. Ferris here?"  "No. He left ten-fifteen minutes ago."  "Now, that laboratory upstairs-does it open right on the stair landing?"  "Yes."  "How many doors are there?"  "Three. It's the one in the middle."  "What are the other rooms?"  "There's the small laboratory on one side and Dr. Ferris' office on the other."  "Are there connecting doors between them?"  "Yes."  Francisco was turning to his companions, when the guard said pleadingly, "Mister, can I ask you a question?"  "Go ahead."  "Who are you?"  He answered in the solemn tone of a drawing-room introduction, "Francisco Domingo Carlos Andres Sebastian d'Anconia."  He left the guard gaping²² at him and turned to a brief, whispered consultation²³ with his companions. In a moment, it was Rearden who went up the stairs-swiftly, soundlessly and alone.  Cages containing rats and guinea pigs were stacked against the walls of the laboratory; they had been put there by the guards who were playing poker²⁴ on the long laboratory table in the center. Six of them were playing; two were standing²⁵ in opposite corners, watching the entrance door, guns in hand. It was Rearden's face that saved him from being shot on sight when he entered: his face was too well known to them and too unexpected. He saw eight heads staring at him with recognition and with inability to believe what they were recognizing.  He stood at the door, his hands in the pockets of his trousers, with the casual, confident manner of a business executive.  "Who is in charge here?" he asked in the politely abrupt²⁶ voice of a man who does not waste time.  "You . . . you're not . . ." stammered²⁷ a lanky²⁹, surly individual at the card table.  "I'm Hank Rearden. Are you the chief?"  "Yeah! But where in blazes do you come from?"  "From New York."  "What are you doing here?"  "Then, I take it, you have not been notified."  "Should I have . . . I mean, about what?" The swift, touchy³⁰, resentful suspicion that his superiors had slighted his authority, was obvious in the chief's voice. He was a tall, emaciated³¹ man, with jerky movements, a sallow face and the restless, unfocused eyes of a drug addict³².  "About my business here."  "You . . . you can't have any business here," he snapped, torn between the fear of a bluff³³ and the fear of having been left out of some important, top-level decision. "Aren't you a traitor³⁴ and a deserter and a-"  "I see that you're behind the times, my good man."  The seven others in the room were staring at Rearden with an awed³⁵, superstitious³⁶ uncertainty³⁷. The two who held guns still held them aimed at him in the impassive manner of automatons³⁸. He did not seem to take notice of them.  "What is it you say is your business here?" snapped the chief.  . "I am here to take charge of the prisoner whom you are to deliver to me."  "If you came from headquarters, you'd know that I'm not supposed to know anything about any prisoner-and that nobody is to touch him!"  "Except me."  The chief leaped to his feet, darted³⁹ to a telephone and seized the receiver. He had not raised it halfway⁴⁰ to his ear when he dropped it abruptly⁴¹ with a gesture that sent a vibration⁴² of panic through the room: he had had time to hear that the telephone was dead and to know that the wires were cut.  His look of accusation⁴³, as he whirled to Rearden, broke against the faintly contemptuous reproof⁴⁴ of Rearden's voice: "That's no way to guard a building-if this is what you allowed to happen. Better let me have the prisoner, before anything happens to him-if you don't want me to report you for negligence⁴⁵, as well as insubordination."  The chief dropped heavily back on his chair, slumped⁴⁶ forward across the table and looked up at Rearden with a glance that made his emaciated face resemble the animals that were beginning to stir in the cages.  "Who is the prisoner?" he asked.  "My good man," said Rearden, "if your immediate⁴⁷ superiors did not see fit to tell you, I certainly will not."  "They didn't see fit to tell me about your coming here, either!" yelled the chief, his voice confessing the helplessness of anger and broadcasting the vibrations⁴⁸ of impotence to his men. "How do I know you're on the level? With the phone out of order, who's going to tell me? How am I to know what to do?"  "That's your problem, not mine."  "I don't believe you!" His cry was too shrill⁵⁰ to project conviction, "I don't believe that the government would send you on a mission, when you're one of those vanishing traitors⁵¹ and friends of John Galt who-"  "But haven't you heard?"  "What?"  "John Galt has made a deal with the government and has brought us all back."  "Oh, thank God!" cried one of the guards, the youngest.  "Shut your mouth! You're not to have any political opinions!" snapped the chief, and jerked back to Rearden. "Why hasn't it been announced on the radio?"  "Do you presume to hold opinions on when and how the government should choose to announce its policies?"  In the long moment of silence, they could hear the rustle⁵² of the animals clawing at the bars of their cages.  "I think I should remind you," said Rearden, "that your job is not to question orders, but to obey them, that you are not to know or understand the policies of your superiors, that you are not to judge, to choose or to doubt."  "But I don't know whether I'm supposed to obey you!"  "If you refuse, you'll take the consequences."  Crouching⁵³ against the table, the chief moved his glance slowly, appraisingly⁵⁵, from Rearden's face to the two gunmen in the corners. The gunmen steadied their aim by an almost imperceptible movement. A nervous rustle went through the room. An animal squeaked⁵⁶ shrilly⁵⁷ in one of the cages.  "I think I should also tell you," said Rearden, his voice faintly harder, "that I am not alone. My friends are waiting outside."  "Where?"  "All around this room."  "How many?"  "You'll find out-one way or the other."  "Say, Chief," moaned a shaky voice from among the guards, "we don't want to tangle⁵⁸ with those people, they're-"  "Shut up!" roared the chief, leaping to his feet and brandishing⁵⁹ his gun in the direction of the speaker. "You're not going to turn yellow on me, any of you bastards⁶⁰!" He was screaming to ward¹ off the knowledge that they had. He was swaying on the edge of panic, fighting against the realization⁶² that something somehow had disarmed⁶³ his men. "There's nothing to be scared of!" He was screaming it to himself, struggling to recapture the safety of his only sphere: the sphere of violence. "Nothing and nobody! I'll show you'" He whirled around, his hand shaking at the end of his sweeping⁶⁴ arm, and fired at Rearden.  Some of them saw Rearden sway, his right hand gripping his left shoulder. Others, in the same instant, saw the gun drop out of the chief's hand and hit the floor in time with his scream and with the spurt⁶⁵ of blood from his wrist. Then all of them saw Francisco d'Anconia standing at the door on the left, his soundless gun still aimed at the chief.  All of them were on their feet and had drawn⁶⁶ their guns, but they lost that first moment, not daring to fire.  "I wouldn't, if I were you," said Francisco.  "Jesus!" gasped⁶⁷ one of the guards, struggling for the memory of a name he could not recapture. "That's . . . that's the guy who blew up all the copper mines in the world!"  "It is," said Rearden.  They had been backing involuntarily away from Francisco-and turned to see that Rearden still stood at the entrance door, with a pointed gun in his right hand and a dark stain spreading on his left shoulder.  "Shoot, you bastards!" screamed the chief to the wavering men.  "What are you waiting for? Shoot them down!" He was leaning with one arm against the table, blood running out of the other. "I'll report any man who doesn't fight! I'll have him sentenced to death for it!"  "drop your guns," said Rearden.  The seven guards stood frozen for an instant, obeying neither.  "Let me out of here!" screamed the youngest, dashing for the door on the right.  He threw the door open and sprang back: Dagny Taggart stood on the threshold, gun in hand.  The guards were drawing slowly to the center of the room, righting an invisible battle in the fog of their minds, disarmed by a sense of unreality in the presence of the legendary⁶⁹ figures they had never expected to see, feeling almost as if they were ordered to fire at ghosts.  "drop your guns," said Rearden. "You don't know why you're here. We do. You don't know who your prisoner is. We do. You don't know why your bosses want you to guard him. We know why we want to get him out. You don't know the purpose of your fight. We know the purpose of ours. If you die, you won't know what you're dying for. If we do, we will."  "Don't . . . don't listen to him!" snarled the chief. "Shoot! I order you to shoot!"  One of the guards looked at the chief, dropped his gun and, raising his arms, backed away from the group toward Rearden.  "God damn you!" yelled the chief, seized a gun with his left hand and fired at the deserter.  In time with the fall of the man's body, the window burst into a shower of glass-and from the limb of a tree, as from a catapult, the tall, slender figure of a man flew into the room, landed on its feet and fired at the first guard in reach.  "Who are you?", screamed some terror-blinded voice.  "Ragnar Danneskjold."  Three sounds answered him: a long, swelling⁷⁰ moan of panic-the clatter⁷¹ of four guns dropped to the floor-and the bark of the fifth, fired by a guard at the forehead of the chief.  By the time the four survivors⁷² of the garrison⁷³ began to reassemble the pieces of their consciousness, their figures were stretched on the floor, bound and gagged; the fifth one was left standing, his hands tied behind his back.  "Where is the prisoner?" Francisco asked him.  "In the cellar . . . I guess."  "Who has the key?"  "Dr. Ferris."  "Where are the stairs to the cellar?"  "Behind a door in Dr. Ferris' office."  "Lead the way."  As they started, Francisco turned to Rearden. "Are you all right, Hank?"  "Sure."  "Need to rest?"  "Hell, no!"  From the threshold of a door in Ferris' office, they looked down a steep flight of stone stairs and saw a guard on the landing below.  "Come here with your hands up!" ordered Francisco.  The guard saw the silhouette⁷⁴ of a resolute⁷⁵ stranger and the glint of a gun: It was enough. He obeyed immediately; he seemed relieved to escape from the damp stone crypt. He was left tied on the floor of the office, along with the guard who had led them.  Then the four rescuers were free to fly down the stairs to the locked steel door at the bottom. They had acted and moved with the precision of a controlled discipline. Now, it was as if their inner reins⁷⁶ had broken.  Danneskjold had the tools to smash the lock. Francisco was first to enter the cellar, and his arm barred Dagny's way for the fraction of a second-for the length of a look to make certain that the sight  was bearable-then he let her rush past him: beyond the tangle of electric wires, he had seen Galt's lifted head and glance of greeting.  She fell down on her knees by the side of the mattress⁷⁷. Galt looked up at her, as he had looked on their first morning in the valley, his smile was like the sound of a laughter that had never been touched by pain, his voice was soft and low: "We never had to take any of it seriously, did we?"  Tears running down her face, but her smile declaring a full, confident, radiant certainty, she answered, "No, we never had to."  Rearden and Danneskjold were cutting his bonds. Francisco held a flask⁷⁸ of brandy to Galt's lips. Galt drank, and raised himself to lean on an elbow when his arms were free. "Give me a cigarette," he said.  Francisco produced a package of dollar-sign cigarettes. Galt's hand shook a little, as he held a cigarette to the flame of a lighter⁷⁹, but Francisco's hand shook much more.  Glancing at his eyes over the flame, Galt smiled and said in the tone of an answer to the questions Francisco was not asking, "Yes, it was pretty bad, but bearable-and the kind of voltage they used leaves no damage."  "I'll find them some day, whoever they were . . ." said Francisco; the tone of his voice, flat, dead and barely audible, said the rest.  "If you do, you'll find that there's nothing left of them to kill."  Galt glanced at the faces around him; he saw the intensity⁸⁰ of the relief in their eyes and the violence of the anger in the grimness of their features; he knew in what manner they were now reliving his torture.  "It's over," he said. "Don't make it worse for yourself than it was for me."  Francisco turned his face away. "It's only that it was you . . ." he whispered, "you . . . if it were anyone but you . . ."  "But it had to be me, if they were to try their last, and they've tried, and"-he moved his hand, sweeping the room-and the meaning of those who had made it-into the wastelands of the past-"and that's that."  Francisco nodded, his face still turned away; the violent grip of his fingers clutching Galt's wrist for a moment was his answer.  Galt lifted himself to a sitting posture⁸¹, slowly regaining⁸² control of his muscles. He glanced up at Dagny's face, as her arm shot forward to help him; he saw the struggle of her smile against the tension of her resisted tears; it was the struggle of her knowledge that nothing could matter beside the sight of his naked body and that this body was living -against her knowledge of what it had endured. Holding her glance, he raised his hand and touched the collar of her white sweater with his fingertips, in acknowledgment and in reminder⁸³ of the only things that were to matter from now on. The faint tremor⁸⁴ of her lips, relaxing into a smile, told him that she understood.  Danneskjold found Galt's shirt, slacks and the rest of his clothing, which had been thrown on the floor in a corner of the room. "Do you think you can walk, John?" he asked.  "Sure."  While Francisco and Rearden were helping⁸⁵ Galt to dress, Danneskjold proceeded calmly, systematically⁸⁶, with no visible emotion, to demolish⁸⁷ the torture machine into splinters.  Galt was not fully³ steady on his feet, but he could stand, leaning on Francisco's shoulder. The first few steps were hard, but by the time they reached the door, he was able to resume the motions of walking. His one arm encircled Francisco's shoulders for support; his other arm held Dagny's shoulders, both to gain support and to give it. They did not speak as they walked down the hill, with the darkness of the trees closing in about them for protection, cutting off the dead glow of the moon and the deader glow in the distance behind them, in the windows of the State Science Institute.  Francisco's airplane was hidden in the brush, on the edge of a meadow beyond the next hill. There were no human habitations for miles around them. There were no eyes to notice or to question the sudden streaks⁸⁹ of the airplane's headlights shooting across the desolation of dead weeds, and the violent burst of the motor brought to life by Danneskjold, who took the wheel.  With the sound of the door slamming shut behind them and the forward thrust of the wheels under their feet, Francisco smiled for the first time.  "This is my one and only chance to give you orders," he said, helping Galt to stretch out in a reclining chair. "Now lie still, relax and take it easy . . . You, too," he added, turning to Dagny and pointing at the seat by Galt's side.  The wheels were running faster, as if gaining speed and purpose and lightness, ignoring the impotent obstacles of small jolts⁹⁰ from the ruts of the ground. When the motion turned to a long, smooth streak⁸⁸, when they saw the dark shapes of the trees sweeping down and dropping past their windows, Galt leaned silently over and pressed his lips to Dagny's hand: he was leaving the outer world with the one value he had wanted to win from it.  Francisco had produced a first-aid kit⁹² and was removing Rearden's shirt to bandage his wound. Galt saw the thin red trickle⁹³ running from Rearden's shoulder down his chest.  "Thank you, Hank," he said.  Rearden smiled. "I will repeat what you said when I thanked you, on our first meeting: 'If you understand that I acted for my own sake, you know that no gratitude⁹⁴ is required.' "  "I will repeat," said Galt, "the answer you gave me: 'That is why I thank you.'"  Dagny noticed that they looked at each other as if their glance were the handshake of a bond too firm to require any statement. Rearden saw her watching them-and the faintest contraction⁹⁵ of his eyes was like a smile of sanction, as if his glance were repeating to her the message he had sent her from the valley.  They heard the sudden sound of Danneskjold's voice raised cheerfully in conversation with empty space, and they realized that he was speaking over the plane's radio: "Yes, safe and sound, all of us. . . . Yes, he's unhurt, just shaken a little, and resting. . . . No, no permanent injury. . . . Yes, we're all here. Hank Rearden got a flesh wound, but"-he glanced over his shoulder-"but he's grinning at me right now. . . . Losses? I think we lost our temper for a few minutes back there, but we're recovering. . . . Don't try to beat me to Galt's Gulch⁹⁶, I'll land first-and I'll help Kay in the restaurant to fix your breakfast."  "Can any outsiders hear him?" asked Dagny.  "No," said Francisco. "It's a frequency they're not equipped to get."  "Whom is he talking to?" asked Galt.  "To about half the male population of the valley," said Francisco, "or as many as we had space for on every plane available. They are flying behind us right now. Did you think any of them would stay home and leave you in the hands of the looters? We were prepared to get you by open, armed assault on that Institute or on the Wayne-Falkland, if necessary. But we knew that in such case we would run the risk of their killing⁹⁷ you when they saw that they were beaten. That's why we decided⁹⁸ that the four of us would first try it alone. Had we failed, the others would have proceeded with an open attack. They were waiting, half a mile away. We had men posted among the trees on the hill, who saw us get out and relayed the word to the others. Ellis Wyatt was in charge. Incidentally, He's flying your plane. The reason we couldn't get to New Hampshire as fast as Dr. Ferris, is that we had to get our planes from distant, hidden landing places, while he had the advantage of open airports. Which, incidentally, he won't have much longer."  "No," said Galt, "not much longer."  "That was our only obstacle. The rest was easy. I'll tell you the whole story later. Anyway, the four of us were all that was necessary to beat their garrison."  "One of these centuries," said Danneskjold, turning to them for a moment, "the brutes¹⁰⁰, private or public, who believe that they can rule their betters by force, will learn the lesson of what happens when brute⁹⁹ force encounters mind and force."  "They've learned it," said Galt. "Isn't that the particular lesson you have been teaching them for twelve years?"  "I? Yes. But the semester is over. Tonight was the last act of violence that I'll ever have to perform. It was my reward for the twelve years. My men have now started to build their homes in the valley. My ship is hidden where no one will find her, until I'm able to sell her for a much more civilized¹⁰¹ use. She'll be converted into a transatlantic passenger liner-an excellent one, even if of modest size. As for me, I will start getting ready to give a different course of lessons. I think III have to brush up on the works of our teacher's first teacher."  Rearden chuckled¹⁰². "I'd like to be present at your first lecture on philosophy in a university classroom," he said. "I'd like to see how your students will be able to keep their mind on the subject and how you'll answer the sort of irrelevant¹⁰⁴ questions I won't blame them for wanting to ask you."  "I will tell them that they'll find the answers in the subject."  There were not many lights on the earth below. The countryside was an empty black sheet, with a few occasional flickers¹⁰⁵ in the windows of some government structures, and the trembling glow of candles in the windows of thriftless homes. Most of the rural population had long since been reduced to the life of those ages when artificial light was an exorbitant¹⁰⁶ luxury, and a sunset put an end to human activity. The towns were like scattered¹⁰⁷ puddles¹⁰⁸, left behind by a receding¹⁰⁹ tide, still holding some precious drops of electricity, but drying out in a desert of rations⁴⁹, quotas¹¹⁰, controls and power-conservation rules.  But when the place that had once been the source of the tide-New York City-rose in the distance before them, it was still extending its lights to the sky, still defying the primordial¹¹¹ darkness, almost as if, in an ultimate effort, in a final appeal for help, it were now stretching its arms to the plane that was crossing its sky. Involuntarily, they sat up, as if at respectful attention at the deathbed of what had been greatness.  Looking down, they could see the last convulsions: the lights of the cars were darting¹¹² through the streets, like animals trapped in a maze¹¹³, frantically seeking an exit, the bridges were jammed with cars, the approaches to the bridges were veins¹¹⁴ of massed headlights, glittering bottlenecks¹¹⁵ stopping all motion, and the desperate screaming of sirens reached faintly to the height of the plane. The news of the continent's severed¹¹⁶ artery¹¹⁷ had now engulfed¹¹⁹ the city, men were deserting their posts, trying, in panic, to abandon New York, seeking escape where all roads were cut off and escape was no longer possible.  The plane was above the peaks of the skyscrapers¹²⁰ when suddenly, with the abruptness¹²¹ of a shudder¹²², as if the ground had parted to engulf¹¹⁸ it, the city disappeared from the face of the earth. It took them a moment to realize that the panic had reached the power stations-and that the lights of New York had gone out.  Dagny gasped. "Don't look down!" Galt ordered sharply.  She raised her eyes to his face. His face had that look of austerity with which she had always seen him meet facts. She remembered the story Francisco had told her: "He had quit the Twentieth Century. He was living in a garret in a slum neighborhood. He stepped to the window and pointed at the skyscrapers of the city. He said that we had to extinguish the lights of the world, and when we would see the lights of New York go out, we would know that our job was done."  She thought of it when she saw the three of them-John Galt, Francisco d'Anconia, Ragnar Danneskjold-look silently at one another for a moment. She glanced at Rearden; he was not looking down, he was looking ahead, as she had seen him look at an untouched countryside: with a glance appraising⁵⁴ the possibilities of action.  When she looked at the darkness ahead, another memory rose in her mind-the moment when, circling above the Afton airport, she had seen the silver body of a plane rise like a phoenix¹²³ from the darkness of the earth. She knew that now, at this hour, their plane was carrying all that was left of New York City. She looked ahead. The earth would be as empty as the space where th6ir propeller¹²⁴ was cutting an unobstructed path-as empty and as free.  She knew what Nat Taggart had felt at his start and why now, for the first time, she was following him in full loyalty¹²⁵: the confident sense of facing a void and of knowing that one has a continent to build. She felt the whole struggle of her past rising before her and dropping away, leaving her here, on the height of this moment. She smiled-and the words in her mind, appraising and sealing the past, were the words of courage, pride and dedication¹²⁶, which most men had never understood, the words of a businessman's language: "Price no object."  She did not gasp⁶⁸ and she felt no tremor when, in the darkness below, she saw a small string of lighted dots struggling slowly westward¹²⁷ through the void, with the long, bright dash of a headlight groping to protect the safety of its way; she felt nothing, even though it was a train and she knew that it had no destination but the void.  She turned to Galt. He was watching her face, as if he had been following her thoughts. She saw the reflection of her smile in his. "It's the end," she said. "It's the beginning," he answered.  Then they lay still, leaning back in their chairs, silently looking at each other. Then their persons filled each other's awareness¹²⁸, as the sum and meaning of the future-but the sum included the knowledge of all that had had to be earned, before the person of another being could come to embody¹²⁹ the value of one's existence.  New York was far behind them, when they heard Danneskjold answer a call from the radio: "Yes, he's awake. I don't think he'll sleep tonight. . . . Yes, I think he can." He turned to glance over his shoulder. "John, Dr. Akston would like to speak to you."  "What? Is he on one of those planes behind us?"  "Certainly."  Galt leaped forward to seize the microphone. "Hello, Dr. Akston," he said; the quiet, low tone of his voice was the audible image of a smile transmitted through space.  "Hello, John." The too-conscious steadiness of Hugh Akston's voice confessed at what cost he had waited to learn whether he would ever pronounce these two words again. "I just wanted to hear your voice . . . just to know that you're all right."  Galt chuckled and-in the tone of a student proudly presenting a completed task of homework as proof of a lesson well learned-he answered, "Of course I am all right, Professor. I had to be. A is A."  The locomotive of the eastbound Comet broke down in the middle of a desert in Arizona. It stopped abruptly, for no visible reason, like a man who had not permitted himself to know that he was bearing too much: some overstrained connection snapped for good.  When Eddie Willers called for the conductor, he waited a long time before the man came in, and he sensed the answer to his question by the look of resignation on the man's face.  "The engineer is trying to find out what's wrong, Mr. Willers," he answered softly, in a tone implying that it was his duty to hope, but that he had held no hope for years.  "He doesn't know?"  "He's working on it." The conductor waited for a polite half-minute and turned to go, but stopped to volunteer an explanation, as if some dim, rational habit told him that any attempt to explain made any unadmitted terror easier to bear. "Those Diesels¹³¹ of ours aren't fit to be sent out on the road, Mr. Willers. They weren't worth repairing long ago."  "I know," said Eddie Willers quietly.  The conductor sensed that his explanation was worse than none: it led to questions that men did not ask these days. He shook his head and went out.  Eddie Willers sat looking at the empty darkness beyond the window.  This was the first eastbound Cornet out of San Francisco in many days: she was the child of his tortured effort to re-establish transcontinental service. He could not tell what the past few days had cost him or what he had done to save the San Francisco terminal from the blind chaos¹³³ of a civil war that men were fighting with no concept of their goals; there was no way to remember the deals he had made on the basis of the range of every shifting moment. He knew only that he had obtained immunity¹³⁴ for the terminal from the leaders of three different warring factions¹³⁵; that he had found a man for the post of terminal manager who did not seem to have given up altogether; that he had started one more Taggart Comet on her eastward¹³⁶ run, with the best Diesel¹³² engine and the best crew available; and that he had boarded her for his return journey to New York, with no knowledge of how long his achievement would last.  He had never had to work so hard; he had done his job as conscientiously¹³⁷ well as he had always done any assignment; but it was as if he had worked in a vacuum, as if his energy had found no transmitters and had run into the sands of . . . of some such desert as the one beyond the window of the Comet. He shuddered¹³⁸: he felt a moment's kinship with the stalled engine of the train.  After a while, he summoned the conductor once more. "How is it going?" he asked.  The conductor shrugged¹³⁹ and shook his head.  "Send the fireman to a track phone. Have him tell the Division Headquarters to send us the best mechanic available."  "Yes, sir."  There was nothing to see beyond the window; turning off the light, Eddie Willers could distinguish a gray spread dotted by the black spots of cacti¹⁴⁰, with no start to it and no end. He wondered how men had ever ventured to cross it, and at what price, in the days when there were no trains. He jerked his head away and snapped on the light.  It was only the fact that the Comet was in exile, he thought, that gave him this sense of pressing anxiety. She was stalled on an alien rail-on the borrowed track of the Atlantic Southern that ran through Arizona, the track they were using without payment. He had to get her out of here, he thought; he would not feel like this once they returned to their own rail. But the junction¹⁴¹ suddenly seemed an insurmountable distance away: on the shore of the Mississippi, at the Taggart Bridge.  No, he thought, that was not all. He had to admit to himself what images were nagging¹⁴² him with a sense of uneasiness he could neither grasp nor dispel¹⁴³; they were too meaningless to define and too inexplicable to dismiss. One was the image of a way station they had passed without stopping, more than two hours ago: he had noticed the empty platform and the brightly lighted windows of the small station building; the lights came from empty rooms; he had seen no single human figure, neither in the building nor on the tracks outside. The other image was of the next way station they had passed: its platform was jammed with an agitated¹⁴⁴ mob. Now they were far beyond the reach of the light or sound of any station.  He had to get the Comet out of here, he thought. He wondered why he felt it with such urgency and why it had seemed so crucially important to re-establish the Comet's run. A mere²⁸ handful of passengers was rattling¹⁴⁵ in her empty cars; men had no place to go and no goals to reach. It was not for their sake that he had struggled; he could not say for whose. Two phrases stood as the answer in his mind, driving him with the vagueness of a prayer and the scalding force of an absolute.  One was: From Ocean to Ocean, forever-the other was: Don't let it go! . . .  The conductor returned an hour later, with the fireman, whose face looked oddly grim.  "Mr. Willers," said the fireman slowly, "Division Headquarters does not answer."  Eddie Willers sat up, his mind refusing to believe it, yet knowing suddenly that for some inexplicable reason this was what he had expected. "It's impossible!" he said, his voice low; the fireman was looking at him, not moving. "The track phone must have been out of order."  "No, Mr. Willers. It was not out of order. The line was alive all right.  The Division Headquarters wasn't. I mean, there was no one there to answer, or else no one who cared to."  "But you know that that's impossible!"  The fireman shrugged; men did not consider any disaster impossible these days.  Eddie Willers leaped to his feet. "Go down the length of the train," he ordered the conductor. "Knock on all the doors-the occupied ones, that is-and see whether there's an electrical engineer aboard."  "Yes, sir."  Eddie knew that they felt, as he felt it, that they would find no such man; not among the lethargic¹⁴⁶, extinguished faces of the passengers they had seen. "Come on," he ordered, turning to the fireman.  They climbed together aboard the locomotive. The gray-haired engineer was sitting in his chair, staring out at the cacti. The engine's headlight had stayed on and it stretched out into the night, motionless and straight, reaching nothing but the dissolving blur¹⁴⁷ of crossties.  "Let's try to find what's wrong," said Eddie, removing his. coat, his voice half-order, half-plea. "Let's try some more."  "Yes, sir," said the engineer, without resentment¹⁴⁸ or hope.  The engineer had exhausted¹⁴⁹ his meager¹⁵⁰ store of knowledge; he had checked every source of trouble he could think of. He went crawling over and under the machinery¹⁵¹, unscrewing its parts and screwing them back again, taking out pieces and replacing them, dismembering the motors at random¹⁵², like a child taking a clock apart, but without the child's conviction that knowledge is possible.  The fireman kept leaning out of the cab's window, glancing at the black stillness and shivering, as if from the night air that was growing colder.  "Don't worry," said Eddie Willers, assuming a tone of confidence.  "We've got to do our best, but if we fail, they'll send us help sooner or later. They don't abandon trains in the middle of nowhere."  'They didn't used to," said the fireman.  Once in a while, the engineer raised his grease-smeared face to look at the grease-smeared face and shirt of Eddie Willers. "What's the use, Mr. Willers?" he asked.  "We can't let it go!" Eddie answered fiercely; he knew dimly that what he meant was more than the Comet . . . and more than the railroad.  Moving from the cab through the three motor units and back to the cab again, his hands bleeding, his shirt sticking to his back, Eddie Willers was struggling to remember everything he had ever known about engines, anything he had learned in college, and earlier: anything he had picked up in those days when the station agents at Rockdale Station used to chase him off the rungs of their lumbering¹⁵³ switch engines.  The pieces connected to nothing; his brain seemed jammed and tight; he knew that motors were not his profession, he knew that he did not know and that it was now a matter of life or death for him to discover the knowledge. He was looking at the cylinders¹⁵⁴, the blades, the wires, the control panels still winking¹⁵⁵ with lights. He was struggling not to allow into his mind the thought that was pressing against its periphery¹⁵⁶: What were the chances and how long would it take-according to the mathematical theory of probability-for primitive¹⁵⁷ men, working by rule-of-thumb, to hit the right combination of parts and re-create the motor of this engine?  "What's the use, Mr. Willers?" moaned the engineer.  "We can't let it go!" he cried.  He did not know how many hours had passed when he heard the fireman shout suddenly, "Mr. Willers! Look!"  The fireman was leaning out the window, pointing into the darkness behind them.  Eddie Willers looked. An odd little light was swinging jerkily far in the distance; it seemed to be advancing at an imperceptible rate; it did not look like any sort of light he could identify.  After a while, it seemed to him that he distinguished¹⁵⁸ some large black shapes advancing slowly; they were moving in a line parallel with the track; the spot of light hung low over the ground, swinging; he strained his ears, but heard nothing.  Then he caught a feeble, muffled beat that sounded like the hoofs¹⁵⁹ of horses. The two men beside him were watching the black shapes with a look of growing terror, as if some supernatural apparition¹⁶⁰ were advancing upon them out of the desert night. In the moment when they chuckled suddenly, joyously¹⁶¹, recognizing the shapes, it was Eddie's face that froze into a look of terror at the sight of a ghost more frightening than any they could have expected: it was a train of covered wagons¹⁶².  The swinging lantern jerked to a stop by the side of the engine. "Hey, bud, can I give you a lift?" called a man who seemed to be the leader; he was chuckling¹⁶³. "Stuck, aren't you?"  The passengers of the Comet were peering out of the windows; some were descending¹⁶⁴ the steps and approaching. Women's faces peeked¹⁶⁵ from the wagons, from among the piles of household goods; a baby wailed¹⁶⁶ somewhere at the rear of the caravan¹⁶⁷.  "Are you crazy?" asked Eddie Willers.  "No, I mean it, brother. We got plenty of room. We'll give you folks a lift-for a price-if you want to get out of here." He was a lanky, nervous man, with loose gestures and an insolent¹⁶⁸ voice, who looked like a side-show barker.  "This is the Taggart Comet," said Eddie Willers, choking.  "The Comet, eh? Looks more like a dead caterpillar¹⁶⁹ to me. What's the matter, brother? You're not going anywhere-and you can't get there any more, even if you tried."  "What do you mean?"  "You don't think you're going to New York, do you?"  "We are going to New York."  "Then . . . then you haven't heard?"  "What?"  "Say, when was the last time you spoke¹⁷⁰ to any of your stations?"  "I don't know! . . . Heard what?"  "That your Taggart Bridge is gone. Gone. Blasted to bits. Sound-ray explosion or something. Nobody knows exactly. Only there ain't any bridge any more to cross the Mississippi. There ain't any New York any more-leastways, not for folks like you and me to reach."  Eddie Willers did not know what happened next; he had fallen back against the side of the engineer's chair, staring at the open door of the motor unit; he did not know how long he stayed there, but when, at last, he turned his head, he saw that he was alone. The engineer and the fireman had left the cab. There was a scramble¹⁷¹ of voices outside, screams, sobs¹⁷², shouted questions and the sound of the side-show barker's laughter.  Eddie pulled himself to the window of the cab: the Comet's passengers and crew were crowding around the leader of the caravan and his semi-ragged companions; he was waving his loose arms in gestures of command. Some of the better-dressed ladies from the Comet-whose husbands had apparently¹⁷³ been first to make a deal-were climbing aboard the covered wagons, sobbing¹⁷⁴ and clutching their delicate makeup¹⁷⁵ cases.  "Step right up, folks, step right up!" the barker was yelling cheerfully.  "We'll make room for everybody! A bit crowded, but moving-better than being left here for coyote fodder¹⁷⁶! The day of the iron horse is past! All we got is plain, old-fashioned horse! Slow, but sure!"  Eddie Willers climbed halfway down the ladder on the side of the engine, to see the crowd and to be heard. He waved one arm, hanging onto the rungs with the other. "You're not going, are you?" he cried to his passengers. "You're not abandoning the Comet?"  They drew a little away from him, as if they did not want to look at him or answer. They did not want to hear questions their minds were incapable¹⁷⁷ of weighing. He saw the blind faces of panic.  "What's the matter with the grease-monkey?" asked the barker, pointing at Eddie.  "Mr. Willers," said the conductor softly, "it's no use . . ."  "Don't abandon the Comet!" cried Eddie Willers. "Don't let it go! Oh God, don't let it go!"  "Are you crazy?" cried the barker. "You've no idea what's going on at your railroad stations and headquarters! They're running around like a pack of chickens with their heads cut off! I don't think there's going to be a railroad left in business this side of the Mississippi, by tomorrow morning!"  "Better come along, Mr. Willers," said the conductor.  "No!" cried Eddie, clutching the metal rung as if he wanted his hand to grow fast to it.  The barker shrugged. "Well, it's your funeral!"  "Which way are you going?" asked the engineer, not looking at Eddie.  "Just going, brother! Just looking for some place to stop . . . somewhere. We're from Imperial Valley, California. The 'People's Party' crowd grabbed the crops and any food we had in the cellars. Hoarding¹⁷⁸, they called it. So we just picked up and went. Got to travel by night, on account of the Washington crowd. . . . We're just looking for some place to live. . . . You're welcome to come along, buddy¹⁷⁹, if you've got no home-or else we can drop you off closer to some town or another."  The men of that caravan-thought Eddie indifferently-looked too mean-minded to become the founders¹⁸⁰ of a secret, free settlement, and not mean-minded enough to become a gang of raiders; they had no more destination to find than the motionless beam of the headlight; and, like that beam, they would dissolve somewhere in the empty stretches of the country. He stayed on the ladder, looking up at the beam. He did not watch while the last men ever to ride the Taggart Comet were transferred to the covered wagons.  The conductor went last. "Mr. Willers!" he called desperately¹⁸¹.  "Come along!"  "No," said Eddie.  The side-show barker waved his arm in an upward sweep at Eddie's figure on the side of the engine above their heads. "I hope you know what you're doing!" he cried, his voice half-threat, half-plea. "Maybe somebody will come this way to pick you up-next week or next month! Maybe! Who's going to, these days?"  "Get away from here," said Eddie Willers.  He climbed back into the cab-when the wagons jerked forward and went swaying and creaking off into the night. He sat in the engineer's chair of a motionless engine, his forehead pressed to the useless throttle¹⁸². He felt like the captain of an ocean liner in distress¹⁸³, who preferred to go down with his ship rather than be saved by the canoe of savages¹⁸⁴ taunting¹⁸⁵ him with the superiority of their craft.  Then, suddenly, he felt the blinding surge of a desperate, righteous anger. He leaped to his feet, seizing the throttle. He had to start this train; in the name of some victory that he could not name, he had to start the engine, moving, Past the stage of thinking, calculation or fear, moved by some righteous defiance¹⁸⁶, he was pulling levers at random, he was jerking the throttle back and forth¹⁸⁷, he was stepping on the dead man's pedal, which was dead, he was groping to distinguish the form of some vision that seemed both distant and close, knowing only that his desperate battle was fed by that vision and was fought for its sake.  Don't let it go! his mind was crying-while he was seeing the streets of New York-Don't let it go!-while he was seeing the lights of railroad signals-Don't let it go!-while he was seeing the smoke rising proudly from factory chimneys, while he was struggling to cut through the smoke and reach the vision at the root of these visions. He was pulling at coils of wire, he was linking them and tearing them apart-while the sudden sense of sunrays and pine trees kept pulling at the corners of his mind. Dagny!-he heard himself crying soundlessly- Dagny, in the name of the best within us! . . . He was jerking at futile¹⁸⁸ levers and at a throttle that had nothing to move. . . . Dagny!-he was crying to a twelve-year-old girl in a sunlit clearing of the woods- in the name of the best within us, I must now start this train! . . . Dagny, that is what it was . . . and you knew it, then, but I didn't . . . you knew it when you turned to look at the rails. . . . I said, "not business or earning a living" . . . but, Dagny, business and earning a living and that in man which makes it possible-that is the best within us, that was the thing to defend . . . in the name of saving it, Dagny, I must now start this train. . . .When he found that he had collapsed on the floor of the cab and knew that there was nothing he could do here any longer, he rose and he climbed down the ladder, thinking dimly of the engine's wheels, even though he knew that the engineer had checked them. He felt the crunch¹⁸⁹ of the desert dust under his feet when he let himself drop to the ground. He stood still and, in the enormous silence, he heard the rustle of tumbleweeds stirring in the darkness, like the chuckle¹⁰³ of an invisible army made free to move when the Comet was not. He heard a sharper rustle close by-and he saw the small gray shape of a rabbit rise on its haunches to sniff¹⁹⁰ at the steps of a car of the Taggart Comet. With a jolt⁹¹ of murderous fury, he lunged in the direction of the rabbit, as if he could defeat the advance of the enemy in the person of that tiny gray form. The rabbit darted off into the darkness-but he knew that the advance was not to be defeated.  He stepped to the front of the engine and looked up at the letters TT. Then he collapsed across the rail and lay sobbing at the foot of the engine, with the beam of a motionless headlight above him going off into a limitless night.  The music of Richard Halley's Fifth Concerto¹⁹¹ streamed from his keyboard, past the glass of the window, and spread through the air, over the lights of the valley. It was a symphony of triumph. The notes flowed up, they spoke of rising and they were the rising itself, they were the essence and the form of upward motion, they seemed to embody every human act and thought that had ascent¹⁹² as its motive¹³⁰. It was a sunburst of sound, breaking out of hiding and spreading open. It had the freedom of release and the tension of purpose. It swept space clean and left nothing but the joy of an unobstructed effort. Only a faint echo within the sounds spoke of that from which the music had escaped, but spoke in laughing astonishment¹⁹³ at the discovery that there was no ugliness or pain, and there never had had to be. It was the song of an immense deliverance.  The lights of the valley fell in glowing patches on the snow still covering the ground. There were shelves of snow on the granite¹⁹⁴ ledges¹⁹⁵ and on the heavy limbs of the pines. But the naked branches of the birch trees had a faintly upward thrust, as if in confident promise of the coming leaves of spring.  The rectangle of light on the side of a mountain was the window of Mulligan's study. Midas Mulligan sat at his desk, with a map and a column of figures before him. He was listing the assets of his bank and working on a plan of projected investments. He was noting down the locations he was choosing: "New York-Cleveland-Chicago . . . New York-Philadelphia . . . New York . . . New York . . . New York . . ."  The rectangle of light at the bottom of the valley was the window of Danneskjold's home. Kay Ludlow sat before a mirror, thoughtfully studying the shades of film make-up, spread open in a battered¹⁹⁶ case.  Ragnar Danneskjold lay stretched on a couch, reading a volume of the works of Aristotle: ". . . for these truths hold good for everything that is, and not for some special genus apart from others. And all men use them, because they are true of being qua being. . . . For a principle which every one must have who understands anything that is, is not a hypothesis. . . . Evidently then such a principle is the most certain of all; which principle this is, let us proceed to say. It is, that the same attribute cannot at the same time belong and not belong to the same subject in the same respect. . ."  The rectangle of light in the acres of a farm was the window of the library of Judge Narragansett. He sat at a table, and the light of his lamp fell on the copy of an ancient document. He had marked and crossed out the contradictions in its statements that had once been the cause of its destruction. He was now adding a new clause to its pages: "Congress shall make no law abridging¹⁹⁷ the freedom of production and trade . . ."  The rectangle of light in the midst of a forest was the window of the cabin of Francisco d'Anconia. Francisco lay stretched on the floor, by the dancing tongues of a fire, bent¹⁹⁸ over sheets of paper, completing the drawing of his smelter. Hank Rearden and Ellis Wyatt sat by the fireplace. "John will design the new locomotives," Rearden was saying, "and Dagny will run the first railroad between New York and Philadelphia. She-" And, suddenly, on hearing the next sentence, Francisco threw his head up and burst out laughing, a laughter of greeting, triumph and release. They could not hear the music of Halley's Fifth Concerto now flowing somewhere high above the roof, but Francisco's laughter matched its sounds. Contained in the sentence he had heard, Francisco was seeing the sunlight of spring on the open lawns of homes across the country, he was seeing the sparkle of motors, he was seeing the glow of the steel in the rising frames of new skyscrapers, he was seeing the eyes of youth looking at the future with no uncertainty or fear.  The sentence Rearden had uttered was: "She will probably try to take the shirt off my back with the freight rates she's going to charge, but- I'll be able to meet them."  The faint glitter of light weaving slowly through space, on the highest accessible ledge⁶¹ of a mountain, was the starlight on the strands¹⁹⁹ of Galt's hair. He stood looking, not at the valley below, but at the darkness of the world beyond its walls. Dagny's hand rested on his shoulder, and the wind blew her hair to blend with his. She knew why he had wanted to walk through the mountains tonight and what he had stopped to consider. She knew what words were his to speak and that she would be first to hear them.  They could not see the world beyond the mountains, there was only a void of darkness and rock, but the darkness was hiding the ruins of a continent: the roofless homes, the rusting²⁰⁰ tractors, the lightless streets, the abandoned rail. But far in the distance, on the edge of the earth, a small flame was waving in the wind, the defiantly²⁰¹ stubborn flame of Wyatt's Torch, twisting, being torn and regaining its hold, not to be uprooted²⁰² or extinguished. It seemed to be calling and waiting for the words John Galt was now to pronounce.  "The road is cleared," said Galt. "We are going back to the world." He raised his hand and over the desolate²⁰³ earth he traced in space the sign of the dollar.  THE END  ABOUT THE AUTHOR  "My personal life," says Ayn Rand, "is a postscript²⁰⁴ to my novels; it consists of the sentence: 'And I mean it.' I have always lived by the philosophy I present in my books- and it has worked for me, as it works for my characters. The concretes differ, the abstractions are the same.  "I decided to be a writer at the age of nine, and everything I have done was integrated to that purpose. I am an American by choice and conviction. I was born in Europe, but I came to America because this was the country based on my moral premises²⁰⁵ and the only country where one could be fully free to write. I came here alone, after graduating from a European college. I had a difficult struggle, earning my living at odd jobs, until I could make a financial success of my writing. No one helped me, nor did I think at any time that it was anyone's duty to help me.  "In college, I had taken history as my major subject, and philosophy as my special interest; the first-in order to have a factual knowledge of men's past, for my future writing; the second-in order to achieve an objective definition of my values. I found that the first could be learned, but the second had to be done by me.  "I have held the same philosophy I now hold, for as far back as I can remember. I have learned a great deal through the years and expanded my knowledge of details, of specific issues, of definitions, of applications-and I intend to continue expanding it-but I have never had to change any of my fundamentals. My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute.  "The only philosophical²⁰⁶ debt I can acknowledge is to Aristotle. I most emphatically disagree with a great many parts of his philosophy-but his definition of the laws of logic²⁰⁷ and of the means of human knowledge is so great an achievement that his errors are irrelevant by comparison. You will find my tribute to him in the titles of the three parts of ATLAS²⁰⁸ SHRUGGED.  "My other acknowledgment is on the dedication page of this novel. I knew what values of character I wanted to find in a man. I met such a man-and we have been married for twenty-eight years. His name is Frank O'Connor.  "To all the readers who discovered The Fountainhead and asked me many questions about the wider application of its ideas, I want to say that I am answering these questions in the present novel and that The Fountainhead was only an overture²⁰⁹ to ATLAS SHRUGGED.  "I trust that no one will tell me that men such as I write about don't exist. That this book has been written-and published-is my proof that they do."

The End

1 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。

2 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。

3 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。

4 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。

5 gulped   

v.狼吞虎咽地吃，吞咽( gulp的过去式和过去分词 )；大口地吸（气）；哽住

参考例句：

• He gulped down the rest of his tea and went out. 他把剩下的茶一饮而尽便出去了。
• She gulped nervously, as if the question bothered her. 她紧张地咽了一下，似乎那问题把她难住了。 来自《简明英汉词典》

6 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。

7 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。

8 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。

9 impersonally   

ad.非人称地

参考例句：

• "No." The answer was both reticent and impersonally sad. “不。”这回答既简短，又含有一种无以名状的悲戚。 来自名作英译部分
• The tenet is to service our clients fairly, equally, impersonally and reasonably. 公司宗旨是公正、公平、客观、合理地为客户服务。

10 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。

11 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。

12 inventory   

n.详细目录，存货清单

参考例句：

• Some stores inventory their stock once a week.有些商店每周清点存货一次。
• We will need to call on our supplier to get more inventory.我们必须请供应商送来更多存货。

13 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。

14 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》

15 hip   

n.臀部，髋；屋脊

参考例句：

• The thigh bone is connected to the hip bone.股骨连着髋骨。
• The new coats blouse gracefully above the hip line.新外套在臀围线上优美地打着褶皱。

16 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》

17 collapsed   

adj.倒塌的

参考例句：

• Jack collapsed in agony on the floor. 杰克十分痛苦地瘫倒在地板上。
• The roof collapsed under the weight of snow. 房顶在雪的重压下突然坍塌下来。

18 groaning   

adj. 呜咽的, 呻吟的 动词groan的现在分词形式

参考例句：

• She's always groaning on about how much she has to do. 她总抱怨自己干很多活儿。
• The wounded man lay there groaning, with no one to help him. 受伤者躺在那里呻吟着，无人救助。

19 descended   

a.为...后裔的，出身于...的

参考例句：

• A mood of melancholy descended on us. 一种悲伤的情绪袭上我们的心头。
• The path descended the hill in a series of zigzags. 小路呈连续的之字形顺着山坡蜿蜒而下。

20 disarm   

v.解除武装，回复平常的编制，缓和

参考例句：

• The world has waited 12 years for Iraq to disarm. 全世界等待伊拉克解除武装已有12年之久。
• He has rejected every peaceful opportunity offered to him to disarm.他已经拒绝了所有能和平缴械的机会。

21 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。

22 gaping   

adj.口的；张口的；敞口的；多洞穴的v.目瞪口呆地凝视( gape的现在分词 )；张开，张大

参考例句：

• Ahead of them was a gaping abyss. 他们前面是一个巨大的深渊。
• The antelope could not escape the crocodile's gaping jaws. 那只羚羊无法从鱷鱼张开的大口中逃脱。 来自《简明英汉词典》

23 consultation   

n.咨询；商量；商议；会议

参考例句：

• The company has promised wide consultation on its expansion plans.该公司允诺就其扩展计划广泛征求意见。
• The scheme was developed in close consultation with the local community.该计划是在同当地社区密切磋商中逐渐形成的。

24 poker   

n.扑克；vt.烙制

参考例句：

• He was cleared out in the poker game.他打扑克牌，把钱都输光了。
• I'm old enough to play poker and do something with it.我打扑克是老手了，可以玩些花样。

25 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。

26 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。

27 stammered   

v.结巴地说出( stammer的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• He stammered most when he was nervous. 他一紧张往往口吃。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
• Barsad leaned back in his chair, and stammered, \"What do you mean?\" 巴萨往椅背上一靠，结结巴巴地说，“你是什么意思？” 来自英汉文学 - 双城记

28 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。

29 lanky   

adj.瘦长的

参考例句：

• He was six feet four,all lanky and leggy.他身高6英尺4英寸，瘦高个儿，大长腿。
• Tom was a lanky boy with long skinny legs.汤姆是一个腿很细的瘦高个儿。

30 touchy   

adj.易怒的；棘手的

参考例句：

• Be careful what you say because he's touchy.你说话小心，因为他容易生气。
• He's a little touchy about his weight.他对自己的体重感到有点儿苦恼。

31 emaciated   

adj.衰弱的，消瘦的

参考例句：

• A long time illness made him sallow and emaciated.长期患病使他面黄肌瘦。
• In the light of a single candle,she can see his emaciated face.借着烛光，她能看到他的被憔悴的面孔。

32 addict   

v.使沉溺；使上瘾；n.沉溺于不良嗜好的人

参考例句：

• He became gambling addict,and lost all his possessions.他习染上了赌博，最终输掉了全部家产。
• He assisted a drug addict to escape from drug but failed firstly.一开始他帮助一个吸毒者戒毒但失败了。

33 bluff   

v.虚张声势，用假象骗人；n.虚张声势，欺骗

参考例句：

• His threats are merely bluff.他的威胁仅仅是虚张声势。
• John is a deep card.No one can bluff him easily.约翰是个机灵鬼。谁也不容易欺骗他。

34 traitor   

n.叛徒，卖国贼

参考例句：

• The traitor was finally found out and put in prison.那个卖国贼终于被人发现并被监禁了起来。
• He was sold out by a traitor and arrested.他被叛徒出卖而被捕了。

35 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》

36 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。

37 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。

38 automatons   

n.自动机，机器人( automaton的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• These docile lunatic automatons are no more trouble to their guards than cattle. 对警卫来说，这些驯良的，机器人般的疯子和家畜一样不会带来多大的麻烦。 来自辞典例句
• For the most part, automatons are improved while they are off. 对大多数移动机器来讲，它们是在关机状态下得以改良的。 来自互联网

39 darted   

v.投掷，投射( dart的过去式和过去分词 )；向前冲，飞奔

参考例句：

• The lizard darted out its tongue at the insect. 蜥蜴伸出舌头去吃小昆虫。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The old man was displeased and darted an angry look at me. 老人不高兴了，瞪了我一眼。 来自《简明英汉词典》

40 halfway   

adj.中途的，不彻底的，部分的；adv.半路地，在中途，在半途

参考例句：

• We had got only halfway when it began to get dark.走到半路，天就黑了。
• In study the worst danger is give up halfway.在学习上，最忌讳的是有始无终。

41 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。

42 vibration   

n.颤动，振动；摆动

参考例句：

• There is so much vibration on a ship that one cannot write.船上的震动大得使人无法书写。
• The vibration of the window woke me up.窗子的震动把我惊醒了。

43 accusation   

n.控告，指责，谴责

参考例句：

• I was furious at his making such an accusation.我对他的这种责备非常气愤。
• She knew that no one would believe her accusation.她知道没人会相信她的指控。

44 reproof   

n.斥责，责备

参考例句：

• A smart reproof is better than smooth deceit.严厉的责难胜过温和的欺骗。
• He is impatient of reproof.他不能忍受指责。

45 negligence   

n.疏忽，玩忽，粗心大意

参考例句：

• They charged him with negligence of duty.他们指责他玩忽职守。
• The traffic accident was allegedly due to negligence.这次车祸据说是由于疏忽造成的。

46 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。

47 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。

48 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》

49 rations   

定量( ration的名词复数 )； 配给量； 正常量； 合理的量

参考例句：

• They are provisioned with seven days' rations. 他们得到了7天的给养。
• The soldiers complained that they were getting short rations. 士兵们抱怨他们得到的配给不够数。

50 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。

51 traitors   

卖国贼( traitor的名词复数 )； 叛徒； 背叛者； 背信弃义的人

参考例句：

• Traitors are held in infamy. 叛徒为人所不齿。
• Traitors have always been treated with contempt. 叛徒永被人们唾弃。

52 rustle   

v.沙沙作响；偷盗(牛、马等)；n.沙沙声声

参考例句：

• She heard a rustle in the bushes.她听到灌木丛中一阵沙沙声。
• He heard a rustle of leaves in the breeze.他听到树叶在微风中发出的沙沙声。

53 crouching   

v.屈膝，蹲伏( crouch的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• a hulking figure crouching in the darkness 黑暗中蹲伏着的一个庞大身影
• A young man was crouching by the table, busily searching for something. 一个年轻人正蹲在桌边翻看什么。 来自汉英文学 - 散文英译

54 appraising   

v.估价( appraise的现在分词 )；估计；估量；评价

参考例句：

• At the appraising meeting, experts stated this method was superior to others. 鉴定会上，专家们指出这种方法优于其他方法。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• The teacher is appraising the students' work. 老师正在评定学生的作业。 来自辞典例句

55 appraisingly   

adv.以品评或评价的眼光

参考例句：

• He looked about him appraisingly. 他以品评的目光环视四周。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• She sat opposite him on the bench and studied him-wryly, appraisingly, curiously. 她坐在他对面的凳子上，仔细打量着他--带着嘲笑、揣摩和好奇的神情。 来自辞典例句

56 squeaked   

v.短促地尖叫( squeak的过去式和过去分词 )；吱吱叫；告密；充当告密者

参考例句：

• The radio squeaked five. 收音机里嘟嘟地发出五点钟报时讯号。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
• Amy's shoes squeaked on the tiles as she walked down the corridor. 埃米走过走廊时，鞋子踩在地砖上嘎吱作响。 来自辞典例句

57 shrilly   

尖声的； 光亮的，耀眼的

参考例句：

• The librarian threw back his head and laughed shrilly. 图书管理员把头往后面一仰，尖着嗓子哈哈大笑。
• He half rose in his seat, whistling shrilly between his teeth, waving his hand. 他从车座上半欠起身子，低声打了一个尖锐的唿哨，一面挥挥手。

58 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。

59 brandishing   

v.挥舞( brandish的现在分词 )；炫耀

参考例句：

• The horseman came up to Robin Hood, brandishing his sword. 那个骑士挥舞着剑，来到罗宾汉面前。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He appeared in the lounge brandishing a knife. 他挥舞着一把小刀，出现在休息室里。 来自辞典例句

60 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

61 ledge   

n.壁架，架状突出物；岩架，岩礁

参考例句：

• They paid out the line to lower him to the ledge.他们放出绳子使他降到那块岩石的突出部分。
• Suddenly he struck his toe on a rocky ledge and fell.突然他的脚趾绊在一块突出的岩石上，摔倒了。

62 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。

63 disarmed   

v.裁军( disarm的过去式和过去分词 )；使息怒

参考例句：

• Most of the rebels were captured and disarmed. 大部分叛乱分子被俘获并解除了武装。
• The swordsman disarmed his opponent and ran him through. 剑客缴了对手的械，并对其乱刺一气。 来自《简明英汉词典》

64 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？

65 spurt   

v.喷出；突然进发；突然兴隆

参考例句：

• He put in a spurt at the beginning of the eighth lap.他进入第八圈时便开始冲刺。
• After a silence, Molly let her anger spurt out.沉默了一会儿，莫莉的怒气便迸发了出来。

66 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。

67 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》

68 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。

69 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。

70 swelling   

n.肿胀

参考例句：

• Use ice to reduce the swelling. 用冰敷消肿。
• There is a marked swelling of the lymph nodes. 淋巴结处有明显的肿块。

71 clatter   

v./n.(使)发出连续而清脆的撞击声

参考例句：

• The dishes and bowls slid together with a clatter.碟子碗碰得丁丁当当的。
• Don't clatter your knives and forks.别把刀叉碰得咔哒响。

72 survivors   

幸存者，残存者，生还者( survivor的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The survivors were adrift in a lifeboat for six days. 幸存者在救生艇上漂流了六天。
• survivors clinging to a raft 紧紧抓住救生筏的幸存者

73 garrison   

n.卫戍部队；驻地，卫戍区；vt.派(兵)驻防

参考例句：

• The troops came to the relief of the besieged garrison.军队来援救被围的守备军。
• The German was moving to stiffen up the garrison in Sicily.德军正在加强西西里守军之力量。

74 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。

75 resolute   

adj.坚决的，果敢的

参考例句：

• He was resolute in carrying out his plan.他坚决地实行他的计划。
• The Egyptians offered resolute resistance to the aggressors.埃及人对侵略者作出坚决的反抗。

76 reins   

感情，激情； 缰( rein的名词复数 )； 控制手段； 掌管； （成人带着幼儿走路以防其走失时用的）保护带

参考例句：

• She pulled gently on the reins. 她轻轻地拉着缰绳。
• The government has imposed strict reins on the import of luxury goods. 政府对奢侈品的进口有严格的控制手段。

77 mattress   

n.床垫，床褥

参考例句：

• The straw mattress needs to be aired.草垫子该晾一晾了。
• The new mattress I bought sags in the middle.我买的新床垫中间陷了下去。

78 flask   

n.瓶，火药筒，砂箱

参考例句：

• There is some deposit in the bottom of the flask.这只烧杯的底部有些沉淀物。
• He took out a metal flask from a canvas bag.他从帆布包里拿出一个金属瓶子。

79 lighter   

n.打火机，点火器；驳船；v.用驳船运送；light的比较级

参考例句：

• The portrait was touched up so as to make it lighter.这张画经过润色，色调明朗了一些。
• The lighter works off the car battery.引燃器利用汽车蓄电池打火。

80 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。

81 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。

82 regaining   

复得( regain的现在分词 )； 赢回； 重回； 复至某地

参考例句：

• She was regaining consciousness now, but the fear was coming with her. 现在她正在恢发她的知觉，但是恐怖也就伴随着来了。
• She said briefly, regaining her will with a click. 她干脆地答道，又马上重新振作起精神来。

83 reminder   

n.提醒物，纪念品；暗示，提示

参考例句：

• I have had another reminder from the library.我又收到图书馆的催还单。
• It always took a final reminder to get her to pay her share of the rent.总是得发给她一份最后催缴通知，她才付应该交的房租。

84 tremor   

n.震动，颤动，战栗，兴奋，地震

参考例句：

• There was a slight tremor in his voice.他的声音有点颤抖。
• A slight earth tremor was felt in California.加利福尼亚发生了轻微的地震。

85 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。

86 systematically   

adv.有系统地

参考例句：

• This government has systematically run down public services since it took office.这一屆政府自上台以来系统地削减了公共服务。
• The rainforest is being systematically destroyed.雨林正被系统地毀灭。

87 demolish   

v.拆毁(建筑物等)，推翻(计划、制度等)

参考例句：

• They're going to demolish that old building.他们将拆毁那座旧建筑物。
• He was helping to demolish an underground garage when part of the roof collapsed.他当时正在帮忙拆除一个地下汽车库，屋顶的一部份突然倒塌。

88 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？

89 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》

90 jolts   

（使）摇动， （使）震惊( jolt的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• He found that out when he got a few terrific jolts, but he wouldn't give up. 被狠狠地撞回来几次后，他发觉了这一点，但他决不因此罢休。
• Some power bars are loaded with carbohydrates or caffeine for quick jolts. 有些能量条中包含大量的碳水化合物和咖啡因，以达到快速提神的效果。

91 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。

92 kit   

n.用具包，成套工具；随身携带物

参考例句：

• The kit consisted of about twenty cosmetic items.整套工具包括大约20种化妆用品。
• The captain wants to inspect your kit.船长想检查你的行装。

93 trickle   

vi.淌，滴，流出，慢慢移动，逐渐消散

参考例句：

• The stream has thinned down to a mere trickle.这条小河变成细流了。
• The flood of cars has now slowed to a trickle.汹涌的车流现在已经变得稀稀拉拉。

94 gratitude   

adj.感激，感谢

参考例句：

• I have expressed the depth of my gratitude to him.我向他表示了深切的谢意。
• She could not help her tears of gratitude rolling down her face.她感激的泪珠禁不住沿着面颊流了下来。

95 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。

96 gulch   

n.深谷，峡谷

参考例句：

• The trail ducks into a narrow gulch.这条羊肠小道突然下到一个狭窄的峡谷里。
• This is a picture of California Gulch.这是加利福尼亚峡谷的图片。

97 killing   

n.巨额利润；突然赚大钱，发大财

参考例句：

• Investors are set to make a killing from the sell-off.投资者准备清仓以便大赚一笔。
• Last week my brother made a killing on Wall Street.上个周我兄弟在华尔街赚了一大笔。

98 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。

99 brute   

n.野兽，兽性

参考例句：

• The aggressor troops are not many degrees removed from the brute.侵略军简直象一群野兽。
• That dog is a dangerous brute.It bites people.那条狗是危险的畜牲，它咬人。

100 brutes   

兽( brute的名词复数 )； 畜生； 残酷无情的人； 兽性

参考例句：

• They're not like dogs; they're hideous brutes. 它们不像狗，是丑陋的畜牲。
• Suddenly the foul musty odour of the brutes struck his nostrils. 突然，他的鼻尖闻到了老鼠的霉臭味。 来自英汉文学

101 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

102 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。

103 chuckle   

vi.／n.轻声笑，咯咯笑

参考例句：

• He shook his head with a soft chuckle.他轻轻地笑着摇了摇头。
• I couldn't suppress a soft chuckle at the thought of it.想到这个，我忍不住轻轻地笑起来。

104 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。

105 flickers   

电影制片业； （通常指灯光）闪烁，摇曳( flicker的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The fire flickers low. 炉火颤动欲灭。
• A strange idea flickers in my mind. 一种奇怪的思想又在我脑中燃烧了。

106 exorbitant   

adj.过分的；过度的

参考例句：

• More competition should help to drive down exorbitant phone charges.更多的竞争有助于降低目前畸高的电话收费。
• The price of food here is exorbitant. 这儿的食物价格太高。

107 scattered   

adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的

参考例句：

• Gathering up his scattered papers,he pushed them into his case.他把散乱的文件收拾起来，塞进文件夹里。

108 puddles   

n.水坑， （尤指道路上的）雨水坑( puddle的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The puddles had coalesced into a small stream. 地面上水洼子里的水汇流成了一条小溪。
• The road was filled with puddles from the rain. 雨后路面到处是一坑坑的积水。 来自《简明英汉词典》

109 receding   

v.逐渐远离( recede的现在分词 )；向后倾斜；自原处后退或避开别人的注视；尤指问题

参考例句：

• Desperately he struck out after the receding lights of the yacht. 游艇的灯光渐去渐远，他拼命划水追赶。 来自辞典例句
• Sounds produced by vehicles receding from us seem lower-pitched than usual. 渐渐远离我们的运载工具发出的声似乎比平常的音调低。 来自辞典例句

110 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。

111 primordial   

adj.原始的；最初的

参考例句：

• It is the primordial force that propels us forward.它是推动我们前进的原始动力。
• The Neanderthal Man is one of our primordial ancestors.的尼安德特人是我们的原始祖先之一.

112 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

113 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。

114 veins   

n.纹理；矿脉( vein的名词复数 )；静脉；叶脉；纹理

参考例句：

• The blood flows from the capillaries back into the veins. 血从毛细血管流回静脉。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• I felt a pleasant glow in all my veins from the wine. 喝过酒后我浑身的血都热烘烘的，感到很舒服。 来自《简明英汉词典》

115 bottlenecks   

n.瓶颈( bottleneck的名词复数 )；瓶颈路段（常引起交通堵塞）；（尤指工商业发展的）瓶颈；阻碍

参考例句：

• Roadworks are causing bottlenecks in the city centre. 道路施工导致市中心交通阻塞。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• At five o'clock in the afternoon the city streets are a series of bottlenecks. 下午五点市中心的街道就成了拥挤不堪的窄路。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》

116 severed   

v.切断，断绝( sever的过去式和过去分词 )；断，裂

参考例句：

• The doctor said I'd severed a vessel in my leg. 医生说我割断了腿上的一根血管。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• We have severed diplomatic relations with that country. 我们与那个国家断绝了外交关系。 来自《简明英汉词典》

117 artery   

n.干线，要道；动脉

参考例句：

• We couldn't feel the changes in the blood pressure within the artery.我们无法感觉到动脉血管内血压的变化。
• The aorta is the largest artery in the body.主动脉是人体中的最大动脉。

118 engulf   

vt.吞没，吞食

参考例句：

• Floodwaters engulf a housing project in the Bajo Yuna community in central Dominican Republic.洪水吞没了多米尼加中部巴杰优那社区的一处在建的住房工程项目。
• If we are not strong enough to cover all the minds up,then they will engulf us,and we are in danger.如果我们不够坚强来抵挡大众的意念，就会有被他们吞没的危险。

119 engulfed   

v.吞没，包住( engulf的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• He was engulfed by a crowd of reporters. 他被一群记者团团围住。
• The little boat was engulfed by the waves. 小船被波浪吞没了。 来自《简明英汉词典》

120 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。

121 abruptness   

n. 突然，唐突

参考例句：

• He hid his feelings behind a gruff abruptness. 他把自己的感情隐藏在生硬鲁莽之中。
• Suddenly Vanamee returned to himself with the abruptness of a blow. 伐那米猛地清醒过来，象挨到了当头一拳似的。

122 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。

123 phoenix   

n.凤凰，长生(不死)鸟；引申为重生

参考例句：

• The airline rose like a phoenix from the ashes.这家航空公司又起死回生了。
• The phoenix worship of China is fetish worship not totem adoration.中国凤崇拜是灵物崇拜而非图腾崇拜。

124 propeller   

n.螺旋桨，推进器

参考例句：

• The propeller started to spin around.螺旋桨开始飞快地旋转起来。
• A rope jammed the boat's propeller.一根绳子卡住了船的螺旋桨。

125 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。

126 dedication   

n.奉献，献身，致力，题献，献辞

参考例句：

• We admire her courage,compassion and dedication.我们钦佩她的勇气、爱心和奉献精神。
• Her dedication to her work was admirable.她对工作的奉献精神可钦可佩。

127 westward   

n.西方，西部；adj.西方的，向西的；adv.向西

参考例句：

• We live on the westward slope of the hill.我们住在这座山的西山坡。
• Explore westward or wherever.向西或到什么别的地方去勘探。

128 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。

129 embody   

vt.具体表达，使具体化；包含，收录

参考例句：

• The latest locomotives embody many new features. 这些最新的机车具有许多新的特色。
• Hemingway's characters plainly embody his own values and view of life.海明威笔下的角色明确反映出他自己的价值观与人生观。

130 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。

131 diesels   

柴油( diesel的名词复数 )； 柴油机机车（或船等）

参考例句：

• The diesels roared, the conductors jumped aboard, and off the train went. 内燃机发出轰鸣声，列车员跳上车厢，火车开走了。
• The diesels catch and roar, a welcome sound. 柴油机开动，发生了怒吼，这是令人鼓舞的声音。

132 diesel   

n.柴油发动机，内燃机

参考例句：

• We experimented with diesel engines to drive the pumps.我们试着用柴油机来带动水泵。
• My tractor operates on diesel oil.我的那台拖拉机用柴油开动。

133 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。

134 immunity   

n.优惠；免除；豁免，豁免权

参考例句：

• The law gives public schools immunity from taxation.法律免除公立学校的纳税义务。
• He claims diplomatic immunity to avoid being arrested.他要求外交豁免以便避免被捕。

135 factions   

组织中的小派别，派系( faction的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The gens also lives on in the "factions." 氏族此外还继续存在于“factions〔“帮”〕中。 来自英汉非文学 - 家庭、私有制和国家的起源
• rival factions within the administration 政府中的对立派别

136 eastward   

adv.向东；adj.向东的；n.东方，东部

参考例句：

• The river here tends eastward.这条河从这里向东流。
• The crowd is heading eastward,believing that they can find gold there.人群正在向东移去，他们认为在那里可以找到黄金。

137 conscientiously   

adv.凭良心地；认真地，负责尽职地；老老实实

参考例句：

• He kept silent,eating just as conscientiously but as though everything tasted alike. 他一声不吭，闷头吃着，仿佛桌上的饭菜都一个味儿。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• She discharged all the responsibilities of a minister conscientiously. 她自觉地履行部长的一切职责。 来自《简明英汉词典》

138 shuddered   

v.战栗( shudder的过去式和过去分词 )；发抖；（机器、车辆等）突然震动；颤动

参考例句：

• He slammed on the brakes and the car shuddered to a halt. 他猛踩刹车，车颤抖着停住了。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• I shuddered at the sight of the dead body. 我一看见那尸体就战栗。 来自《简明英汉词典》

139 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》

140 cacti   

n.（复）仙人掌

参考例句：

• There we could see nothing but cacti.那里除了仙人掌我们什么也看不到。
• Cacti can survive the lack of rainfall in the desert.仙人掌在降水稀少的沙漠中也能生存下去。

141 junction   

n.连接，接合；交叉点，接合处，枢纽站

参考例句：

• There's a bridge at the junction of the two rivers.两河的汇合处有座桥。
• You must give way when you come to this junction.你到了这个路口必须让路。

142 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》

143 dispel   

vt.驱走，驱散，消除

参考例句：

• I tried in vain to dispel her misgivings.我试图消除她的疑虑，但没有成功。
• We hope the programme will dispel certain misconceptions about the disease.我们希望这个节目能消除对这种疾病的一些误解。

144 agitated   

adj.被鼓动的，不安的

参考例句：

• His answers were all mixed up,so agitated was he.他是那样心神不定，回答全乱了。
• She was agitated because her train was an hour late.她乘坐的火车晚点一个小时，她十分焦虑。

145 rattling   

adj. 格格作响的, 活泼的, 很好的 adv. 极其, 很, 非常 动词rattle的现在分词

参考例句：

• This book is a rattling good read. 这是一本非常好的读物。
• At that same instant,a deafening explosion set the windows rattling. 正在这时，一声震耳欲聋的爆炸突然袭来，把窗玻璃震得当当地响。

146 lethargic   

adj.昏睡的，懒洋洋的

参考例句：

• He felt too miserable and lethargic to get dressed.他心情低落无精打采，完全没有心思穿衣整装。
• The hot weather made me feel lethargic.炎热的天气使我昏昏欲睡。

147 blur   

n.模糊不清的事物；vt.使模糊，使看不清楚

参考例句：

• The houses appeared as a blur in the mist.房子在薄雾中隐隐约约看不清。
• If you move your eyes and your head,the picture will blur.如果你的眼睛或头动了，图像就会变得模糊不清。

148 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。

149 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。

150 meager   

adj.缺乏的，不足的，瘦的

参考例句：

• He could not support his family on his meager salary.他靠微薄的工资无法养家。
• The two men and the woman grouped about the fire and began their meager meal.两个男人同一个女人围着火，开始吃起少得可怜的午饭。

151 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。

152 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。

153 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。

154 cylinders   

n.圆筒( cylinder的名词复数 )；圆柱；汽缸；（尤指用作容器的）圆筒状物

参考例句：

• They are working on all cylinders to get the job finished. 他们正在竭尽全力争取把这工作干完。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• That jeep has four cylinders. 那辆吉普车有4个汽缸。 来自《简明英汉词典》

155 winking   

n.瞬眼，目语v.使眼色( wink的现在分词 )；递眼色（表示友好或高兴等）；（指光）闪烁；闪亮

参考例句：

• Anyone can do it; it's as easy as winking. 这谁都办得到，简直易如反掌。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• The stars were winking in the clear sky. 星星在明亮的天空中闪烁。 来自《简明英汉词典》

156 periphery   

n.(圆体的)外面；周围

参考例句：

• Geographically, the UK is on the periphery of Europe.从地理位置上讲，英国处于欧洲边缘。
• The periphery of the retina is very sensitive to motion.视网膜的外围对运动非常敏感。

157 primitive   

adj.原始的；简单的；n.原(始)人，原始事物

参考例句：

• It is a primitive instinct to flee a place of danger.逃离危险的地方是一种原始本能。
• His book describes the march of the civilization of a primitive society.他的著作描述了一个原始社会的开化过程。

158 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。

159 hoofs   

n.（兽的）蹄，马蹄( hoof的名词复数 )v.（兽的）蹄，马蹄( hoof的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• The stamp of the horse's hoofs on the wooden floor was loud. 马蹄踏在木头地板上的声音很响。 来自辞典例句
• The noise of hoofs called him back to the other window. 马蹄声把他又唤回那扇窗子口。 来自辞典例句

160 apparition   

n.幽灵，神奇的现象

参考例句：

• He saw the apparition of his dead wife.他看见了他亡妻的幽灵。
• But the terror of this new apparition brought me to a stand.这新出现的幽灵吓得我站在那里一动也不敢动。

161 joyously   

ad.快乐地, 高兴地

参考例句：

• She opened the door for me and threw herself in my arms, screaming joyously and demanding that we decorate the tree immediately. 她打开门，直扑我的怀抱，欣喜地喊叫着要马上装饰圣诞树。
• They came running, crying out joyously in trilling girlish voices. 她们边跑边喊，那少女的颤音好不欢快。 来自名作英译部分

162 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。

163 chuckling   

轻声地笑( chuckle的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• I could hear him chuckling to himself as he read his book. 他看书时，我能听见他的轻声发笑。
• He couldn't help chuckling aloud. 他忍不住的笑了出来。 来自汉英文学 - 骆驼祥子

164 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。

165 peeked   

v.很快地看( peek的过去式和过去分词 )；偷看；窥视；微露出

参考例句：

• She peeked over the top of her menu. 她从菜单上往外偷看。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• On two occasions she had peeked at him through a crack in the wall. 她曾两次透过墙缝窥视他。 来自辞典例句

166 wailed   

v.哭叫，哀号( wail的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• She wailed over her father's remains. 她对着父亲的遗体嚎啕大哭。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• The women of the town wailed over the war victims. 城里的妇女为战争的死难者们痛哭。 来自辞典例句

167 caravan   

n.大蓬车；活动房屋

参考例句：

• The community adviser gave us a caravan to live in.社区顾问给了我们一间活动住房栖身。
• Geoff connected the caravan to the car.杰弗把旅行用的住屋拖车挂在汽车上。

168 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。

169 caterpillar   

n.毛虫，蝴蝶的幼虫

参考例句：

• A butterfly is produced by metamorphosis from a caterpillar.蝴蝶是由毛虫脱胎变成的。
• A caterpillar must pass through the cocoon stage to become a butterfly.毛毛虫必须经过茧的阶段才能变成蝴蝶。

170 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。

171 scramble   

v.爬行，攀爬，杂乱蔓延，碎片，片段，废料

参考例句：

• He broke his leg in his scramble down the wall.他爬墙摔断了腿。
• It was a long scramble to the top of the hill.到山顶须要爬登一段长路。

172 sobs   

啜泣（声），呜咽（声）( sob的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• She was struggling to suppress her sobs. 她拼命不让自己哭出来。
• She burst into a convulsive sobs. 她突然抽泣起来。

173 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。

174 sobbing   

<主方>Ⅰ adj.湿透的

参考例句：

• I heard a child sobbing loudly. 我听见有个孩子在呜呜地哭。
• Her eyes were red with recent sobbing. 她的眼睛因刚哭过而发红。

175 makeup   

n.组织；性格；化装品

参考例句：

• Those who failed the exam take a makeup exam.这次考试不及格的人必须参加补考。
• Do you think her beauty could makeup for her stupidity?你认为她的美丽能弥补她的愚蠢吗？

176 fodder   

n.草料；炮灰

参考例句：

• Grass mowed and cured for use as fodder.割下来晒干用作饲料的草。
• Guaranteed salt intake, no matter which normal fodder.不管是那一种正常的草料，保证盐的摄取。

177 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。

178 hoarding   

n.贮藏；积蓄；临时围墙；囤积v.积蓄并储藏（某物）( hoard的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• After the war, they were shot for hoarding. 战后他们因囤积而被枪决。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Actually he had two unused ones which he was hoarding up. 其实他还藏了两片没有用呢。 来自英汉文学

179 buddy   

n.（美口）密友，伙伴

参考例句：

• Calm down,buddy.What's the trouble?压压气，老兄。有什么麻烦吗？
• Get out of my way,buddy!别挡道了，你这家伙！

180 founders   

n.创始人( founder的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• He was one of the founders of the university's medical faculty. 他是该大学医学院的创建人之一。 来自辞典例句
• The founders of our religion made this a cornerstone of morality. 我们宗教的创始人把这看作是道德的基石。 来自辞典例句

181 desperately   

adv.极度渴望地，绝望地，孤注一掷地

参考例句：

• He was desperately seeking a way to see her again.他正拼命想办法再见她一面。
• He longed desperately to be back at home.他非常渴望回家。

182 throttle   

n.节流阀，节气阀，喉咙；v.扼喉咙，使窒息，压

参考例句：

• These government restrictions are going to throttle our trade.这些政府的限制将要扼杀我们的贸易。
• High tariffs throttle trade between countries.高的关税抑制了国与国之间的贸易。

183 distress   

n.苦恼，痛苦，不舒适；不幸；vt.使悲痛

参考例句：

• Nothing could alleviate his distress.什么都不能减轻他的痛苦。
• Please don't distress yourself.请你不要忧愁了。

184 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。

185 taunting   

嘲讽( taunt的现在分词 )； 嘲弄； 辱骂； 奚落

参考例句：

• She wagged a finger under his nose in a taunting gesture. 她当着他的面嘲弄地摇晃着手指。
• His taunting inclination subdued for a moment by the old man's grief and wildness. 老人的悲伤和狂乱使他那嘲弄的意图暂时收敛起来。

186 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。

187 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。

188 futile   

adj.无效的，无用的，无希望的

参考例句：

• They were killed,to the last man,in a futile attack.因为进攻失败，他们全部被杀，无一幸免。
• Their efforts to revive him were futile.他们对他抢救无效。

189 crunch   

n.关键时刻；艰难局面；v.发出碎裂声

参考例句：

• If it comes to the crunch they'll support us.关键时刻他们是会支持我们的。
• People who crunch nuts at the movies can be very annoying.看电影时嘎吱作声地嚼干果的人会使人十分讨厌。

190 sniff   

vi.嗅…味道；抽鼻涕；对嗤之以鼻，蔑视

参考例句：

• The police used dogs to sniff out the criminals in their hiding - place.警察使用警犬查出了罪犯的藏身地点。
• When Munchie meets a dog on the beach, they sniff each other for a while.当麦奇在海滩上碰到另一条狗的时候，他们会彼此嗅一会儿。

191 concerto   

n.协奏曲

参考例句：

• The piano concerto was well rendered.钢琴协奏曲演奏得很好。
• The concert ended with a Mozart violin concerto.音乐会在莫扎特的小提琴协奏曲中结束。

192 ascent   

n.(声望或地位)提高；上升，升高；登高

参考例句：

• His rapid ascent in the social scale was surprising.他的社会地位提高之迅速令人吃惊。
• Burke pushed the button and the elevator began its slow ascent.伯克按动电钮，电梯开始缓慢上升。

193 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。

194 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。

195 ledges   

n.（墙壁，悬崖等）突出的狭长部分( ledge的名词复数 )；（平窄的）壁架；横档；（尤指）窗台

参考例句：

• seabirds nesting on rocky ledges 海鸟在岩架上筑巢
• A rusty ironrod projected mournfully from one of the window ledges. 一个窗架上突出一根生锈的铁棒，真是满目凄凉。 来自辞典例句

196 battered   

adj.磨损的；v.连续猛击；磨损

参考例句：

• He drove up in a battered old car.他开着一辆又老又破的旧车。
• The world was brutally battered but it survived.这个世界遭受了惨重的创伤,但它还是生存下来了。

197 abridging   

节略( abridge的现在分词 )； 减少； 缩短； 剥夺（某人的）权利（或特权等）

参考例句：

• He's currently abridging his book. 他正在对他的书进行删节。
• First Amendment: "Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech." （美国宪法）第一修正案规定议会不应该通过减损（公民）言论自由的法律。

198 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。

199 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》

200 rusting   

n.生锈v.（使）生锈( rust的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• There was an old rusting bolt on the door. 门上有一个生锈的旧门闩。 来自辞典例句
• Zinc can be used to cover other metals to stop them rusting. 锌可用来涂在其他金属表面以防锈。 来自辞典例句

201 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》

202 uprooted   

v.把（某物）连根拔起( uproot的过去式和过去分词 )；根除；赶走；把…赶出家园

参考例句：

• Many people were uprooted from their homes by the flood. 水灾令许多人背井离乡。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The hurricane blew with such force that trees were uprooted. 飓风强烈地刮着，树都被连根拔起了。 来自《简明英汉词典》

203 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。

204 postscript   

n.附言，又及；(正文后的)补充说明

参考例句：

• There was the usual romantic postscript at the end of his letter.他的信末又是一贯的浪漫附言。
• She mentioned in a postscript to her letter that the parcel had arrived.她在信末附笔中说包裹已寄到。

205 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。

206 philosophical   

adj.哲学家的，哲学上的，达观的

参考例句：

• The teacher couldn't answer the philosophical problem.老师不能解答这个哲学问题。
• She is very philosophical about her bad luck.她对自己的不幸看得很开。

207 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。

208 atlas   

n.地图册，图表集

参考例句：

• He reached down the atlas from the top shelf.他从书架顶层取下地图集。
• The atlas contains forty maps,including three of Great Britain.这本地图集有40幅地图，其中包括3幅英国地图。

209 overture   

n.前奏曲、序曲，提议，提案，初步交涉

参考例句：

• The opera was preceded by a short overture.这部歌剧开始前有一段简短的序曲。
• His overture led to nothing.他的提议没有得到什么结果。