chapter 19

Jake was in his office: it was eleven thirty-five and Julia and I stood in the darkened doorway¹ of the Morse Building directly across Nassau Street from the Potter Building entrance, and I counted floors and then windows; on the third floor up from the Nassau Street entranceway the second window to the right was a tall rectangle of yellow light. It was Jake's office, the only room lighted in the entire dark face of the old building. Ten minutes later it lowered, flickered² redly for a moment, then was out. Julia's arm was under mine, and I felt it tighten⁵. To herself she murmured, "He's leaving," and I nodded in the darkness. There was a three-quarter moon out, very high in the sky, but we stood far back, deep in the complete darkness of the doorway. I pictured Jake ... locking his office door now ... walking down the short hall in the faint light from outside, perhaps using a match, though I could see no light. Down the stairs then, a hand on the banister. And now, just about now, he'd be turning to walk through the long hall the length of the building toward Park Row and City Hall Park. Crossing the street toward it, he'd glance up at the City Hall clock; it would say ten or eleven minutes to twelve. Perhaps far across the park in the moonlight Carmody, too, would be entering it, a heavy satchel⁷ at the end of one arm. I pressed Julia's arm to step forward, and—you can never entirely⁸ anticipate what anyone else will do—Jake stepped out of the entrance directly across the street onto the sidewalk, and stood looking carefully around in every direction. Was he listening, too? We'd instantly frozen motionless, not breathing. Could my pounding heartbeat actually be audible in the complete silence? Had our feet shuffled¹⁰ and made a sound? Across the street, Jake walked on past our doorway to Beekman Street and then across Beekman, on down toward Ann Street, his footsteps loud and echoing between building walls. Of course he hadn't left by the Park Row entrance to be seen by Carmody and whoever else might have been waiting and watching just across the street in the park. Instead, he would come toward City Hall Park now, walking north on Broadway and entering it from the west, keeping the location of his office a secret till he was ready to lead Carmody toward it himself. We waited, listening, watching from our doorway. I saw Jake reach Ann Street and turn west out of sight, the sound of his steps instantly cut off. Then we hurried across Nassau Street—we had minutes at most—and up the moonlit stairs, and down the short hall to Jake's doorway. I had mykey out, found the lock, turned the key, and the door opened. I struck a match and walked, shielding it with my hand, to the jet over the desk, turned it up, touched the match to the tip, and it popped redly into flame. I lowered it to steadiness, then actually ran across the room to reach under the bottom board of the covered-over doorway, and find my hammer. There was nothing to do but accept a certain amount of squealing¹¹ protest from the nails as I pulled them. But I drew slowly with an even pressure, keeping the noise down; and as soon as they were loosened, I pried¹² the board off silently with the hammer claws. Two boards off, then a third, leaving a foot-and-a-half opening a couple of feet above the floor; I helped Julia as she ducked, her hands on the board just below the opening. She got one leg through, then lowered her shoulders, ducked her head under, and cried out in fright. I looked through the opening: The room was lighted dimly by moonlight through its single tall window, and most of its floor was gone, nothing but black space below. They'd worked, the carpenters, since I'd seen them last; finishing the second floor below, then moving up to this one, and sawing out the floor boards up here, exposing the long joists. They'd worked—possibly this afternoon—from the far wall, back toward the doorways¹³, and now there was left only a corner of the floor, an approximate triangle from this boarded-over doorway to the door to the hall. There was enough left to stand on, perhaps to sit, and after a moment longer and keeping a tight grip, Julia crawled on through. I followed as fast as I could move. We'd lost a few moments we might need if Carmody had been waiting in the park and they'd started right back. They could be in the entranceway now, starting to climb the stairs. I had to take the risk, accepting the noise and hoping. Holding the last of the three boards I'd pried off back in its place, nail points fitted into their original holes, I was able to hammer it back precisely¹⁴ in place, plenty of room for my arm to swing, easily able to see. I had the second board in place, feeling a little cramped¹⁵ now, but my projecting arm still able to swing the hammer. My arm was actually raised, ready to come down, when I remembered. I dropped board and hammer clattering¹⁷ onto the floor of Jake's office, and then—squeezing, forcings not worrying about a ripped-off coat button so long as it fell on our side, scratching my face from cheekbone to ear—I fought through the two-board opening, stumbled into Jake's office, nearly falling down, then ran the two steps toward his desk, my arm reaching out before me. Then my fingers were on the gas-jet key, twisting, the light popped out as Jake had left it, and in the new darkness I scrambled²⁰ back, forcing my way into the empty, nearly floorless room. Julia had my hammer and the dropped board ready for me, and blinking my eyes, trying to speed up their adjustment to the dim moonlight, I fitted the nails into their original holes, and pounded them in to their original depth. I remembered to lay my hammer on our side of the doorway, and as I picked up the third board we heard the City Hall clock, very faintly, the bulk of the, building between us and it, begin to slowly bong out the hour. We didn't wait to count; it leisurely²¹ sounded twelve times while Julia and I, each with our fingers curved around top and bottom of an end of the board, pulled it into the last opening, and—by trial and error, sliding it around—we found the nail holes,finally, the points dropping into place. Each with our hands at first one end of the board, then the other, we pulled it in toward us with all our strength while I prayed silently to somebody or something not to let us slip and shoot backward into the dark emptiness behind and below us. The final slow bong sounded, the board was as secure as we could get it, and with my fingers through the cracks above and below the board, I felt for the nailheads. They projected a good half inch, and when I tried the board it wobbled. But it was firm enough, I told myself, and would look all right from the other side. We had a minute or two, it turned out, and it may have been as long as three, to get settled. As comfortably as we could, our outer coats folded as cushions, we sat in the nearly dark room facing the boarded-up doorway. We sat, knees drawn²² up, arms around our ankles, as close as we could bring our eyes to the cracks without showing the tips of our shoes at the opening below the bottom board. I reached out to touch Julia's knee and patted it reassuringly²³; at least that was the intention. We heard nothing of them out in the hall, no footstep, voice, or even the creak of a floorboard. A key rattling²⁴ suddenly into the lock of Jake Pickering's office was the first sound of them, and Julia's hand shot out and gripped my forearm. Then they were in, a confusion of footsteps on the wooden floor, and, sounding terrifyingly inside the room with us, Carmody's voice said, "What's this!" its sound hollow in the empty space we sat in, and Julia's hand on my arm squeezed down hard. The gaslight in the next office rose high, projecting in knotholes and slits²⁵ of light onto the far wall of our room the wavering shape of the boarded-up doorway, and down its center was the shape of a man peering in. In the open few inches at the bottom of the doorway the tips of a pair of boots almost touched mine, and beside them on the floor was the silver tip of an ebony cane²⁶. "It's nothing; an elevator shaft²⁷," Pickering's voice answered impatiently. We couldn't see past Carmody standing²⁸ less than six inches from our eyes. "Let's have the suitcase." For a moment or so Carmody, suitcase in hand, staring into the room over our motionless heads, didn't move. "Floor's gone," he murmured to himself then, and turned away. Except for the narrow fuzzy-edged bars and small circles of projected light on the wall behind us, and a yellow parallelogram of light at our feet, our room was shadows and blackness, the high moonlight slanting²⁹ down through the narrow window only a pale wash of light disappearing into the darkness below. On the other side of our barricade³⁰ I could see almost the entire office except for the near wall, a strip of floor, and a strip of ceiling just outside and above our doorway. My shoulders moved in a shudder³¹ of guilty excitement and apprehension³² at watching people in secret that I hadn't felt since childhood. "Up here," Pickering was saying. He stood beside his desk, facing us, pointing at its top. Suitcase in hand, Carmody stopped before the desk, and we heard him grunt³³ as he swung the case up onto the desk top. Both men had their hats off, hung on nails by the door, but wore their outer coats. We watched Carmody's busy hands, heard the creak of straps³⁴ unfastened, the metallic³⁵ clicks of fasteners snapping open. Waiting beside his desk, facing us, Pickering stared, eyes wide.
Then Carmody opened the suitcase flat on the desk top and it was filled with paper money, greenbacks and yellowbacks bound into thin stacks by brown-paper ribbons. We heard Jake Pickering exhale³⁶, saw him lean forward to stare down. Then, grinning slowly, he lifted his eyes to Carmody, and they were friendly, happy, as though both of them shared the pleasure of the sight on the desk top. "It's all here?" he said slowly; his voice was awed³⁷. Carmody nodded, and Jake grinned again, very fond of Carmody now, everything forgiven. Still nodding—I watched the gleam of his dark hair as his head moved—Carmody said, "Yes: it's all there. All you're going to get: ten thousand dollars." I was holding my breath, and I had to give Jake credit; he hung onto his grin. But his eyes narrowed and in the slight flicker⁴ of the gaslight they glittered at Carmody, hard and menacing. He didn't say anything; he placed the knuckles³⁸ of his fists on the edge of his desk and leaned forward on his stiffened³⁹ arms over the suitcase toward Carmody, and waited, staring at him till Carmody had to speak. "The public is tired of Tweed Ring scandals!" he said angrily, but his voice was defensive⁴⁰. "As a minor⁴¹ nuisance you and your information"—he nodded at the suitcase before them—"are worth that much but no more. The Ring is dissolved and Tweed is dead, like most of the witnesses." With the silver head of his cane—it was molded in the shape of a lion's head—he gestured at the filing cabinets around the walls. "And all your papers can't send me to prison." "Oh, I know that." Jake didn't alter his position. "Your money will keep you out of jail; I always understood that. But I'll destroy your reputation, and your money won't ever bring that back." Carmody laughed, a snort through the nostrils⁴², and began pacing the room. Gripping his cane at the middle, he waggled the head, gesturing as he spoke⁴³. "Reputation," he said scornfully. "You're a clerk. With a clerk's mentality⁴⁴. Did you believe that anyone who matters would think the less of me because of your information? Hardly a rich man in the city who hasn't done all that I have, and most of them worse!" He stopped at Pickering's desk and with the head of his cane contemptuously touched the suitcase full of money. "Take this, and think yourself lucky." But once more Jake was grinning. "You're rights; Carnegie wouldn't care. He'd merely think you a fool for getting caught. And Gould wouldn't care. Of Michaels or Morgan, Seligman or Sage⁴⁵, or any of the rest of them. The men wouldn't care at all." He reached across the stacks of money into a pigeonhole⁴⁶ of his desk, and brought out a long newspaper column torn carefully down both sides. It was folded in half, and he opened it, turning so the light would catch it; I could see that it was a long printed listing, apparently⁴⁷ printed in a double column. " 'Mrs. Astor,' " he read from the top of the list, his voice supplying the quotation⁴⁸ marks. "That is all it says, because we all know which Mrs. Astor, don't we? And she would care, Mr. Carmody. 'Mrs. August Belmont' would care. 'Mrs. Frederic H. Betts, Mrs. H.W. Brevoort, Mrs. John H. Cheever, Mrs. Clarence E. Day'—they would all care. And 'Mrs. Stuyvesant Fish, Mrs. Robert Goelet, Mrs. Ulysses S.—' " "What are you reading?" Carmody said harshly.
"A few names at random⁵⁰. From the list of managers of the Charity Ball at the Academy of Music tonight. 'Mrs. Oliver Harriman, Mrs. J.D. Jones, Mrs. Pierre Lorillard, Mrs. Thomas B. Musgrave, Mrs. Peter R. Olney, Mrs. John E. Roosevelt, Mrs. A.T. Stewart'; they'd all care! And 'Mrs. W.E. Strong, Mrs. Henry A. Taber, Mrs. Cornelius Van—' " "That's enough." "Not quite." Pickering looked up from his list. "There is one name I passed by: the most important of all. She would care the most of any on this list, because never again would her name be included in such illustrious company." Pickering's forefinger⁵² moved to the top of the list, began to slowly slide down it, and stopped almost immediately. " 'Mrs. Andrew W. Carmody,' " he read, and the silver lion on Carmody's cane smashed down onto his head, and he dropped like a stringless puppet, striking the desk chair, sending it squealing across the office. Julia had gasped⁵⁴; more than a gasp⁵³, it was a choked cry, but the shrill⁵⁵ of the chair covered the sound, and as she tried to rise I grabbed her shoulders, holding her down, my lips at her ears whispering, "No! No! He's not really hurt!" though I didn't know that. Carmody stood staring at Pickering crumpled⁵⁶ on the floor; then he looked at the blood-reddened head of the cane in his hand. He looked at the open suitcase full of money, then down— not at Pickering now but at the newspaper fragment in Pickering's hand, because he suddenly stooped and snatched it from Pickering's fingers. He stood reading it then, scanning it, rather, rapidly searching for a name. He found it, and murmured aloud, " 'Mrs. Andrew W. Carmody.' " For a moment longer he stared at the printed list, then again looked down at Pickering motionless on the floor. Suddenly he crumpled the clipping in his hand to a ball, and threw it hard at Pickering. He threw his cane to the floor, and actually ran the two steps necessary to reach the desk chair. He pulled it to Pickering's side, stooped, gripped him under the arms, and dragged him limply up into the seat of the chair. There, head lolling, Pickering would have slid off the seat, but Carmody shoved down the back of the chair, tilting⁵⁸ it so far that only Pickering's toes touched the floor. Carmody reached down, unfastened Pickering's belt, and yanked it from its loops. Then he threaded it through the slats of the chair back and brought the ends together across Pickering's chest and upper arms. They wouldn't meet, and with one upraised knee Carmody held the chair tilted⁵⁹, removed his own belt, and fastened an end to the buckle⁶⁰ of Pickering's. Then he looped the double belt around Pickering's chest and upper arms just above the elbows. With the buckle at the back, he cinched it so tightly we heard leather and wood creak, and I wondered if Pickering could breathe. But he could: He was stirring as Carmody finished, mumbling⁶¹, a long thread of saliva⁶² swaying at his mouth corner as, eyes still closed, he struggled to lift his head. Carmody stepped back, picked up his cane, and walked swiftly around to the back of Pickering's chair. Jake's head lifted, I saw his eyes open, focus, then squeeze tight shut as the pain of the concussion⁶³ struck him. His head must have throbbed⁶⁴ agonizingly because I saw his face go dead-white; then his cheeks puffed⁶⁷ and his shoulders hunched⁶⁸ as he fought against nausea⁶⁹. For a few seconds he didn't move. Then he very slowly lifted his head again, and opened his eyes a little at a time, accustoming⁷⁰ them to thelight. His shoulders convulsed once again, then he was able—blinking a lot—to keep his eyes open, and the color began to return to his face. He stared down at himself for a few seconds. Then his hands moved up to the belt. But the most they could do, bent⁷¹ as far as they'd go at the wrists, was brush the leather with the tips of his fingers. Carmody walked around the chair to face him. They looked at each other: a narrow almost perfectly⁷² straight ribbon of drying blood ran down Pickering's temple, and another down his forehead to the corner of one thick, black eyebrow⁷³. Carmody said, "You've created an impossible situation. You found the key." With the tip of his cane he touched the little crumpled ball of newsprint, then flicked⁷⁴ it toward the boarded-up doorway where it shot under the bottom board, rolling past me, and I saw it drop down the shaft. "This season is the first in which my family has taken its place among New York's society. It won't be the last; I'll see to that." He closed and strapped⁷⁵ the suitcase, then swung it to the floor, setting it beside the door. "You should have taken this much when you had the chance. Now it will be nothing." Carmody took off his coat, tossed it to the desk top, unfastened his tie and collar, unbuttoned his vest, then took a cigar from a vest pocket, and lighted it carefully. When it was going good, he shook out the match, dropped it to the floor, and stepped on it. Then he walked to a filing cabinet and pulled open the top drawer. For a few moments he said nothing, just stood there, cigar in his teeth, staring down at the coded file-markings. Jake Pickering could revolve⁷⁶ his chair, and had turned to watch him. Carmody glanced at him over his shoulder, apparently about to speak, but did not. He turned back to the file, and beginning at the front of the cabinet he began to look at every paper in it, flicking⁷⁷ through them with a steadily⁷⁸ moving forefinger. He glanced at perhaps a paper every second, his hand seldom pausing in its steady motion, though occasionally he touched the extended forefinger to his tongue and occasionally he removed the cigar from his mouth to tap the ashes to the floor. He rarely removed a paper, merely glancing at each as he flicked past it. But occasionally he stopped to read at greater length, taking the paper from the files. Twice he set such a paper aside, on top of the cabinet. The others he didn't trouble to replace, crumpling⁷⁹ and dropping them to the floor. But I suppose there were three or four thousand, maybe as many as five thousand sheets in the two-foot depth of that wooden file-cabinet drawer. The City Hall clock bonged once; it was one o'clock. Carmody was less than halfway⁸⁰ through the drawer, and on top of the cabinet he had set aside only two papers. Pickering said, "I've waited so that you could see for yourself; it will take you hours to search through that one cabinet alone, and there are thirteen of them all together, an unlucky number for you." Carmody walked to Jake's desk and dropped his cigar stub into the cuspidor on the floor beside it. He walked back to the open drawer, placed his hands in position to resume his search, and smiled at Jake over one shoulder. "I have all night," he said pleasantly. "And if that isn't enough, all the next day. And as much more time beyond that as may be required." His forefinger resumed its steady motion, the continuous small sound of the flicked corners becoming almost a part of the silence.
I leaned very close to Julia, and when my lips touched her ear I whispered on the exhalation, almost soundlessly. I said, "Lie down; rest. We're going to be here a long long time." I could see her face clearly; as she nodded, a stripe of yellow light from the other room moved up and down her forehead. She nodded, and so slowly it was soundless, she lay back on the floor along the wall. In the doorway I carefully leaned a shoulder and the side of my head against the jamb, and with one eye watched Carmody through a crack. Nearly motionless, he stood before the open file drawer, head bowed, only his arm and hand in steady monotonous⁸¹ motion. When the clock outside bonged twice, Carmody was about a third of the way through the middle drawer, and now Pickering spoke again. "By now you will have observed that no complete filing is to be found in one place. To assemble all of yours—scores of documents scattered⁸² through every drawer of every case—would take me twenty minutes, perhaps. The system for discovering them lies in my head. But you've found only two in two hours! Isn't it time you understood that you must deal with me?" Carmody didn't pause or even glance up. He said, "All night and even all the next day for a million dollars is satisfactory wages to me," and the steady, endless riffling past sheet after sheet continued. I watched, dreamily; there was no way to measure passing time till the clock struck again. Presently, without pausing in his work, Carmody slowly lifted one foot and moved his leg up and down, flexing⁸³ the muscles, revolving⁸⁴ his foot at the ankle. He did the same thing with the other leg, then stood, feet a little wider apart than earlier, riffling past paper after paper. I continued to stare out at him, neither awake nor asleep. After a time Carmody paused for a moment, thinking, then slid the entire drawer out of the cabinet, and, his feet shuffling⁸⁵ under the weight of it, carried it to the desk top. Sitting on the edge of the desk facing the drawer, he resumed his search, and Pickering laughed at him. "I wondered when you'd think of that," he said. "If you're tiring, let me offer you my chair." But Carmody didn't even move his head in acknowledgment, and his fingers never stopped. I lay back beside Julia. We were in darkness here, and I couldn't tell if she were awake, and was afraid to whisper unnecessarily. I wished I had a cup of coffee, and in the moment of thinking of it I wanted it so badly it seemed impossible that I couldn't have it. Something to eat, I thought then, and was instantly famished⁸⁶. I forced a smile but I wondered how long we could possibly stay here; I'd anticipated nothing like this. Could Carmody possibly mean that he might stay here all of tomorrow? It was impossible; he'd have to go out for food, he'd have to rest. And so would Jake; if only both of them were to sleep, Julia and I might ease our way out of here. I was drifting to sleep, and made myself pop my eyes open in the dark. I didn't dare sleep; a few feet to my right the floorboards ended; I could roll off and fall three floors to the basement. I sat up; Julia was sleeping, I knew; I could just barely hear her slow regular breathing. I couldn't move back to the doorway, I realized; she might roll to the right, too, to fall or to be heard in the other room. I had to stay here beside her, ready, if she began to stir, to ease her quietly awake.
For two hours I sat not daring to even lean a shoulder or the side of my head against a wall. My head endlessly drooping⁸⁷ and jerking upright again, I kept awake and heard the clock outside strike three; in the next room the tiny flickering⁸⁸ sound seemed never to stop. An unbelievably long time later the clock again began to strike and as it started I stood up under the cover of its bonging. My legs were terribly stiff, and I had to reach quickly across Julia to the wall beside her and steady myself. Then, very slowly and completely silently, I stretched every muscle—arms, legs, back, neck—counting the slow bongs; it was four o'clock. I stepped to the doorway, and found a crack to peek⁸⁹ through. Jake was asleep, head on his chest, snoring very faintly. Carmody still sat on the edge of the desk, but now his upper body lay along the length of the file drawer on the desk top before him: the top drawer, I saw, of the second cabinet. He slept silently; I had to watch closely to see the tiny motion of the back of his vest. I assume most people are tempted—at least the impulse stirs—to occasionally commit the outlandishly impossible: to whistle in church, to say something wildly inappropriate to a situation. It popped up in my mind to yell "Boo!" as loudly as I could, and then watch the wild scramble¹⁹ in the next room. I smiled, and sat down beside Julia, and knew she was awake, I'm not sure how. I lay down beside her to bring my mouth to her ear. I had to put an arm around her in order to get closer and to get oriented; I didn't mind. "You awake?" Her hair brushed across my nose as she nodded. I whispered the situation then, and told her the time. She asked whether I'd slept, then made me change places, and she sat doing guard duty while I fell almost instantly to sleep. The first daylight on my face and the slow bong of the City Hall clock awakened⁹⁰ me. I opened my eyes; Julia's hand was hovering⁹¹ an inch from my mouth, ready to close over it if I started to speak. I lifted my head and kissed her palm, and she yanked her hand away, startled, then smiled. She made a pointing gesture toward the next room, then placed her finger across her lips, and I nodded. I'd been counting with the clock; it was seven, and when it stopped I heard once again what I seemed now to have been hearing forever—the steady flick³-flick of paper in the room beside us. We moved silently to the boarded-over doorway and sat down as before. Except that the room was now gray and shabby with daylight—a powdering of new snow had appeared on the outside windowsills—nothing had changed. Carmody sat on the desk top flicking steadily through the inches of paper in, I saw, the bottom drawer of the third cabinet. Jake had turned in his chair to watch; there was a huge swollen⁹² lump on his head nearly the size of a fist, and his face was haggard, his eyes red, the skin below them drooping into wrinkles, and his mouth hung open a little. He was in pain, I thought—from the blow on his head, perhaps, or the inability to alter his position. But Carmody's face looked almost as tired, his eyes dulled and staring, and I wondered if he were still able to fully⁹ comprehend the blur⁹³ of paper passing endlessly before them. There were five sheets now, lying on top of the second filing cabinet. Something had to change soon; that was obvious. In the new daylight, very white from the fresh snow, I glanced at Julia beside me, and she looked rested, and she smiled at me. But just the same I knew that neither she nor I could stay here much longer. And neither could Carmody. Hemight be willing to leave Jake Pickering just as he was, but he himself would have to leave soon if only to get some food, and return. If he left, he'd have to gag Jake, I supposed. Jake didn't dare shout now and take another blow on the head, but he'd surely shout if Carmody left, until someone heard and investigated—which wouldn't take long. The city was fully awake, Julia and I could hear the steady roar of it outside our windows. The building was awakening⁹⁴, too; twice I'd heard the sound, coming up the shaft, of footsteps on the building staircase. What should we do, I wondered, if Carmody left? We couldn't push our loosened boards aside and walk out through Jake's office without his seeing us. I leaned back out of the doorway to look down. Beside and behind me the floorboards were gone and I could see far below into the shaft, lighted at each floor by the windows facing east on Nassau Street. The joists of the floors below us had been removed, I saw; there was no way at all for us to get out of here by way of the elevator shaft. And I was tired. I ached from hours of sitting or lying on wooden floorboards. I was thirsty and hungry, and Julia must be the same. But if there was anything to do but continue to sit here, staring into the next room, I couldn't think of it. I simply repeated to myself that something had to change soon, something had to give; and when Julia glanced at me I smiled reassuringly. After half an hour or so Carmody stopped. He got to his feet, revolving his shoulders, rotating his head as he bent his neck, working the stiffness loose. He stood looking speculatively⁹⁵ at Jake, and I thought I could read his mind; he was wondering if he dared leave him for a time, and how best to do it. But then he thought of something I hadn't; he turned, and began opening the drawers of Jake's desk one after another. I'd once searched these drawers, too, and I remembered what he was going to find. He reached the bottom, left-hand drawer, opened it, lifted out the paper sack, looked into it, then looked over at Jake, and smiled. He sat down on the desk top and ate the four or five big white crackers⁹⁶, holding his cupped hand under his mouth to catch the crumbs⁹⁷, which he tossed into his mouth last. There were soft brown spots on the apple, but he ate it all, including the core. He wasn't deliberately⁹⁸ taunting¹⁰⁰ Jake, but Jake sat watching him, and when Carmody stood up again, dusting the last crumbs from his hands, he was grinning. He opened a file drawer, brought out the half-full bottle of whiskey, pulled the cork¹⁰¹, and tossed down a good belt. The cork still in hand, he looked consideringly at Jake for a moment. "Want an eye-opener?" he said, and Jake hesitated, then shrugged¹⁰² a shoulder, unwilling¹⁰⁴ to say yes, unable to refuse, and Carmody walked over and, a little contemptuously, held the bottle to Jake's lips, watched him swallow twice, then took it away. Then—I clutched my head in both hands, and rocked back and forth¹⁰⁵ helplessly—Carmody went back to work. For over two more hours we sat in a semi-stupor; the snowstorm was heavier now, snow piling up on the window ledge¹⁰⁶, lying flat against the glass. We'd been here sitting or lying on a hard floor too long, and I knew we couldn't take it much longer. Most of the time Julia sat simply staring at the floor and so did I; after a while I put my arm around her shoulders and made her rest against me, her head on my shoulder. It occurred to me that Jake Pickering looked to be in pretty good shape; his color was better now, probably from the whiskey. But he'd also had more sleep than any of us; and his arms, while bound, were protected by a considerable thickness of cloth, andthe leather binding¹⁰⁷ was broad and flat; they wouldn't be numbed¹⁰⁸. Still, he hadn't been able to stand or move about for over nine hours; I thought he must be in pretty severe discomfort¹¹⁰, and I had to admire the calmness of his voice when presently he spoke. We'd heard the clock strike nine half an hour or so before, and now Jake—voice a little dogged, an edge of doubt sounding—said, "A financier is bound to be skilled at figures: Here is a problem to test you. If a man can search through two and a half file cabinets in nine and a half hours, how long will it take him to hunt through thirteen?" Without turning to look at Pickering Carmody had stopped to listen, hands lying motionless on the compressed paper in the drawer before him. It seemed a mild enough taunt⁹⁹; I expected Carmody to smile or shrug¹⁰³, reply in kind, and resume work. But I'd found myself automatically responding to Pickering's "problem" by trying to work out the arithmetic of it in my head, and I think maybe Carmody did the same. He sat for a few moments apparently thinking; and I believe that something about the inescapable answer to the question—the forced realization¹¹¹ of the immensity of what still lay ahead, the long sickening blur of concentration he'd already gone through being only the beginning—got through to him. Because he suddenly broke. He whirled to stare at Jake, who grinned at him, and Carmody spun¹¹² back to the drawer and plunged¹¹³ his clawed hands into it to snatch up an immense thickness of paper. Arms rising high, he whirled back to Jake and slammed the whole sliding mass of paper down into Jake's face. The force of it rocked Jake back in his chair, the metal springs creaking, the paper cascading¹¹⁵ down his chest and off his shoulders, separating into sheaves and sheets, fluttering to the floor, sliding down off his lap. But when Jake rocked forward again he was still laughing, and Carmody gathered up the rest of the file, an immense wad, stood, and smashed it down onto Jake's swollen head. But Jake never stopped laughing, and then Carmody went wild. He yanked a top drawer straight out of a file cabinet, it fell, cracked open, and spilled half its contents, and Carmody booted the smashed drawer to spill out the rest. He yanked out half a dozen more drawers as fast as he could grab their handles, and every one crashed, shaking the entire floor, and burst. Then Carmody waded¹¹⁶ through the sea of paper kicking, and the paper flew in a waist-high storm. He stood panting for a moment or two, looking wildly around the office—for a way to get rid of the spilled paper, I think, because he suddenly began shoving it with the side of his foot straight toward our doorway. Then he booted a heap of it through under the bottom board past Julia and me, and we heard the flutter of loose sheets, then the distant plop of most of the mass of it landing at the bottom. He shoved out half the paper on the floor like that, under the boarding and down the shaft, before he had to stop for breath, facing Jake and glaring at him, his shoulders heaving, his breath sighing; and Jake never stopped grinning. The wild spontaneous action did Carmody good, I think, because as he got his breath back he began to grin, too. And then for a few moments, strangely, there was almost a companionship between the two men. Carmody reached into the inside pocket of his coat lying on the desk beside a file drawer, and brought out a cigar, raising it toward his mouth. But instead he looked at Jake for a moment, then extended the cigar to him, and Jake leaned forward, nipped off the end between hisfront teeth, and spat¹¹⁷ it to the floor. Still grinning, Carmody put the other end of the cigar into Jake's mouth, saying mildly, "What the hell are you laughing at?" He turned to get a second cigar—they were in a protective leather case—and as Jake replied, Carmody bit off the end of his cigar, listening, nodding. "Because you can kick my files all over the building," Jake said. "You can cause me a hell of a lot of work getting them together again. But you can't eat them, Carmody. Somewhere in this mess, up here or down the shaft or both, are a little handful of papers that are still going to cost you—one million dollars." The cigar in a corner of his mouth, Jake grinned lopsidedly at Carmody who nodded, brought out a big wooden kitchen match, and expertly snapped it to light with his thumb nail. He held the flame for Jake, who puffed the cigar end to a red circle; it made my stomach queasy¹¹⁸ to watch, before breakfast. Then Carmody lighted his own cigar, leisurely, enjoying the process, the way a cigar smoker¹¹⁹ does. He breathed out a round puff⁶⁶ of blue smoke, then took the cigar from his mouth, and holding it between the tips of his four fingers and thumb, inspected the glowing end satisfiedly. For a moment he watched the glowing end film over with ash. Then he bent his wrist to flick out the match, but he didn't. Wrist still bent, his eyes moved to the flame which was halfway down the wooden length of the match now, the blackened curling head protruding¹²⁰ beyond it. He stood staring at the steady orange flame, his thumb and forefinger crawling to the end of the match to avoid being burned. Then he opened them, thumb and forefinger, and simply allowed the match to fall to the floor, the flame fluttering. It might have gone out before it reached the floor. Or it might have dropped onto bare wood and burned itself out. But the match end fell, the charred¹²¹ end breaking off, onto the edge of a sheet of flimsy. The room was utterly¹²² silent, motionless, except for the tiny wedge of flame; Carmody standing, Jake leaning forward in his chair as far as he could go, cigar gripped in his teeth, both staring at that match. It seemed to go out, a thread of blue smoke suddenly rising, but no. A tiny pale flick of flame showed, held motionless, then suddenly there was a yellow-edged ring on the face of the paper, turning immediately brown. It grew, a ragged⁵⁷ hole in the paper, a circle of expanding char⁵¹ ringed by flame. Then it was audible, a tiny crackling, the flame reddening and jumping, the paper brightly afire. The enlarging ring of fire crawled toward the edge of the sheet, touched an overlapping¹²³ sheet, and now it was afire, too. I didn't remember standing up but of course we were on our feet, Julia and I, her hand clenched¹²⁴ on my wrist, her eyes burning a question. I hesitated, standing there at the boarding, my eyes pressed to a crack. If either Jake or Carmody, now, had glanced at the bottom of the doorway, he'd have seen our stockinged feet and ankles, but of course neither did. The flame grew slowly, sliding across the sheets, and I knew that it could still be stamped out, that I could shove a shoulder to the loosened boards and have the fire out in seconds. I put on my shoes to be ready, and Julia put on hers. Then I picked up our coats and hats, and we put them on, our eyes at the cracks. I felt alert, ready to move the moment the fire got out of hand, and I smiled at Julia; I was apprehensive¹²⁵ but not frightened, and neither was she. But Jake was tied, helpless. I think he tried to hold in the words, his teeth clenched down on the cigar in his mouth, but he couldn't. "Jesus," he said, "no!" Then he looked at Carmody, and now his eyes were pleading; hating it, but pleading.
Carmody glanced at him. Then, fascinated, his eyes were drawn back to the plate-size ring of very slightly crackling, slowly crawling flame. "It's the answer, isn't it?" he said softly. "Burn your goddam files! And that's an end to it; I simply never thought of it." "Carmody. For Christ's sake." Jake's voice was level, then it burst out. "Undo¹²⁶ me!" "Why?" He wasn't taunting him; it was a serious question. "Carmody, you can't. What about other people in the building? Strangers who never did anything to you!" "They'll escape; there are plenty of stairs. And the building's past its usefulness; Potter will be glad to have the site cleared." He grinned at Jake, picked up his coat from the desk, and put it on. The flames, I saw, could still easily be stamped out, there was no question of that, and I waited. If Carmody left, I'd have to shove through the doorway, stomp¹²⁷ out the flame, and we'd unfasten Jake. I still hoped Carmody didn't mean to leave Jake—and he didn't. He gave him a very bad few moments while he got into his coat. Then he grinned. "I'll let you loose. In a minute. We'll walk out yelling 'Fire!' and clear the building. No one will be harmed." Then he stood, waiting. But paper lying flat—and this was a thick carpet of overlapping sheets—doesn't burn too easily; to flare¹²⁸ up fast it needs air from underneath¹²⁹. For a time the ring of flame expanded in almost a perfect circle. Then we watched it turn into a charred-edged distorted oval. My restraining hand still on Julia's arm and shoulder, we stood motionless, silent, watching. The importance of not interfering¹³⁰ was strong in my mind; so long as they left soon, Julia and I could leave the building at a walk. I wasn't here to alter events, least of all to save a decrepit¹³¹ old building. But Carmody was frowning and impatient now; he stooped, picked up a double handful of paper, and began crushing and twisting it into spills, tossing them onto the flames one at a time, heaping them, and the flame and smoke suddenly flared¹³², crackling like a bonfire, and Carmody swung to Jake,(now) his hands busy at the buckle at the back of the chair. It was all I could do to stand still, and while Julia obeyed my hand on her shoulder, her eyes were growing frantic¹³³. Then the buckle was undone¹³⁴, Jake springing from the chair, staggering after the cramped hours of sitting—and he actually fell forward into the flames! But he hadn't fallen; he'd thrown himself onto the fire and was rolling like a madman, and the smell of singed¹³⁵ cloth and hair filled the office! He was putting it out, he was going to succeed! Then Carmody had him by the foot and ankle, dragging him from the fire on his back, Jake's arms and hands flailing¹³⁶ for something to hang onto. He yanked his leg loose, rolling onto his hands and knees, scuttling¹³⁷ back toward the flames, but Carmody ran past him. He thrust the side of his foot and ankle directly into a still-burning wad, and with a sudden thrust of his leg he kicked the flaming mass under the bottom board of our doorway, Julia and I instinctively¹³⁸ stepping aside, and it slid across the floor between us and dropped. Instantly we heard it roar with new life as it fell through the air, and I turned in time to look down the shaft and see it hit in a ball of flame, shatter, subside¹³⁹ for an instant; and then the mass of paper at the bottom of the shaft burst into fire like an explosion. It was no crackle now; thesound of the fire was the roar of a waterfall, and tongues of flame leaped a third of the way up the shaft—we could feel the beginning heat of it! There was no stopping this, there could be no more waiting; I turned the point of my left shoulder to the boarded-over doorway, shoved hard with my right leg, and crashed through, sending the loosened boards flying into the office. I grabbed Julia's hand, and we stepped over the last two boards, still in place. Jake, on hands and knees, had Carmody's foot and ankle in both hands, Carmody hopping¹⁴⁰ frantically¹⁴¹ on the other fighting for balance. Their faces turned, staring at us in absolute astonishment¹⁴². For a frozen moment they were motionless, a tableau¹⁴³, Carmody on one leg, Jake on his knees holding the other leg at the ankle. "Leave!" I yelled. "You've got to leave! Look, for Christ's sake!" I pointed¹⁴⁴ through the doorway to the shaft; there were no flames visible but you could hear the roar and see the shiny heated air tremble and swirl¹⁴⁵. Then Jake yanked Carmody's leg with all his strength, and the other foot on a layered mass of slippery paper shot out from under him, paper flying, and he crashed to the floor, shaking it. From his knees Jake leaped forward like an animal onto Carmody, and they began rolling over the floor. I don't know whether Jake didn't understand that the fire had gone down the shaft and that it was far beyond putting out, or whether he'd lost all ability to think at the sight of everything he'd put his hopes in about to be lost. But out in the hall I heard running steps and somewhere else a man yelled "Fire!" A frantic rush of steps pounded down the staircase from the floor above, and a woman screamed chillingly. More shouts of "Fire!" and now it was Julia who counted. The rolling wrestling pair on the floor had been warned, they were free to leave, too, and I turned to the door, Julia's hand in mine, but she was yanking her arm trying to break free. She yelled, "Jake! Jake, for God's sake, leave!" I was hanging onto her hand so hard I was afraid I would splinter a bone, and now I dragged her to the door and opened it. I ducked behind her, grabbing her other wrist to keep her from hanging onto the door frame, and shoved her through; then I forced her down the short hall toward the stairs. All over the building we heard screams, and yells of "Fire!," pounding footsteps, shouted names. My left hand on Julia's right wrist now, I was half a step ahead of her, pulling her along, and I swung us onto the stairs, running hard, feet flying, alert not to trip—then suddenly I grabbed the banister, braking us to a stop. These stairs were all right, and—we could see over the railing down the stairwell—so was the landing and the next flight of stairs to the second floor. But from the second floor to street level, the stairs directly beside the elevator shaft were completely gone from sight, a mass of solid orange flame and thick rolling black smoke writhing¹⁴⁶ up toward us. A man in shirt-sleeves, a pen still in his hand, and two girls, their skirts lifted to midcalf, were slowly backing up the staircase toward us, staring fascinated at the roaring black-and-orange mass below. Suddenly they whirled and ran up toward us. We ran back up the stairs ahead of them, and then as fast as we could go, all out, down the long hall that ran the length of the building toward the Park Row staircase. Julia tried to slow at the short hallway branching off to Jake's office but I had her wrist, and I yelled that they were probably out and gone. Then we were past, our feet pounding the wooden floor toward the other staircase ahead. But fast as we'd moved we were still too late.
At the stairwell we looked over the rail, and the Park Row stairs were ablaze¹⁴⁷ from first floor to second, the flames climbing the steps as we stared. Obviously the fire had flashed through the entire lower floors; the whole lower part of the building must be ablaze. The man and the two girls running behind us had come up, and just as we all turned to look back the way we'd come, the flames appeared at the head of the stairs far behind us. They shot higher, touched the underside of the next flight up, and then those stairs, too, were afire, and now I realized that the floor under our feet was hot. I grabbed at the knob of a door beside us leading into one of the offices on the Park Row side; it was locked, and I turned—Julia's hand still in mine—and we ran down this hall along the row of doors to one I saw standing ajar at the very end. THE NEW-YORK OBSERVER, it said on the door when we raced up to it, and we ran into a large room of rolltop desks, wooden tables, file cabinets. A window stood open, its green shade flapping, and with Julia I ran directly to it. If there was to be any exit from this building for us it had to be through this window, and I was inwardly chilled with fright. Because I remembered the building's exterior¹⁴⁸. There were no ledges¹⁴⁹ running around it, only windowsills, and we were three stories up, three very tall-ceilinged stories; we couldn't jump. There were footprints in the new snow on the windowsill: Had someone climbed out and jumped? I looked out; no one lay sprawled¹⁵⁰ on the walk below. But I saw that a crowd was already gathering¹⁵¹ along the east wall of the Post Office Building catercorner across the street, and in City Hall Park directly across. The crowd grew as we stared; I could see people running to join it along all the park paths. Directly below us in the street the first fire engine had stopped, two firemen running with a hose toward a hydrant, another uncoupling the horses. Bells were clanging, and down Park Row came another engine, white steam jetting from the tall brass¹⁵² cylinder¹⁵³ behind the driver, its pair of white horses running all out, manes flying, hoofs¹⁵⁴ striking sparks. And far across the park on Broadway a hook-and-ladder truck pulled by four gray horses made the obtuse-angled turn into Mail Street toward us. All this I saw in a split-second glance; then I looked back to the window ledge, and saw the sign I'd once read from the street, THE NEW-YORK OBSERVER sign directly under the ledge. It was fastened to the wall at its lower edge, but the upper edge hung out a foot or so, held by rusty¹⁵⁵ wires. I had no idea whether it would take our weight; I knew it wasn't meant to. It might take Julia's weight; she had to go first before my weight weakened the sign or tore it loose. I said, "Out, Julia! Onto the sign! Crawl to the Times Building!" But she shook her head, closing her eyes, and her face went white. Eyes still closed, she stood shaking her head, and I understood that it was impossible—there are people who simply can't take the fear of falling—for her to make herself crawl out onto that sign alone. I'd slammed the office door behind us to keep out the fire when it came. I turned to look at the door and black smoke was curling underneath it. There no other decision left to make now, and I stepped up onto the windowsill, crouching¹⁵⁶.Ipu(was) t my left foot down and out onto the top edge of the slanting sign, and slowly transferred weight to it. It held, and holding to the sill with both hands, I lowered my right foot into the trough between sign and building. Then I slowly stood, letting go the sill, easing my fullweight onto the sign, the wind flicking hard-edged snow-flakes into my face and eyes, and ridiculously, in spite of an agony of fear that the sign would tear loose and drop me, I was glad of my fur cap and overcoat. The sign groaned¹⁵⁸ but it held, and I turned to the open window beside me. In her dark coat and bonnet¹⁵⁹, Julia stood petrified¹⁶⁰, staring at me, and before she could back away I shot out my right hand, grabbed her wrist, and pulled so hard and quickly that she had to get a knee up onto the sill or be dragged right across it. I kept up the pressure, pulling her forward, and now to keep from actually falling out she had to bring up the other knee and I kept tugging—sharp little yanks now—and with no volition¹⁶¹ of her own, but to keep from pitching out headfirst, she had to swing her legs over the sill, and then she was out, just ahead of me, half standing, half crouched¹⁶² on the THE NEW-YORK OBSERVER sign, a hand up before her eyes fending¹⁶³ off the whirling snow. I saw a small kink in a wire just ahead of Julia straighten under the strain, then I was shouting at her: "Don't look down! Don't ever look down! Just move!" I pushed her, and then, half crouched— each with a left foot on the top edge of the sign, the other in the trough, our right hands moving along the face of the building—we crawled toward the Times Building ahead to the north, the wind moaning around us, snow and sleet¹⁶⁴ slashing¹⁶⁵ our faces. This building and the Times Building were constructed wall to wall, touching¹⁶⁶ or almost so, hardly a fraction of an inch between them. The two walls served as a solid, windowless and doorless, double-thickness masonry¹⁶⁷ firewall and it seemed to be working: There was no sign of fire in the building ahead. But from directly below us as we crept along high over the street, a river of heat flowed up past us, partly deflected¹⁶⁸ by the V of the sign, but almost scorching¹⁶⁹ on our hands as they slid along the sign's upper edge. Julia moved more slowly than I did, hampered¹⁷⁰ by her many skirts, and I had to stop, and again I became aware of the street and the park. Fire bells had been clamoring below us, and now I looked down through the haze¹⁷¹ of falling snow directly into the spark-belching stack of a fire engine; I saw firemen running with ladders and others standing in pairs holding brass-nozzled hoses playing thick white jets into the burning building, and their black rubber coats were already beginning to whiten with new ice. Police with lengths of rope stretched between them were forcing the crowd off the street and up over the curb¹⁷² and walks across Park Row. The crowd there, edging the park, was much denser¹⁷³ now, and from here it seemed almost solid black. Strangely, to me, there were a number of raised umbrellas in the crowd against the snow, and for some odd reason the sight of the tops of those black umbrellas made me realize how high up I was. I raised my eyes from the crowd, and far off across the park on Chambers¹⁷⁴ Street, a single-horse black ambulance, a white cross on its side, raced toward us from the west. I thought I heard its bell and I saw the driver, leaning far forward, whipping the galloping¹⁷⁵ horse on; then it disappeared behind the Court House. It took a second or two to see those things, and Julia had crawled on no more than a yard. I glanced behind and below, before moving after her: Flame shot high, black smoke rolled and coiled from the top of every window I could see on the first floor and from some of the second; and on the ledge of a third-floor window the man and two girls who'd been running behind us stood huddled¹⁷⁶. He had one arm outstretched across the two girls, keeping them off our sign, knowing it would undoubtedly¹⁷⁷ pull loose and fall from the weight of even one more person. He saw me looking, and gestured wildly, urging me on. I crawled ahead, trying to hurry, my foot snagged a support wire, and I heard it twang and snap behind me, heard the sign groan¹⁵⁷, felt it shuddering¹⁷⁸ under our weight. A woman screamed inthat instant, very close, and I thought it was Julia. But it came from just overhead, I realized, and I glanced up as I crawled on. The toes of a pair of shoes projected from a window ledge directly over me, and I leaned out over the street to look up. A woman was standing on the ledge, her eyes wide and blank with terror; there was no sign under her window. Julia stopped suddenly, crouched motionless on the very end of the sign, and I leaned out over the street to look past her and see why she'd stopped. The floors of the Times Building were slightly higher than these, so the sign under its third-floor windows hung a little above ours. The sign was short, running under only two windows, and I could see the white letters on black reading, J. WALTER THOMPSON, ADVERTISING¹⁷⁹ AGENT. There was a foot-and-a-half gap between the two signs, and Julia crouched at the end of ours, frozen—unable to make herself step up and across that empty space. Our sign began vibrating violently, and I looked back: One of the girls on the window ledge, her face wild with panic, had a foot out on our sign, about to step onto it. The moment she did it would rip loose and fall; I knew that. Julia had looked back, too, and she saw and understood what I did. Suddenly she stood upright, and—I was certain her eyes were squeezed shut—she stepped blindly up and out over the gap with her right foot. It struck the wall of the Times Building, then slid down into the trough between wall and sign. She lifted her left foot from our sign, and threw her body forward across the gap, her left foot hunting for the top of the other sign. I never want to see such a moment again—watching Julia's foot plunge¹¹⁴ down toward the snow-mounded edge of that sign, knowing that if it missed she'd fall out and over its edge. But it struck, slithered an instant in the slippery snow, then her right hand smacked¹⁸¹ the wall of the Times Building beside her, and she stood swaying for balance. She half stooped, half fell forward, and—even in her terror she remembered me behind her—she crawled on, making room for me to step across, too. But I didn't. I crept to the end of the sign I was on, and waited: I couldn't be certain Julia's sign would hold us both but now I knew that this would hold two. Looking back once more I saw only the one girl on it, making her way toward me. Julia reached the first window and before I had time to wonder if it were open, a man's coat-sleeved arms shot out, gripped Julia under the arms, and lifted her right off the sign and in through the window, her feet kicking a little as they disappeared. I stood up then, stepped right across the gap, and moved quickly toward the same window. Just before I reached it I looked back through the snowstorm, and now the second girl was out on the sign, scuttling along it, but the man still waited on the sill, and now an occasional flick of flame moved out past him; the heat must have been terrible. I made a little saluting¹⁸² gesture and smiled, hoping it would encourage him; he had nerve. Then I was at the window, the same man—young and bearded—helping me in, and Julia and I were safe. I had an arm around her waist, grinning at her, and both her arms were tight around me, her head pressed to my chest. She kept looking up at me, shaking her head, and making a sound that was partly a laugh and partly a sob¹⁸³ of relief, murmuring, "Thank God, thank God, thank God." With my free arm I was shaking hands, as he introduced himself, with the man who'd pulled us in. He was Mr. Thompson, and this was his office. It was a fairly large room with a rolltop desk, twowooden chairs, a wooden file cabinet, a drawing board, and a batch¹⁸⁴ of one-column newspaper ads, all type, thumbtacked to a bulletin board. Two men stood smiling, and I recognized one: It was Dr. Prime of the Observer, the man who'd directed me to the janitor¹⁸⁵ of the other building several days ago. He and the man with him, he said, had escaped over the sign as we had. Thompson turned to his window again, to help the first girl out on the sign crawl in, and Julia and I left. We walked down the hall to the building staircase, and a man in shirt-sleeves came hurrying toward us, struggling into a coat. He called out as we turned onto the stairs. He was a reporter from the Times: Were we among the people he'd seen escaping into the building from the Observer sign? I said we weren't, that they were all back in Thompson's office. Then Julia and I ran down the stairs to the street. We stepped out into wind and slashing snow, and instantly a voice shouted angrily at us. I looked up; a fireman out by his engine stood gesturing violently, waving us on across the street; red coals from the firebox of the great brass cylinder sifted¹⁸⁶ steadily down onto the melting snow between the big red wheels. Before we could move, four or five men ran directly past our doorway carrying a long pair of extension ladders from a hook-and-ladder truck just to the north. One of the men, a stocky, angry-faced aged¹⁸⁸" target="_blank">middle-aged¹⁸⁷ man wearing a dull-silk hat tied on with a blue muffler, shouted straight into my face as he raced past, "Help us!" Julia and I ran with them, they set the ladder down, and I helped them swing it up against the burning building and raise the extension. As we heaved the extension up with a rope-and-pulley system built into the ladder, I had a chance to raise my head and see what we were doing. Three men in vests and shirt-sleeves, one wearing a green eyeshade, stood on the ledges of three adjoining fourth-floor windows, peering down at us through a curtain of snow. The man in the window nearest the Times was panicked; his forearms upraised, fists clenched, he was shaking them violently up and down, his mouth wide-open and screaming meaninglessly. Our ladder was too short: Rising between a pair of windows, it touched the building wall just above the third floor, well below the three men on the fourth. I didn't know what to do, and looked around frantically; half a dozen yards behind me Julia stood out in the street staring up at the burning building, and something about her expression made me run out beside her and turn to look, too. And now I saw the entire face of the building. I have, as I always will, I think, a copy of The New York Times of the following morning, February 1, 1882. The entire front page and most of the second is filled by an account of that awful fire. I don't want to put down what Julia and I saw now; instead I will quote directly from the Times.
...the upper windows... were seen to be full of living forms. Terror-stricken faces of men and women peered down through the smoke upon the thousands of their fellow-creatures below, stretching out their hands for aid, and shrieking¹⁸⁹ loudly for rescue. [I'll see that forever; the way they held out their hands.] The mingled¹⁹⁰ smoke and flames gave to the faces an unearthly hue¹⁹¹, and the shrieks¹⁹², mingled with the roar of the fire and the hoarse¹⁹³ calling of the firemen, came to the ears of the surging crowd below like voices from the tomb. The firemen were doing all that men could do, risking their lives fearlessly in the effort to save those of the imprisoned¹⁹⁴ sufferers, but their movements, rapid as they were, seemed slow enough to the suffocating¹⁹⁵ creatures in the burning building. To reach them by the stairway was impossible, so quickly had the fire done its work. The firemen raised ladders, but they only reached to the third story, and time was necessarily consumed in raising the shorter ladders to increase their length. Meantime those in the building saw death steadily and surely advancing upon them from the rear, and the preparations to save them from the outside seemed endless.... Julia screamed, her hand rising to her mouth: The panicked man had jumped, his body slowly turning in a complete somersault as he fell, his legs pumping furiously and instinctively against the air for a foothold that didn't exist. We swung our heads away an instant before he struck the walk. Two firemen were running toward us from the Times Building carrying a wooden table; the angry little man in the top hat was shouting and beckoning¹⁹⁶ at me, and I ran back to the ladder. We all stooped, gripped the legs, heaved up the ladder, and staggered sideways with it, the top sliding and bouncing along the building wall high above till it rested between and below the windows in which the remaining two men were crouched. Flickers¹⁹⁷ of flame had begun darting¹⁹⁸ out the tops of their windows, and occasional coils of smoke rolled out and up. The firemen had reached us, they shoved their table under the ladder legs, and we set the ladder down on it, and looked up the face of the building. The ladder top was closer but still well below the two men. But under these two windows ran a sign; I couldn't read it through the snow and the smoke rising from the windows below. Now one of the men crept out onto the sign, crawled to a point over the ladder, turned, and hanging from the sign's front edge, lowered himself, his feet feeling for and finding the topmost rung. He let go, knees bending, grabbed the ladder top, then scrambled down fast as he could go. The little man in charge had been shouting at the second man: "You will be safe in a moment! Remain calm!" And now the second man reached the ladder like the first. As he clattered¹⁹⁹ down, the little man was beaming, grabbing each of our hands, and giving it a shake. "I am Anthony Comstock. My heartfelt thanks! God be praised!" he was saying. The two firemen stood waiting, each with his hands on the ladder; the moment the man on it dropped onto the street, they began cranking it down. They yelled a thanks to us, told us to get the hell across the street before we were killed, and we all ran across Park Row, ducked under the police ropes holding back the crowd lining²⁰⁰ City Hall Park, then turned to look back across the street.
I heard a sound from Julia; she was crying, and she slowly turned her head away from the burning building. It was a sight I don't think the modern world ever sees. Only the outer walls of that building were stone; the entire interior—floors, window frames, doors—was wood. So was nearly every object of furniture in all its offices and rooms. Even the walls and ceilings were wooden lath under plaster. And over the years the building had turned gunpowder-dry. The fire had almost literally²⁰¹ exploded through the entire street floor, and swarmed²⁰² up both flights of stairs to the next. Now broad pennants²⁰⁴ and gouts of flame leaped high, red, and frantic from every window of the lower floors; they actually seemed to be trying to climb higher. With those flames, thick sooty smoke roiled²⁰⁵ and twisted, flowing hotly up and out from the top of every one of those windows. The wind pushed down Park Row in bursts, the air thick with flying snow, and for a long moment or two the flames would bend with a gust⁴⁹ of the wind, flickering and trembling, fighting to stand erect²⁰⁶ and reach up the face of the building again. Any time I close my eyes and remember, I can see the horrible color of it: the dark grimy face of the old building, the terrible orange-red-and-black of the huge wild flames and rolling smoke, the spidery red lengths of the ladders, the people on the ledges mostly in white-and-black but one girl in a long vivid green dress, all of it seen strangely, nightmarishly dreamlike, through a white curtain of swirling²⁰⁷ snow. We watched, thousands of us strung along the park edge and the east wall of the post office standing in absolute silence except for the steady pump of the engines, the shouts of the firemen, and the thin cries of the people high on the ledges. Those on some of the third-floor ledges were rescued fast, though the windows over the Observer sign were solid flame now. The last of the third-floor people were already climbing being carried down; one girl hung limp fireman'sshoulderashebroughtherdown,her(or) armsswayinglooselydownthelengthofhisback(over) .(a) Suddenly the entire crowd moaned; a few of the extension ladders were apparently long enough to reach the fourth floor but as the topmost extensions were cranked up past the third floor now, the thicket²⁰⁸ of telegraph wires strung above the sidewalks pressed against the faces of the extensions. Without shifting the ladder bases impossibly close to the face of the buildings, the tops couldn't get past the wires. Half a dozen firemen had lifted one ladder and, using it like a vertical²⁰⁹ battering²¹⁰ ram¹⁶, were trying to jam it past the wires by sheer force. We saw thin black threads of wire tauten²¹¹, snap, and fall, the ends flying, and the ladder top burst through. Two more ladders were forced up this way, and we watched people scurry²¹² down, sometimes completely disappearing in black smoke. Other ladders couldn't get through, and we saw a man, and then a woman, hang from a ledge, feet dangling²¹³, and—at a shout from the fireman on top of the ladder—drop onto it, the fireman balanced, legs wrapped around the rungs, waiting to grab them. Two men stood on the ledge of a fifth-floor window. Suddenly the glass of the window bulged²¹⁴, a ball of red-smeared black smoke rolled out between them, and I saw the shards²¹⁶ of glass fly far out over the street, twisting and falling, splintering the light as they fell through the flying snow. The window gone, the heat was too much and the tail of one man's coat was smoldering²¹⁷ and smoking as the men dropped to their knees, turned to face the building, then lowered themselvesby their hands from the ledge, feet thrashing as they felt for and then found a toehold on the raised ornamentation set in the building's face over the fourth-floor windows. But now the flames were roaring up from the fourth-floor windows, too, and I'm certain they'd have died in seconds from the heat and combustion²¹⁸ gases if a fireman hadn't seen them, lifted the stream of his hose from the third-floor window into which he'd been pouring it, and doused²¹⁹ the two men. He kept it up, alternating the stream between the third-floor windows and the two clinging men until a ladder was forced through the wires to the fourth floor. A fireman swarmed up it, and must have shouted, because one of the two men shifted himself hand over hand a foot or so to one side, then dropped squarely onto the ladder, landing just below the fireman. It must have hurt and may even have sprained²²⁰ or broken something because he came down the ladder very clumsily—but alive. The second man, too, swung himself over the ladder, and dropped onto it. All this in moments, seconds, after we'd ducked under the police lines; then Julia was shaking my arm. "Jake! Jake!" she was yelling in my ear. "Maybe he's at a window! On the Nassau Street side!" I'd actually forgotten Jake and Carmody; they'd been pushed right out of my mind. But Julia turned, and I followed her, struggling straight back through the crowd. We got clear, then ran along the ragged back edge of the crowd through the park and across Mail Street to the post office. There we worked our way to the front of the crowd again, people muttering, turning to glare as we edged past, a few cursing me. We got to the front, at the very edge of the curb, but the rope police-lines were up, and we couldn't cross. Here we saw not only the western Park Row face of the blazing building, but we looked down Beekman Street, too, and saw the entire southern face of the building. A fifth-floor window facing Park Row and near the Beekman Street corner suddenly broke out, the glass flying. Behind it something was moving, then a woman climbed heavily up onto the ledge. Her face was black—from the fire, I thought for a moment—then I saw the spot of red above the dark face and realized it was a bandanna²²¹ around her head. This was Ellen Bull, the Negro cleaning woman who had told me days before where to find the janitor. Standing far up there on the ledge now, she began waving her arms wildly about her head; it may have been in panic but I think maybe she was trying to dissipate a terrible heat pouring out from behind her. Because in almost the next moment the flames broke out and seemed to be actually touching her long gray dress. She dropped to her knees, turned, slid off the ledge, and now she was hanging by her hands, her body swaying in the air beneath it. There were no flames from the fourth-floor window just below her yet, the glass there unbroken, but there was no foothold here either. Off to our left two men had ducked under the rope and were running hard toward a wagon²²² just across Mail Street. It had been trapped at the curb by the fire apparatus²²³, an elderly woman next to us said, its team led off across the park by the owner. At the wagon the men were untying²²⁴, and now yanked off, a gray tarpaulin²²⁵ covering, and they ran across Park Row dragging it with them. Under Ellen Bull's dangling feet five stories above them, they began spreading the tarp, and maybe a dozen men behind the police lines at the corner of Beekman ducked under and ran to them. But no one was in charge. We could see though not hear them shouting at each other, gesturing, yanking the tarp. They got it spread, waving each other to positions, but no one was looking up as Ellen Bull's hands opened, and she dropped.
There was a terrible moan from the crowd, and the men at the tarp looked up, tried to run into position, but she flashed past them and clear over here we heard the awful sound as she struck the pavement. There was a sigh of absolute despair from the crowd, and a woman near us covered her face with her gloved hands, bending double, elbows jamming into the pit of her stomach, and she fainted, toppling sideways but held partly upright by the press of people around her. Ellen Bull was being lifted onto the tarpaulin by the men who'd tried to save her; then four of them carried her the length of the building, and on into the Times Building. The Times said next morning that she'd been taken to the Chambers Street hospital, and died half an hour later. On Beekman-street an aged man was hanging from a fourth-story window [says my copy of The New York Times for Wednesday, February 1, 1882—and now Julia and I stood in the silent crowd watching him] and the ready hands of the firemen were hoisting²²⁶ a ladder to reach and save him. He clung with a death-like grip, but the flames were stronger than he. They were seen to burst from the window by the lintel of which he was hanging. The firemen were almost within reach of him, when suddenly a deep groan escaped from a thousand throats, the old man's hand was seen to relax, and his body came tumbling to the hard pavement below. The man was Richard S. Davey, a compositor on the Scottish American. The unconscious body was taken to the Chambers-street hospital, where death relieved the man from further suffering in a short time. From the corner of my eye I saw Julia turn to me, and when I looked at her fully her face was literally the whiteness of paper, and her eyes were enormous. Almost thoughtfully she murmured, "We could have stopped it," then she grabbed my arm in both her hands and shook me so violently I stumbled. "We could have!" she cried out at me in a rage. For a moment longer she looked at me, then turned away murmuring, "I can never forgive myself." I had no answer; I wished I were dead. I had to move, had to do something, had to take some action against what was happening. In the line of cops holding the police-line ropes, the one nearest us stood like the others facing the crowd in his knee-length blue coat and tall felt helmet. But also like the others, he turned often to stare back over his shoulder at the fire across the street. This time when he did it I lifted the rope, shoving Julia under and ducking after her. Then we ran hard through the snow and the freezing streams from hose joints²²⁷ and hydrants. On the other side we were cursed by the cops, but we ducked under the ropes, pushing into the crowd, working our way toward the Beekman Street corner just ahead. We could smell the smoke here and hear the crackle and roar of the flames, and—during gusts²²⁸ of wind—feel the heat carried across to us. We reached the corner beside the New York Evening Mail Building, then started to work our way along Beekman Street toward Nassau Street, a short block to the east; I knew Julia hoped to find Jake there. And then I had my chance to do something. In the next morning's Times account there is a paragraph reading:
While the excitement was at fever heat, Charles Wright, a young bootblack, who is well-known to people doing business around Printing House-square, looked up to the burning building and saw three men wildly gesticulating at the windows of the fifth or upper story. From one of these windows a wire rope was stretched to a telegraph pole on the opposite corner of Beekmanstreet. It had held a banner during the last campaign. A means of escape for the three men shot across Wright's mind in an instant, and in another instant he was engaged in putting it into execution. The telegraph pole was slippery with snow and ice but a dozen strong arms raised the boy and pushed him up until he reached the slight projections²²⁹ which serve as a foothold for the line-men. The Times didn't have it quite right. The boy—a Negro, by the way—turned to the pole, shinnied up a couple of feet, but a sheeting of ice stopped him, and he yelled, "Help me git up!" All of us around the pole saw what he had in mind, and I stooped way down, my back to the pole, got my shoulders under his feet, then stood, boosting him higher. Two men, one on each side of me, each worked a hand between my shoulders and his feet, and shoved him up a yard or so more, and now he could reach the first of the wooden footholds. Up the pole the young lad "shinnied," as he expressed it, until he reached the wire rope. It was the work of a moment [It took more than a "moment"; it was a good minute or more] to sever¹⁰⁹ its connection with the pole, and the wire then fell to the side of the burning building. The three men on the fifth story seized this rope and slid down it, one after the other, in safety to the ground, although their hands were seriously injured by friction²³⁰ in the descent. Young Wright was received with cheers as he reached the ground, and he became the hero of the day. But for his timely action there is little doubt that the men thus saved would have been consumed before other aid could have reached them. That part of the account is entirely right. It was beautiful to see that cable smack¹⁸⁰ the side of the building when the boy let go of it; to see it hanging, then, to within a few feet of the walk; and to see the first man swing out onto it, and to see it hold. Each of the next two men kept his head, waiting till the man before him was on the ground. But they all slid too fast, burning their hands. And we did cheer Wright when he got down from the pole. I got a ten-dollar yellowback from my wallet, gave it to him, and half a dozen others gave him money; one man gave him a gold piece. The three rescued men came over, found the boy, shook his hand, and led him away with them, and I'm sure they must have done something for him, too, which he damn well deserved.
Following is a page, greatly reduced in size, of Frank Leslie's Illustrated²³¹ Newspaper of February 11, 1882, showing Charles Wright up on the pole unfastening the wire to save the three men. Julia and I were working our way through the crowd along Beekman Street, when all around us heads turned to look east. Just ahead, on the other side of a narrow alley²³², the wooden scaffolding of a big, new, still-unfinished stone building suddenly broke into flame; the fire had jumped clear across the street. The front of the building rose into two towers, higher than anything else around, and now the flames shot up the scaffolding to reach the towers. There it caught the window frames, in which glass hadn't yet been set, and ran up and along the eaves, gabled roof-lines, and the ornate railings of the tower rooftops. It was a sudden weird²³³ strange spectacle of burning rings, squares, triangles, and the parallel lines of the railings, like an enormous Fourth of July set piece seen high in the air through a snowstorm, and I think the crowd turned to it, as we did, in relief from the things we'd been seeing. View of the Scene at the Height of the Fire.
A Fatal Leap. Escape By Means of a Telegraph Wire. Rescue of Three Men by Charles Wright.
The Ruins After The Fire. New York City.—Incidents of the Great Fire on Park Row, January 31st. But while we were watching, a young woman had crept out onto a fourth-story window ledge of the burning building, and when I turned and saw her I wondered if she'd been inside all this time; maybe running from one side of the building to another till she found this one not yet on fire. Just above her, fire roared out of the fifth-story window as though it were fed by forced draft, the tongues and billows of orange flame shooting halfway out over the street like a kind of squirming canopy²³⁴ over her head. She wasn't panicked, though; she closed the window behind her, careful to pull it all the way down. Then she stood, raised her arms above her head, and put a hand on the window opening on each side, supporting and steadying herself. It was an astonishingly calm posture²³⁵. There she stood, not shouting, not screaming, but simply looking down at us, waiting. She must have known there was no going back: that this window was her last chance, and that there wasn't much time before the fire burst through it behind her. And nothing was happening, no fireman coming with a ladder below. I suppose they thought, and they couldn't be blamed, that no one else would appear at a window along here at this stage of the fire. The girl stood waiting, in her long black dress, arms outstretched, hands on the sides of the window opening which framed her; she wore a white scarf tied around her neck. Suddenly the glass broke behind her, and a tremendous gout of black smoke filled the entire window, rolling on out and hiding her completely. Near us a woman cried out, anguished²³⁶, and the crowd stirred, muttering. Down the line somewhere a man was shouting angrily for a ladder. Out on Beekman Street a cop ran past us fast as he could go. There was no flame in the black smoke pouring out over the ledge up there, and we all—every last soul in that crowd, I'm certain—held our breaths: Would she be gone when we saw the ledge again? Julia didn't know it but she had both hands on my forearm, squeezing, squeezing.
The wind pulled the smoke away fast and she was still there, one hand on the window frame, the other cupped tightly over her mouth; now she struck her chest hard and we could see she was coughing. Then again she stood, arms outstretched between the stone sides of the opening, looking down at us and waiting, and the crowd was murmuring at her calmness and bravery. Minutes passed; a man near us stood staring up at the girl and cursing steadily; he may not have known he was doing it. Then, finally, two firemen came running around the corner from Nassau Street carrying an extension ladder. But at the building wall they stood, still holding the ladder, and talking, one man shaking his head violently. The cop at the police line had run over to them, and now he ran back: "Ladder's too short!" he yelled to us. One fireman began running back the way he'd come, then stopped—I never knew why—and came running back. And now they lifted the ladder up against the building and rattled²³⁷ the extension up fast, the ladder tops bouncing against the wall as it rose. It was too short. There was newspaper criticism, in days that followed, of the shortness of fire-department ladders in a time when many buildings were four, five, and six stories tall, and newer ones ten. This ladder, raised to its highest now, touched the wall a good four feet below the girl's ledge; and now again a great slow billow of soot-black smoke rolled across the window-sill behind the girl, and covered her completely. She'd have died, I'm certain, lost consciousness and fallen back into the building or out and down onto the street, except for the wind. It snatched the slow roll of smoke and sent it flying in thinning fragments along the face of the building, and we could see the white scarf and the black skirt fluttering. I want to explain. Since we'd stepped out of the Times Building doorway onto the street and seen the burning building, I'd been silently talking to myself. I didn't really blame myself for failing to burst through into Jake Pickering's office and stamping out the tiny new fire when I could have; no one could have anticipated what so suddenly happened. What ate at me now was this: that by our hidden presence at that old event Julia and I might have changed its course in just the way Dr. Danziger had always been afraid of. Perhaps we'd made a tiny sound, for example, barely heard and hardly noticed by Carmody as he searched through the files. Yet even a tiny, hardly noticed sound might very slightly have affected²³⁸ his subsequent actions. So that he'd dropped his burning match an inch to one side, say, landing it on the paper it set alight. Otherwise, if we hadn't been there to make even the least sound, who could say but what his match would have fallen onto bare wood? And that he might simply have stood, then, and watched it burn out? I knew Julia must be agonizing⁶⁵ through her thoughts, too: these were real people we'd just seen die. And now this incredible girl stood high over the street above us, waiting in silent courage to either die or somehow be saved in what now had to be only a matter of seconds. I couldn't take one more death; I couldn't have stood it if she'd fallen back into the building or down onto the street before me. I had to do something, and—it wasn't bravery, it was simple necessity—I was shoving my way forward, then I'd ducked under the lines and was running across the street. I didn't climb, I just sprang up onto the face of that ladder, then I was racing²³⁹ up toward the top. I hate heights; they make me uneasy and I can feel panic stirring inside me. But now there was no room for it. I was in a kind of exaltation, my head tilted back to stare up those rungs, handsand feet flying, the ledge rushing toward me. I didn't know what I was going to do up there, but when my hand closed on the topmost rung I did know, as though I always had known. Both hands rose, cupped over the rounded tops of the ladder, my feet continuing to climb until I was crouched in a ball, my left foot on the very top rung, right foot on the rung just below. For a moment I hung motionless, getting the feel of my balance. Then in precisely the right moment I lifted my hands free of the ladder and shoved upward with both legs, hard. For an instant I was balanced in the air, then I toppled, forward, and my clawed hands smacked down onto the window ledge, a hand on each side of the toes of the girl's shoes projecting over the ledge; I was looking up, and could see the buttons running down the side of one shoe. I only had to tell her once: She turned quickly, and half climbed and half slid down my back toward the ladder. Looking down between my feet, I saw a fireman's head and shoulders appear. His hands rose, gripped her ankles, guided them down, and she slid from my back onto the ladder below me. And then—this wonderful girl had already worked out in her mind what to do about me. The fireman holding her, she reached up and set her hands on my waist, pressing in hard, and with that support steadying me I was able to let go the ledge, stoop quickly, and find the ladder tops again with my hands. We moved fast then, climbing down in a row, and we weren't even halfway to the ground when the black smoke from the window she'd stood in changed instantaneously to roaring orange flame. I stepped down onto the street, the girl threw her arms around my neck and kissed me on the cheek. I asked her name; it was Ida Small, and I took her hand for just a moment and felt happy and redeemed²⁴⁰. I won't forget Julia's eyes ever, as I ducked under the line and she stood waiting. Hands were clapping me on the back, people congratulating me, someone yelling something right in my ear; an old man in a top hat, wearing his white hair in an antique length down to his coat collar, tried to give me his gold watch. I thanked him, refusing, then took Julia's arm, getting us out of there, toward Nassau Street ahead. I could see that, in these moments at least, Julia was in love with me; her eyes were filled with it and all I could do was grin and keep feeling my head, wondering how I'd lost my hat. I felt like a fake because bravery hadn't been involved; I was looking for absolution. And found it: Ida Small, who really was brave, still had a life ahead of her. The Times, next morning, said she was "employed as an amanuensis in the office of D.P. Lindsley, author of a work on Takigraphy." She was working alone, which was why she hadn't known about the fire till long after most others. In the February 11th Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper on the next page, the entire cover was given to a woodcut illustration showing Ida Small up on the ledge and "her anonymous²⁴¹ rescuer" on the ladder. And while I know I shouldn't, I'm including that cover here, although the face of the man doesn't really look too much like me, and I wasn't wearing a vest either.
At the corner we stood watching both the Nassau Street face of the building and the Beekman Street side, but there was no one at any of the windows now and even the ladders had been taken down. Like the rest of the crowd along both streets we just stood in helpless fascination²⁴², staring at the streams of water arching in through the window openings of the burning building, at the fountains of heated air and sparks rising endlessly from the stacks of the steam-powered pumpers, at the slanting, whirling curtain of snow. Suddenly the fire ended: The roof fell in, crashed tremendously onto what was left of the next weakened floor, then the entire interior smashed through to the basement and an enormous gust of sparks, smoke, and whirling burning fragments rose fifty feet over the roof with a sighing whooshing²⁴³ sound that must have been heard for blocks. In moments, the building gutted²⁴⁴, the fire was over, and you could see through the window openings on up through emptiness to the sky. In the basement the wreckage²⁴⁵ still burned but almost feebly, the force of it gone, and the snow fell, whirling prettily²⁴⁶, down through the emptiness enclosed by the walls. Above every gaping²⁴⁷ window-opening of the burned-out building lay a greatfan-shaped smear²¹⁵ of blackened masonry, and already it was becoming hard to picture this great dead hulk as having once been alive and full of people. It seemed impossible that we'd been in it listening to Jake Pickering and Andrew Carmody only—I pulled out my watch, and couldn't believe it—an hour ago. The enormous spectacle over, the crowd around us began talking, the sound rising to a steady excited murmur⁶, and I heard a voice say, "It's a blessing²⁴⁸ the paper moved out." To Julia I said, "What paper is he talking about?" "The World" she said dully. "Until a few months ago that was the World Building, and most people still call it that. They occupied the entire top floor; scores of them would surely have died up there." "The World," I said slowly, trying the sound of it, and then I understood. That the sending of this, the note in the old blue envelope in Kate's apartment had said, should cause the Destruction by Fire of the entire World—"Building " was the missing word—seems well-nigh incredible. Yet it is so.... And for the rest of his life that was to torture Carmody's conscience. I felt the weight lift from my own conscience: Now I knew that nothing Julia or I had done had caused the fire. I took Julia's arm and worked our way out of the crowd, south down Nassau Street. We heard a shout, a single warning cry, then a vast murmur from the watching crowd, and as we swung around to look, the entire Beekman Street face of the building leaned inward, very slowly, nearly imperceptibly, then faster, faster, and—still nearly all of a piece—it crashed like a felled tree down onto the burning wreckage in the basement. And now, the entire empty interior opened to view and to the storm, the building was truly gone. We took the El home. Julia sat looking blindly out the window, and I spoke to her now and then, trying to comfort her, but couldn't. It was true, and I knew it, that nothing we'd done had contributed to causing the fire. We'd been invisible spectators influencing events in no least way. And while I couldn't explain why I knew that, the certainty of it sounded in my voice, and I think I persuaded Julia of that truth. But of course she wished that we had altered subsequent events; I'd literally forced her out of Jake's office and now Julia had to wonder if we could have helped him by staying. I had to wonder, too, though I wouldn't have changed what I'd done, or most likely we'd be dead too. At the house Julia went straight up to her room, exhausted²⁴⁹. There was no one downstairs, the place silent. It was past lunchtime, and we'd had no breakfast, but I wasn't hungry so much as empty, and I didn't feel like prowling around the kitchen. I went up to my room, took off my coat, and lay down. After the night and morning we'd spent I was very tired but too full of what had happened, I thought, to be able to sleep. But of course I did, within only minutes after stretching out on top of my bed.
It was dark when I woke up from a hunger so intense it made me dizzy. I had no idea what time it was; it might have been very late. But Maud Torrence and Felix Grier were in the parlor²⁵⁰ reading when I came downstairs. They glanced up and nodded to me casually²⁵¹, and I understood that they didn't know I'd seen the fire. Just as casually I asked if Jake Pickering were home, and Felix, already turning back to his book, just shook his head. I walked on through the darkened dining room to the kitchen; I could see a light under the crack of the door. Julia sat at the kitchen table with her aunt, eating—cold sliced roast, from dinner probably, bread and butter, hot tea—and as soon as I walked in Aunt Ada hopped²⁵² up to get me some, too. From her face I could see that she knew all or at least something about what had happened, and she didn't question me. Julia looked up and nodded wanly²⁵³; there were dark circles under her eyes. I was certain I knew the answer, but had to ask, "He's not back?" Julia said no and, squeezing her eyes shut, dropped her chin to her chest, and sat shaking her head as though trying to deny a mental picture or a thought or both, and I didn't know what I could say to her. When I finished my supper Julia was still at the table, hands folded in her lap, waiting. I looked at her, and she said, "I want to go back, Si," and I just nodded: I didn't know why, but I had to go back, too. Outside it was snowing again and there was still a wind. The snow on the walks was too deep for walking now but there were wheel marks in the street, and we walked in those to the El station on Twenty-third Street. And by ten o'clock we were standing against the east wall of the post office, sheltered from the wind, and: ...the snow in Park-row in front of the Times office and in front of what remained of the old World building [says The New York Times of February 1, 1882] was disturbed only by the feet of the firemen and Police officers. Lines of hose across the car tracks were buried out of sight in the snow, and the streams of water that played from the nozzles were seemingly wasted. The flames continued as bright as though a great flood could have no effect upon them. The gas supply pipes created much of the glare. Men and women and children huddled close to the walls of the Post Office on the Park-row side....The wind increased to a gale²⁵⁴, and the snow beat about with such effect that the crowds were driven to seek refuge elsewhere, and by 10 o'clock the streets in the neighborhood were almost deserted²⁵⁵. A few staid persons, who appeared like statues of snow, seemed to think they were in duty bound to be on hand. They rubbed their backs against the sides of the Post Office and kept their eyes fixed²⁵⁶ upon the ragged Park-row wall of the burned building. The winds howled through Beekman-street, and Park-row, and whipped up Spruce-street into Nassau and Park-row with such fury that those who ventured to turn those corners were fairly lifted from then-feet. The City Hall clock appeared as though in a mist.... By 11 o'clock the snow had almost ceased to fall, the shrieks of the winds had died away, and the atmosphere was clear and cheerful, but the crowds did not return.
We among the last to leave, hypnotized by the black hulk across the street. The streetlampsbe(were) fore¹⁸ it were smashed and unlit, and the face of the wall was dark and without detail. But the lower window openings were sharply defined by the steady glare of the flaming gas pipes on the other side, and we could see the new snow mounded on their sills. The wreckage looked centuries old, an ancient ruin, and the dark shapes of the firemen were motionless, the only movement the play of the water arching through the empty windows. Higher up, the walls were touched by the diffused²⁵⁷ sourceless light that so often accompanies a nighttime snowfall; and we stared up at the smoke-blackened OBSERVER sign along which we'd crawled, and just beyond it on the face of the Times Building the sign of J. WALTER THOMPSON, ADVERTISING AGENT, onto which we had stepped and saved our lives. Finally we left; as we crossed Park Row into Beekman Street, the City Hall clock said ten to eleven. The Beekman Street sidewalk had been trampled²⁵⁸ clear of snow all day and into the evening; now with only an inch of untouched new snow it was easily passable. We looked across the street; here the wall had fallen, and we looked into the emptiness of what had been the inside of the building. The flames of the broken gas pipes roared softly, steadily, white arches of water wetting down everything near them. But the fire itself was over, "the Destruction of the World" complete, and it was already passing into—not even history, but oblivion. At this moment a swarm²⁰³ of artists would be hard at work under gaslight, over at Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper a couple of blocks to the west at Park and College Place, and at Harper's, carving²⁵⁹ out the woodcuts of the fire that would appear in a week or so. The girl beside me, and most of the city, would look at their work for a few moments, recreating the sensation. But I understood as they could not how quickly the men now carving those wooden blocks would be gone, together with the entire population that would look at them, incredibly including this girl. Here and there a last few copies would yellow in files, turning into something quaint²⁶⁰ and faintly amusing; and this vanished building and awful fire would be gone from all human memory. For a few moments, walking along Beekman Street across from the wreckage already being covered over with snow in places, I was overwhelmed in melancholy²⁶¹; human life was so short it seemed meaningless. It's the kind of thought you have, usually, only in the deep middle of the night waking up alone in the world. But I knew a time when this building and fire were as though they'd never been, and so I had the feeling now. We turned the corner into Nassau Street and—without speaking, each sensing it in the other— we began to hurry, suddenly anxious to leave this place forever. Ahead, just across the street from the Nassau Street entrance to the Times Building, the streetlamp was unbroken, and its circle of yellow light lay sparkling and softly beautiful on the snow of our walk. Here, too, on this walk, the snow was almost untouched, but not quite; a single line of footsteps marked it, disappearing into the darkness beyond the lamp. They began as though someone peering into a window opening of the destroyed World Building had crossed Nassau Street, stepped up onto the curb, and walked on. We reached the footprints, our own beginning to appear beside them. Then, directly under the lamp, I gripped Julia's arm, and we stopped. Sharply imprinted²⁶² in the snow, just as I'd seen it once before, lay the tiny shape of a tombstone; within it dozens of dots formed a circle enclosing a nine-pointed star. But this time there were a lot of them. Behind each sole print in the line of footstepsahead lay the round-edged straight-bottomed tombstone shape. "They're heel prints," I said; then I crouched beside one, pointing. "The star and circle are the heads of the nails." I looked up at Julia, and she nodded, mystified. "Yes, of course; men often have that done when their boots are made, a personal design of some sort." She shrugged. "It's just a good-luck sign." I nodded; I understood. This was Carmody's sign; he had escaped the fire. And only a few moments ago he was here—to look once more upon what he had done. For a moment longer I stood staring at that strange little print in the new snow. He'd be buried under that sign. Years from now his widow would wash and dress his newly dead body, then bury him under this identical sign. Why? Why? The question still remained. We walked all the way home. The wind gone, the snow stopped, it was no longer cold; and this late and so soon after the storm, the streets were deserted and we had the world to ourselves. At least the streets we walked on were empty; half lost most of the time, we traveled back and forth east and west, but working always to the north along the old old streets of the old old city of lower Manhattan. The walks were occasionally shoveled²⁶³ clear but generally not, so we walked in packed-down carriage and wagon ruts. As the storm clouds broke up, a half-moon began to appear and disappear, so that sometimes, a block or more from a streetlamp, we moved through darkness. At others we walked in moonlight that, doubled by reflection from the snow, was like day. Often we walked along, or crossed, silent residential²⁶⁴ streets precisely like those still existing in great areas of twentieth-century San Francisco. In San Francisco not just isolated²⁶⁵ relics²⁶⁶ but entire whole blocks of nineteenth-century houses stand untouched, looking in every way, except for parked cars, like still-existing old photographs of themselves. And now, here in lower Manhattan of the nineteenth century—we often think of it wrongly as having been nothing but block after block of brownstones—were whole blocks and streets of tall, wooden, wonderfully ornate houses exactly like their counterpart streets in modern San Francisco. Occasionally there was a light far back in a house behind a curtained window; someone sick, we supposed. And once in a while, far ahead or down a side street, we saw a moving figure. Occasionally, no wagon tracks visible, there were stretches of knee-deep drifts, and taking her hand, I helped Julia through them; until presently, after one such stretch, we didn't let go. Holding each other's hand, we walked through that silent bright night, and, as I'm certain Julia did, too, I could feel the horror of the fire begin to recede²⁶⁷ into the past and let go of us. At a long, shiny stretch of hard-packed snow surface, icy at this time of night, we ran on impulse, still hand in hand, then slid along that stretch, balancing in a way I'd done last in grade school. It was late and we didn't laugh or call out, but we grinned. And once or twice we scooped²⁶⁸ up snow, packed it, and arched it high into the air for the fun of it. It was fine, that walk, and at one point we heard—from a stable somewhere back of a house, I suppose— the sudden high whinny of a horse and I was suddenly aware of the enormous mystery of being here, walking the streets of New York City on a winter night of 1882.
We reached Fourteenth Street and turned east to walk a short block to the foot of Irving Place, which led, then as now, straight up to Gramercy Park. Just ahead, the building on the southeast corner of Fourteenth and Irving Place was brilliantly lighted, and we heard music: a waltz. "The Academy of Music," Julia said, and when we reached it the side entrances were open, and we stopped at one of them to look inside. What we saw was stunning²⁶⁹, dazzling. At least a third of the main floor, the seats removed, was covered by a slightly raised dancing platform, waxed and shining, filled by whirling, dipping, waltzing couples. In the gallery a great orchestra played, violin bows in slanted²⁷⁰ motion, and every box—level after level of boxes curving in a great horseshoe from one side of the stage clear around to the other—was filled with chatting laughing people overlooking the dancers. Still more spectators filled the stage and the entire rest of the main floor. Great urns²⁷¹ of flowers stood along the edge of the dancing platform, and high above the stage hung huge letters and numerals made of gas pipe. They were lighted, and the yellow-white letters of flame spelled CHARITY—1882. The ball was an island of light, music, and excitement in a white and silent winter night; it seemed magical to have come onto it like this. Every man there wore white tie and tails, yet the variety of hair length and style and the even greater variety in beard, mustache, and sideburns kept them individuals, recognizable and interesting to the eye. And the women in their long but off-shoulder and often surprisingly low-cut gowns—well, if the daytime dress of the eighties tended to be drab, these women made up for it tonight. I don't know the terminology²⁷² of women's clothes or the materials they're made of; I'll quote again directly from next morning's account of the ball in the Times: Mrs. Grace wore cream colored brocaded satin with pearl front. Mrs. R.H.L. Townsend wore blue satin brocaded with leaves and flowers of gold; Mrs. Lloyd S. Bryce wore white brocaded satin flounced with lace; Mrs. Stephen H. Olin wore white watered silk, with pearl and diamond ornaments²⁷³. Mrs. Woolsey wore black tulle with black satin waist and diamond ornaments. Mrs. C.G. Francklyn wore white silk and diamonds. Mrs. Commodore Vanderbilt wore white silk and diamonds. Mrs. Crawford wore blue silk. Mrs. J.C. Barron wore white satin and lace with diamonds. My reason for quoting this is that these women, a hall filled with them, absolutely glittered. Standing a few feet from us, a man in white tie and tails but with the look of a cop had been watching us; tolerantly enough, the time for ticket collecting long past. I looked over at him now, and he sauntered over. "I know someone here," I said to him. "Is there any way to locate her?" I narrowed my eyes and pantomimed looking out over the hall; for some reason we treat cops as though they were all dumb. He turned to a little gilt²⁷⁴ chair, picked up a handwritten list of several pages, and handed it to me. "Proscenium Boxes," it was headed, and under this it listed boxes andthen-occupants by letters beginning with D, and I looked quickly down a long column of names. "Artist Boxes," said the next column, and these boxes were listed by composers' names, beginning with Mozart, Meyerbeer, Bellini, Donizetti. I looked through the names under these, all beautifully written in a woman's hand; I looked under Verdi, Gounod, Weber, Wagner, Beethoven, Auber, Halévy, Grisi, and then, under Piccolomini, I found the names of four women and their husbands, and one of the four was the name I was looking for. The guard, or cop, pointed out the Piccolomini box, and it was nearly full; four women and three men sat watching the dancers below. The guard walked off, and I murmured to Julia, "There they are: four women. One of them almost certainly knows that today her husband killed half a dozen people. And nearly burned to death himself. So tell me: Which of those four women is she?" "There is no question of that, is there?" Julia said. "The woman in the yellow gown.'' I nodded; there was no question at all. There she sat, her spine²⁷⁵ straight, her back not touching the little gilt chair, a strikingly handsome woman in her mid-thirties; and her face was absolutely composed. She'd have been good-looking, very nearly beautiful, except that looking at her face you hardly thought of that; I've seldom seen a face, and never before or since a woman's, of such utter composure, extreme capability²⁷⁶, and absolute determination. "Do you see what she's looking at?" Julia said, and I realized that the woman in yellow wasn't watching the dancers. In the very front of her box, one of the largest and most prominent in the hall, Mrs. Andrew W. Carmody was staring ahead at the great flaming gas letters—CHARITY—1882—that said this was the greatest social event of the year. And I understood why Andrew Carmody had acted, had had to act, as he did. "What are you thinking?" Julia said; I couldn't take my eyes off that fiercely beautiful face. "She scares me. I feel chilled, looking at her. But I'm fascinated, too—sort of illicitly²⁷⁷ thrilled." "Oh? And why?" "Because the time will come when that kind of face and person and the kind of high drama she's involved in won't exist anymore; they'll be out of style. Evildoers will be tawdry, committing crimes of violence or bookkeeping in which any sense of drama will be nonexistent. And of the two kinds of people and evil, I'll take those with a sense of style." Julia was looking at me, her brows raised quizzically. I took a last look at Mrs. Carmody and that wonderful ball; then we turned and walked away, moving past a long line of carriages waiting at the curb, their sidelights flickering, their horses motionless under blankets, the liveried men waiting, and then up the silent street to home, the sound of the waltz dying behind us.

1 doorway   

n.门口，(喻)入门；门路，途径

参考例句：

• They huddled in the shop doorway to shelter from the rain.他们挤在商店门口躲雨。
• Mary suddenly appeared in the doorway.玛丽突然出现在门口。

2 flickered   

（通常指灯光）闪烁，摇曳( flicker的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• The lights flickered and went out. 灯光闪了闪就熄了。
• These lights flickered continuously like traffic lights which have gone mad. 这些灯象发狂的交通灯一样不停地闪动着。

3 flick   

n.快速的轻打，轻打声，弹开；v.轻弹，轻轻拂去，忽然摇动

参考例句：

• He gave a flick of the whip.他轻抽一下鞭子。
• By a flick of his whip,he drove the fly from the horse's head.他用鞭子轻抽了一下，将马头上的苍蝇驱走。

4 flicker   

vi./n.闪烁，摇曳，闪现

参考例句：

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

5 tighten   

v.(使)变紧；(使)绷紧

参考例句：

• Turn the screw to the right to tighten it.向右转动螺钉把它拧紧。
• Some countries tighten monetary policy to avoid inflation.一些国家实行紧缩银根的货币政策，以避免通货膨胀。

6 murmur   

n.低语，低声的怨言；v.低语，低声而言

参考例句：

• They paid the extra taxes without a murmur.他们毫无怨言地交了附加税。
• There was a low murmur of conversation in the hall.大厅里有窃窃私语声。

7 satchel   

n.(皮或帆布的)书包

参考例句：

• The school boy opened the door and flung his satchel in.那个男学生打开门，把他的书包甩了进去。
• She opened her satchel and took out her father's gloves.打开书箱，取出了她父亲的手套来。

8 entirely   

ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地

参考例句：

• The fire was entirely caused by their neglect of duty. 那场火灾完全是由于他们失职而引起的。
• His life was entirely given up to the educational work. 他的一生统统献给了教育工作。

9 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。

10 shuffled   

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

参考例句：

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

11 squealing   

v.长声尖叫，用长而尖锐的声音说( squeal的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• Pigs were grunting and squealing in the yard. 猪在院子里哼哼地叫个不停。
• The pigs were squealing. 猪尖叫着。

12 pried   

v.打听，刺探（他人的私事）( pry的过去式和过去分词 )；撬开

参考例句：

• We pried open the locked door with an iron bar. 我们用铁棍把锁着的门撬开。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• So Tom pried his mouth open and poured down the Pain-killer. 因此汤姆撬开它的嘴，把止痛药灌下去。 来自英汉文学 - 汤姆历险

13 doorways   

n.门口，门道( doorway的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The houses belched people; the doorways spewed out children. 从各家茅屋里涌出一堆一堆的人群，从门口蹦出一群一群小孩。 来自辞典例句
• He rambled under the walls and doorways. 他就顺着墙根和门楼遛跶。 来自辞典例句

14 precisely   

adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地

参考例句：

• It's precisely that sort of slick sales-talk that I mistrust.我不相信的正是那种油腔滑调的推销宣传。
• The man adjusted very precisely.那个人调得很准。

15 cramped   

a.狭窄的

参考例句：

• The house was terribly small and cramped, but the agent described it as a bijou residence. 房子十分狭小拥挤，但经纪人却把它说成是小巧别致的住宅。
• working in cramped conditions 在拥挤的环境里工作

16 ram   

(random access memory)随机存取存储器

参考例句：

• 512k RAM is recommended and 640k RAM is preferred.推荐配置为512K内存，640K内存则更佳。

17 clattering   

发出咔哒声（clatter的现在分词形式）

参考例句：

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

18 fore   

adv.在前面；adj.先前的；在前部的；n.前部

参考例句：

• Your seat is in the fore part of the aircraft.你的座位在飞机的前部。
• I have the gift of fore knowledge.我能够未卜先知。

19 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。

20 scrambled   

v.快速爬行( scramble的过去式和过去分词 )；攀登；争夺；（军事飞机）紧急起飞

参考例句：

• Each scrambled for the football at the football ground. 足球场上你争我夺。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• He scrambled awkwardly to his feet. 他笨拙地爬起身来。 来自《简明英汉词典》

21 leisurely   

adj.悠闲的；从容的，慢慢的

参考例句：

• We walked in a leisurely manner,looking in all the windows.我们慢悠悠地走着，看遍所有的橱窗。
• He had a leisurely breakfast and drove cheerfully to work.他从容的吃了早餐，高兴的开车去工作。

22 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。

23 reassuringly   

ad.安心，可靠

参考例句：

• He patted her knee reassuringly. 他轻拍她的膝盖让她放心。
• The doctor smiled reassuringly. 医生笑了笑，让人心里很踏实。

24 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。

25 slits   

n.狭长的口子，裂缝( slit的名词复数 )v.切开，撕开( slit的第三人称单数 )；在…上开狭长口子

参考例句：

• He appears to have two slits for eyes. 他眯着两眼。
• "You go to--Halifax,'she said tensely, her green eyes slits of rage. "你给我滚----滚到远远的地方去！" 她恶狠狠地说，那双绿眼睛冒出了怒火。

26 cane   

n.手杖，细长的茎，藤条；v.以杖击，以藤编制的

参考例句：

• This sugar cane is quite a sweet and juicy.这甘蔗既甜又多汁。
• English schoolmasters used to cane the boys as a punishment.英国小学老师过去常用教鞭打男学生作为惩罚。

27 shaft   

n.(工具的)柄，杆状物

参考例句：

• He was wounded by a shaft.他被箭击中受伤。
• This is the shaft of a steam engine.这是一个蒸汽机主轴。

28 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。

29 slanting   

倾斜的，歪斜的

参考例句：

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

30 barricade   

n.路障，栅栏，障碍；vt.设路障挡住

参考例句：

• The soldiers make a barricade across the road.士兵在路上设路障。
• It is difficult to break through a steel barricade.冲破钢铁障碍很难。

31 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。

32 apprehension   

n.理解，领悟；逮捕，拘捕；忧虑

参考例句：

• There were still areas of doubt and her apprehension grew.有些地方仍然存疑，于是她越来越担心。
• She is a girl of weak apprehension.她是一个理解力很差的女孩。

33 grunt   

v.嘟哝；作呼噜声；n.呼噜声，嘟哝

参考例句：

• He lifted the heavy suitcase with a grunt.他咕噜着把沉重的提箱拎了起来。
• I ask him what he think,but he just grunt.我问他在想什麽，他只哼了一声。

34 straps   

n.带子( strap的名词复数 )；挎带；肩带；背带v.用皮带捆扎( strap的第三人称单数 )；用皮带抽打；包扎；给…打绷带

参考例句：

• the shoulder straps of her dress 她连衣裙上的肩带
• The straps can be adjusted to suit the wearer. 这些背带可进行调整以适合使用者。

35 metallic   

adj.金属的；金属制的；含金属的；产金属的；像金属的

参考例句：

• A sharp metallic note coming from the outside frightened me.外面传来尖锐铿锵的声音吓了我一跳。
• He picked up a metallic ring last night.昨夜他捡了一个金属戒指。

36 exhale   

v.呼气，散出，吐出，蒸发

参考例句：

• Sweet odours exhale from flowers.花儿散发出花香。
• Wade exhaled a cloud of smoke and coughed.韦德吐出一口烟，然后咳嗽起来。

37 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》

38 knuckles   

n.（指人）指关节( knuckle的名词复数 )；（指动物）膝关节，踝v.（指人）指关节( knuckle的第三人称单数 )；（指动物）膝关节，踝

参考例句：

• He gripped the wheel until his knuckles whitened. 他紧紧握住方向盘，握得指关节都变白了。
• Her thin hands were twisted by swollen knuckles. 她那双纤手因肿大的指关节而变了形。 来自《简明英汉词典》

39 stiffened   

加强的

参考例句：

• He leaned towards her and she stiffened at this invasion of her personal space. 他向她俯过身去，这种侵犯她个人空间的举动让她绷紧了身子。
• She stiffened with fear. 她吓呆了。

40 defensive   

adj.防御的；防卫的；防守的

参考例句：

• Their questions about the money put her on the defensive.他们问到钱的问题，使她警觉起来。
• The Government hastily organized defensive measures against the raids.政府急忙布置了防卫措施抵御空袭。

41 minor   

adj.较小(少)的，较次要的；n.辅修学科；vi.辅修

参考例句：

• The young actor was given a minor part in the new play.年轻的男演员在这出新戏里被分派担任一个小角色。
• I gave him a minor share of my wealth.我把小部分财产给了他。

42 nostrils   

鼻孔( nostril的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Her nostrils flared with anger. 她气得两个鼻孔都鼓了起来。
• The horse dilated its nostrils. 马张大鼻孔。

43 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。

44 mentality   

n.心理，思想，脑力

参考例句：

• He has many years'experience of the criminal mentality.他研究犯罪心理有多年经验。
• Running a business requires a very different mentality from being a salaried employee.经营企业所要求具备的心态和上班族的心态截然不同。

45 sage   

n.圣人，哲人；adj.贤明的，明智的

参考例句：

• I was grateful for the old man's sage advice.我很感激那位老人贤明的忠告。
• The sage is the instructor of a hundred ages.这位哲人是百代之师。

46 pigeonhole   

n.鸽舍出入口；v.把...归类

参考例句：

• The pigeonhole principle is an important principle in combinatorics.鸽巢原理是组合学中一个非常重要的原理。
• I don't want to be pigeonholed as a kids' presenter.我不想被归类为儿童节目主持人。

47 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。

48 quotation   

n.引文，引语，语录；报价，牌价，行情

参考例句：

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

49 gust   

n.阵风，突然一阵（雨、烟等），（感情的）迸发

参考例句：

• A gust of wind blew the front door shut.一阵大风吹来，把前门关上了。
• A gust of happiness swept through her.一股幸福的暖流流遍她的全身。

50 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。

51 char   

v.烧焦；使...燃烧成焦炭

参考例句：

• Without a drenching rain,the forest fire will char everything.如果没有一场透地雨，森林大火将烧尽一切。
• The immediate batch will require deodorization to char the protein material to facilitate removal in bleaching.脱臭烧焦的蛋白质原料易在脱色中去除。

52 forefinger   

n.食指

参考例句：

• He pinched the leaf between his thumb and forefinger.他将叶子捏在拇指和食指之间。
• He held it between the tips of his thumb and forefinger.他用他大拇指和食指尖拿着它。

53 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。

54 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》

55 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。

56 crumpled   

adj. 弯扭的, 变皱的 动词crumple的过去式和过去分词形式

参考例句：

• She crumpled the letter up into a ball and threw it on the fire. 她把那封信揉成一团扔进了火里。
• She flattened out the crumpled letter on the desk. 她在写字台上把皱巴巴的信展平。

57 ragged   

adj.衣衫褴褛的，粗糙的，刺耳的

参考例句：

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

58 tilting   

倾斜，倾卸

参考例句：

• For some reason he thinks everyone is out to get him, but he's really just tilting at windmills. 不知为什么他觉得每个人都想害他，但其实他不过是在庸人自扰。
• So let us stop bickering within our ranks.Stop tilting at windmills. 所以，让我们结束内部间的争吵吧！再也不要去做同风车作战的蠢事了。

59 tilted   

v. 倾斜的

参考例句：

• Suddenly the boat tilted to one side. 小船突然倾向一侧。
• She tilted her chin at him defiantly. 她向他翘起下巴表示挑衅。

60 buckle   

n.扣子，带扣；v.把...扣住，由于压力而弯曲

参考例句：

• The two ends buckle at the back.带子两端在背后扣起来。
• She found it hard to buckle down.她很难专心做一件事情。

61 mumbling   

含糊地说某事，叽咕，咕哝( mumble的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• I could hear him mumbling to himself. 我听到他在喃喃自语。
• He was still mumbling something about hospitals at the end of the party when he slipped on a piece of ice and broke his left leg. 宴会结束时，他仍在咕哝着医院里的事。说着说着，他在一块冰上滑倒，跌断了左腿。

62 saliva   

n.唾液，口水

参考例句：

• He wiped a dribble of saliva from his chin.他擦掉了下巴上的几滴口水。
• Saliva dribbled from the baby's mouth.唾液从婴儿的嘴里流了出来。

63 concussion   

n.脑震荡；震动

参考例句：

• He was carried off the field with slight concussion.他因轻微脑震荡给抬离了现场。
• She suffers from brain concussion.她得了脑震荡。

64 throbbed   

抽痛( throb的过去式和过去分词 )； （心脏、脉搏等）跳动

参考例句：

• His head throbbed painfully. 他的头一抽一跳地痛。
• The pulse throbbed steadily. 脉搏跳得平稳。

65 agonizing   

adj.痛苦难忍的；使人苦恼的v.使极度痛苦；折磨(agonize的ing形式)

参考例句：

• I spent days agonizing over whether to take the job or not. 我用了好些天苦苦思考是否接受这个工作。
• his father's agonizing death 他父亲极度痛苦的死

66 puff   

n.一口(气)；一阵(风)；v.喷气，喘气

参考例句：

• He took a puff at his cigarette.他吸了一口香烟。
• They tried their best to puff the book they published.他们尽力吹捧他们出版的书。

67 puffed   

adj.疏松的v.使喷出( puff的过去式和过去分词 )；喷着汽（或烟）移动；吹嘘；吹捧

参考例句：

• He lit a cigarette and puffed at it furiously. 他点燃了一支香烟，狂吸了几口。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He felt grown-up, puffed up with self-importance. 他觉得长大了，便自以为了不起。 来自《简明英汉词典》

68 hunched   

（常指因寒冷、生病或愁苦）耸肩弓身的，伏首前倾的

参考例句：

• He sat with his shoulders hunched up. 他耸起双肩坐着。
• Stephen hunched down to light a cigarette. 斯蒂芬弓着身子点燃一支烟。

69 nausea   

n.作呕，恶心；极端的憎恶(或厌恶)

参考例句：

• Early pregnancy is often accompanied by nausea.怀孕期常有恶心的现象。
• He experienced nausea after eating octopus.吃了章鱼后他感到恶心。

70 accustoming   

v.（使）习惯于( accustom的现在分词 )

参考例句：

71 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。

72 perfectly   

adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地

参考例句：

• The witnesses were each perfectly certain of what they said.证人们个个对自己所说的话十分肯定。
• Everything that we're doing is all perfectly above board.我们做的每件事情都是光明正大的。

73 eyebrow   

n.眉毛，眉

参考例句：

• Her eyebrow is well penciled.她的眉毛画得很好。
• With an eyebrow raised,he seemed divided between surprise and amusement.他一只眉毛扬了扬，似乎既感到吃惊，又觉有趣。

74 flicked   

（尤指用手指或手快速地）轻击( flick的过去式和过去分词 )； （用…）轻挥； （快速地）按开关； 向…笑了一下（或瞥了一眼等）

参考例句：

• She flicked the dust off her collar. 她轻轻弹掉了衣领上的灰尘。
• I idly picked up a magazine and flicked through it. 我漫不经心地拿起一本杂志翻看着。

75 strapped   

adj.用皮带捆住的，用皮带装饰的；身无分文的；缺钱；手头紧v.用皮带捆扎(strap的过去式和过去分词)；用皮带抽打；包扎；给…打绷带

参考例句：

• Make sure that the child is strapped tightly into the buggy. 一定要把孩子牢牢地拴在婴儿车上。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The soldiers' great coats were strapped on their packs. 战士们的厚大衣扎捆在背包上。 来自《简明英汉词典》

76 revolve   

vi.(使)旋转；循环出现

参考例句：

• The planets revolve around the sun.行星绕着太阳运转。
• The wheels began to revolve slowly.车轮开始慢慢转动。

77 flicking   

（尤指用手指或手快速地）轻击( flick的现在分词 )； （用…）轻挥； （快速地）按开关； 向…笑了一下（或瞥了一眼等）

参考例句：

• He helped her up before flicking the reins. 他帮她上马，之后挥动了缰绳。
• There's something flicking around my toes. 有什么东西老在叮我的脚指头。

78 steadily   

adv.稳定地；不变地；持续地

参考例句：

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

79 crumpling   

压皱，弄皱( crumple的现在分词 )； 变皱

参考例句：

• His crumpling body bent low from years of carrying heavy loads. 由于经年累月的负重，他那皱巴巴的身子被压得弯弯的。
• This apparently took the starch out of the fast-crumpling opposition. 这显然使正在迅速崩溃的反对党泄了气。

80 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。

81 monotonous   

adj.单调的，一成不变的，使人厌倦的

参考例句：

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

82 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。

83 flexing   

n.挠曲，可挠性v.屈曲( flex的现在分词 )；弯曲；（为准备大干而）显示实力；摩拳擦掌

参考例句：

• Flexing particular muscles allows snakes to move in several ways. 可弯曲的特殊的肌肉使蛇可以用几种方式移动。 来自电影对白
• China has become an economic superpower and is flexing its muscles. 中国已经成为了一个经济巨人而且在展示他的肌肉。 来自互联网

84 revolving   

adj.旋转的，轮转式的；循环的v.（使）旋转( revolve的现在分词 )；细想

参考例句：

• The theatre has a revolving stage. 剧院有一个旋转舞台。
• The company became a revolving-door workplace. 这家公司成了工作的中转站。

85 shuffling   

adj. 慢慢移动的, 滑移的 动词shuffle的现在分词形式

参考例句：

• Don't go shuffling along as if you were dead. 别像个死人似地拖着脚走。 来自英汉文学 - 嘉莉妹妹
• Some one was shuffling by on the sidewalk. 外面的人行道上有人拖着脚走过。 来自英汉文学 - 嘉莉妹妹

86 famished   

adj.饥饿的

参考例句：

• When's lunch?I'm famished!什么时候吃午饭？我饿得要死了！
• My feet are now killing me and I'm absolutely famished.我的脚现在筋疲力尽，我绝对是极饿了。

87 drooping   

adj. 下垂的，无力的 动词droop的现在分词

参考例句：

• The drooping willows are waving gently in the morning breeze. 晨风中垂柳袅袅。
• The branches of the drooping willows were swaying lightly. 垂柳轻飘飘地摆动。

88 flickering   

adj.闪烁的，摇曳的，一闪一闪的

参考例句：

• The crisp autumn wind is flickering away. 清爽的秋风正在吹拂。
• The lights keep flickering. 灯光忽明忽暗。

89 peek   

vi.偷看，窥视；n.偷偷的一看，一瞥

参考例句：

• Larry takes a peek out of the window.赖瑞往窗外偷看了一下。
• Cover your eyes and don't peek.捂上眼睛，别偷看。

90 awakened   

v.（使）醒( awaken的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）觉醒；弄醒；（使）意识到

参考例句：

• She awakened to the sound of birds singing. 她醒来听到鸟的叫声。
• The public has been awakened to the full horror of the situation. 公众完全意识到了这一状况的可怕程度。 来自《简明英汉词典》

91 hovering   

鸟( hover的现在分词 )； 靠近（某事物）； （人）徘徊； 犹豫

参考例句：

• The helicopter was hovering about 100 metres above the pad. 直升机在离发射台一百米的上空盘旋。
• I'm hovering between the concert and the play tonight. 我犹豫不决今晚是听音乐会还是看戏。

92 swollen   

adj.肿大的，水涨的；v.使变大，肿胀

参考例句：

• Her legs had got swollen from standing up all day.因为整天站着，她的双腿已经肿了。
• A mosquito had bitten her and her arm had swollen up.蚊子叮了她，她的手臂肿起来了。

93 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。

94 awakening   

n.觉醒，醒悟 adj.觉醒中的；唤醒的

参考例句：

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

95 speculatively   

adv.思考地，思索地；投机地

参考例句：

• He looked at her speculatively. 他若有所思的看着她。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• She eyed It'speculatively as a cruel smile appeared on her black lips. 她若有所思地审视它，黑色的嘴角浮起一丝残酷的微笑。 来自互联网

96 crackers   

adj.精神错乱的，癫狂的n.爆竹( cracker的名词复数 )；薄脆饼干；（认为）十分愉快的事；迷人的姑娘

参考例句：

• That noise is driving me crackers. 那噪声闹得我简直要疯了。
• We served some crackers and cheese as an appetiser. 我们上了些饼干和奶酪作为开胃品。 来自《简明英汉词典》

97 crumbs   

int. (表示惊讶)哎呀 n. 碎屑 名词crumb的复数形式

参考例句：

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

98 deliberately   

adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地

参考例句：

• The girl gave the show away deliberately.女孩故意泄露秘密。
• They deliberately shifted off the argument.他们故意回避这个论点。

99 taunt   

n.辱骂，嘲弄；v.嘲弄

参考例句：

• He became a taunt to his neighbours.他成了邻居们嘲讽的对象。
• Why do the other children taunt him with having red hair?为什么别的小孩子讥笑他有红头发？

100 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。

101 cork   

n.软木，软木塞

参考例句：

• We heard the pop of a cork.我们听见瓶塞砰的一声打开。
• Cork is a very buoyant material.软木是极易浮起的材料。

102 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》

103 shrug   

v.耸肩(表示怀疑、冷漠、不知等)

参考例句：

• With a shrug,he went out of the room.他耸一下肩，走出了房间。
• I admire the way she is able to shrug off unfair criticism.我很佩服她能对错误的批评意见不予理会。

104 unwilling   

adj.不情愿的

参考例句：

• The natives were unwilling to be bent by colonial power.土著居民不愿受殖民势力的摆布。
• His tightfisted employer was unwilling to give him a raise.他那吝啬的雇主不肯给他加薪。

105 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。

106 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。

107 binding   

有约束力的，有效的，应遵守的

参考例句：

• The contract was not signed and has no binding force. 合同没有签署因而没有约束力。
• Both sides have agreed that the arbitration will be binding. 双方都赞同仲裁具有约束力。

108 numbed   

v.使麻木，使麻痹( numb的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• His mind has been numbed. 他已麻木不仁。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He was numbed with grief. 他因悲伤而昏迷了。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》

109 sever   

v.切开，割开；断绝，中断

参考例句：

• She wanted to sever all her connections with the firm.她想断绝和那家公司的所有联系。
• We must never sever the cultural vein of our nation.我们不能割断民族的文化血脉。

110 discomfort   

n.不舒服，不安，难过，困难，不方便

参考例句：

• One has to bear a little discomfort while travelling.旅行中总要忍受一点不便。
• She turned red with discomfort when the teacher spoke.老师讲话时她不好意思地红着脸。

111 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。

112 spun   

v.纺，杜撰，急转身

参考例句：

• His grandmother spun him a yarn at the fire.他奶奶在火炉边给他讲故事。
• Her skilful fingers spun the wool out to a fine thread.她那灵巧的手指把羊毛纺成了细毛线。

113 plunged   

v.颠簸( plunge的过去式和过去分词 )；暴跌；骤降；突降

参考例句：

• The train derailed and plunged into the river. 火车脱轨栽进了河里。
• She lost her balance and plunged 100 feet to her death. 她没有站稳，从100英尺的高处跌下摔死了。

114 plunge   

v.跳入，(使)投入，(使)陷入；猛冲

参考例句：

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

115 cascading   

流注( cascade的现在分词 )； 大量落下； 大量垂悬； 梯流

参考例句：

• First of all, cascading menus are to be avoided at all costs. 首先，无论如何都要避免使用级联菜单。 来自About Face 3交互设计精髓
• Her sounds began cascading gently. 他的声音开始缓缓地低落下来。

116 waded   

（从水、泥等）蹚，走过，跋( wade的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• She tucked up her skirt and waded into the river. 她撩起裙子蹚水走进河里。
• He waded into the water to push the boat out. 他蹚进水里把船推出来。

117 spat   

n.口角，掌击；v.发出呼噜呼噜声

参考例句：

• Her parents always have spats.她的父母经常有些小的口角。
• There is only a spat between the brother and sister.那只是兄妹间的小吵小闹。

118 queasy   

adj.易呕的

参考例句：

• I felt a little queasy on the ship.我在船上觉得有点晕眩想呕吐。
• He was very prone to seasickness and already felt queasy.他快晕船了，已经感到恶心了。

119 smoker   

n.吸烟者，吸烟车厢，吸烟室

参考例句：

• His wife dislikes him to be a smoker.他妻子不喜欢他当烟民。
• He is a moderate smoker.他是一个有节制的烟民。

120 protruding   

v.（使某物）伸出，（使某物）突出( protrude的现在分词 )；凸

参考例句：

• He hung his coat on a nail protruding from the wall. 他把上衣挂在凸出墙面的一根钉子上。
• There is a protruding shelf over a fireplace. 壁炉上方有个突出的架子。 来自辞典例句

121 charred   

v.把…烧成炭( char的过去式)；烧焦

参考例句：

• the charred remains of a burnt-out car 被烧焦的轿车残骸
• The intensity of the explosion is recorded on the charred tree trunks. 那些烧焦的树干表明爆炸的强烈。 来自《简明英汉词典》

122 utterly   

adv.完全地，绝对地

参考例句：

• Utterly devoted to the people,he gave his life in saving his patients.他忠于人民，把毕生精力用于挽救患者的生命。
• I was utterly ravished by the way she smiled.她的微笑使我完全陶醉了。

123 overlapping   

adj./n.交迭（的）

参考例句：

• There is no overlapping question between the two courses. 这两门课程之间不存在重叠的问题。
• A trimetrogon strip is composed of three rows of overlapping. 三镜头摄影航线为三排重迭的象片所组成。

124 clenched   

v.紧握，抓紧，咬紧( clench的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• He clenched his fists in anger. 他愤怒地攥紧了拳头。
• She clenched her hands in her lap to hide their trembling. 她攥紧双手放在腿上，以掩饰其颤抖。 来自《简明英汉词典》

125 apprehensive   

adj.担心的，恐惧的，善于领会的

参考例句：

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

126 undo   

vt.解开，松开；取消，撤销

参考例句：

• His pride will undo him some day.他的傲慢总有一天会毁了他。
• I managed secretly to undo a corner of the parcel.我悄悄地设法解开了包裹的一角。

127 stomp   

v.跺（脚），重踩，重踏

参考例句：

• 3.And you go to france, and you go to stomp! 你去法国，你去看跺脚舞！
• 4.How hard did she stomp? 她跺得有多狠？

128 flare   

v.闪耀，闪烁；n.潮红；突发

参考例句：

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

129 underneath   

adj.在...下面，在...底下；adv.在下面

参考例句：

• Working underneath the car is always a messy job.在汽车底下工作是件脏活。
• She wore a coat with a dress underneath.她穿着一件大衣，里面套着一条连衣裙。

130 interfering   

adj. 妨碍的 动词interfere的现在分词

参考例句：

• He's an interfering old busybody! 他老爱管闲事！
• I wish my mother would stop interfering and let me make my own decisions. 我希望我母亲不再干预，让我自己拿主意。

131 decrepit   

adj.衰老的，破旧的

参考例句：

• The film had been shot in a decrepit old police station.该影片是在一所破旧不堪的警察局里拍摄的。
• A decrepit old man sat on a park bench.一个衰弱的老人坐在公园的长凳上。

132 Flared   

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

参考例句：

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

133 frantic   

adj.狂乱的，错乱的，激昂的

参考例句：

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

134 undone   

a.未做完的，未完成的

参考例句：

• He left nothing undone that needed attention.所有需要注意的事他都注意到了。

135 singed   

v.浅表烧焦( singe的过去式和过去分词 )；（毛发）燎，烧焦尖端[边儿]

参考例句：

• He singed his hair as he tried to light his cigarette. 他点烟时把头发给燎了。
• The cook singed the chicken to remove the fine hairs. 厨师把鸡燎一下，以便去掉细毛。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

136 flailing   

v.鞭打( flail的现在分词 )；用连枷脱粒；（臂或腿）无法控制地乱动；扫雷坦克

参考例句：

• He became moody and unreasonable, flailing out at Katherine at the slightest excuse. 他变得喜怒无常、不可理喻，为点鸡毛蒜皮的小事就殴打凯瑟琳。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• His arms were flailing in all directions. 他的手臂胡乱挥舞着。 来自辞典例句

137 scuttling   

n.船底穿孔，打开通海阀（沉船用）v.使船沉没( scuttle的现在分词 )；快跑，急走

参考例句：

• I could hear an animal scuttling about in the undergrowth. 我可以听到一只动物在矮树丛中跑来跑去。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• First of all, scuttling Yu Lung (this yuncheng Hejin) , flood discharge. 大禹首先凿开龙门（今运城河津市），分洪下泄。 来自互联网

138 instinctively   

adv.本能地

参考例句：

• As he leaned towards her she instinctively recoiled. 他向她靠近，她本能地往后缩。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He knew instinctively where he would find her. 他本能地知道在哪儿能找到她。 来自《简明英汉词典》

139 subside   

vi.平静，平息；下沉，塌陷，沉降

参考例句：

• The emotional reaction which results from a serious accident takes time to subside.严重事故所引起的情绪化的反应需要时间来平息。
• The controversies surrounding population growth are unlikely to subside soon.围绕着人口增长问题的争论看来不会很快平息。

140 hopping   

n. 跳跃 动词hop的现在分词形式

参考例句：

• The clubs in town are really hopping. 城里的俱乐部真够热闹的。
• I'm hopping over to Paris for the weekend. 我要去巴黎度周末。

141 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。

142 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。

143 tableau   

n.画面，活人画（舞台上活人扮的静态画面）

参考例句：

• The movie was a tableau of a soldier's life.这部电影的画面生动地描绘了军人的生活。
• History is nothing more than a tableau of crimes and misfortunes.历史不过是由罪恶和灾难构成的静止舞台造型罢了。

144 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。

145 swirl   

v.(使)打漩，(使)涡卷；n.漩涡，螺旋形

参考例句：

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

146 writhing   

（因极度痛苦而）扭动或翻滚( writhe的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• She was writhing around on the floor in agony. 她痛得在地板上直打滚。
• He was writhing on the ground in agony. 他痛苦地在地上打滚。

147 ablaze   

adj.着火的，燃烧的；闪耀的，灯火辉煌的

参考例句：

• The main street was ablaze with lights in the evening.晚上，那条主要街道灯火辉煌。
• Forests are sometimes set ablaze by lightning.森林有时因雷击而起火。

148 exterior   

adj.外部的，外在的；表面的

参考例句：

• The seed has a hard exterior covering.这种子外壳很硬。
• We are painting the exterior wall of the house.我们正在给房子的外墙涂漆。

149 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

150 sprawled   

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

参考例句：

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

151 gathering   

n.集会，聚会，聚集

参考例句：

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

152 brass   

n.黄铜；黄铜器，铜管乐器

参考例句：

• Many of the workers play in the factory's brass band.许多工人都在工厂铜管乐队中演奏。
• Brass is formed by the fusion of copper and zinc.黄铜是通过铜和锌的熔合而成的。

153 cylinder   

n.圆筒，柱(面)，汽缸

参考例句：

• What's the volume of this cylinder?这个圆筒的体积有多少？
• The cylinder is getting too much gas and not enough air.汽缸里汽油太多而空气不足。

154 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

155 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。

156 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

157 groan   

vi./n.呻吟，抱怨；(发出)呻吟般的声音

参考例句：

• The wounded man uttered a groan.那个受伤的人发出呻吟。
• The people groan under the burden of taxes.人民在重税下痛苦呻吟。

158 groaned   

v.呻吟( groan的过去式和过去分词 )；发牢骚；抱怨；受苦

参考例句：

• He groaned in anguish. 他痛苦地呻吟。
• The cart groaned under the weight of the piano. 大车在钢琴的重压下嘎吱作响。 来自《简明英汉词典》

159 bonnet   

n.无边女帽；童帽

参考例句：

• The baby's bonnet keeps the sun out of her eyes.婴孩的帽子遮住阳光，使之不刺眼。
• She wore a faded black bonnet garnished with faded artificial flowers.她戴着一顶褪了色的黑色无边帽，帽上缀着褪了色的假花。

160 petrified   

adj.惊呆的；目瞪口呆的v.使吓呆，使惊呆；变僵硬；使石化(petrify的过去式和过去分词)

参考例句：

• I'm petrified of snakes. 我特别怕蛇。
• The poor child was petrified with fear. 这可怜的孩子被吓呆了。 来自《简明英汉词典》

161 volition   

n.意志；决意

参考例句：

• We like to think that everything we do and everything we think is a product of our volition.我们常常认为我们所做和所想的一切都出自自己的意愿。
• Makin said Mr Coombes had gone to the police of his own volition.梅金说库姆斯先生是主动去投案的。

162 crouched   

v.屈膝，蹲伏( crouch的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• He crouched down beside her. 他在她的旁边蹲了下来。
• The lion crouched ready to pounce. 狮子蹲下身，准备猛扑。

163 fending   

v.独立生活，照料自己( fend的现在分词 )；挡开，避开

参考例句：

• He is always spending his time fending with the neighbors. 他总是与邻里们吵架。 来自互联网
• Fifth, it is to build safeguarding system and enhance the competence in fending off the risk. 五是建立政策保障体系，提高防范和抵御风险的能力。 来自互联网

164 sleet   

n.雨雪；v.下雨雪，下冰雹

参考例句：

• There was a great deal of sleet last night.昨夜雨夹雪下得真大。
• When winter comes,we get sleet and frost.冬天来到时我们这儿会有雨夹雪和霜冻。

165 slashing   

adj.尖锐的；苛刻的；鲜明的；乱砍的v.挥砍( slash的现在分词 )；鞭打；割破；削减

参考例句：

• Slashing is the first process in which liquid treatment is involved. 浆纱是液处理的第一过程。 来自辞典例句
• He stopped slashing his horse. 他住了手，不去鞭打他的马了。 来自辞典例句

166 touching   

adj.动人的，使人感伤的

参考例句：

• It was a touching sight.这是一幅动人的景象。
• His letter was touching.他的信很感人。

167 masonry   

n.砖土建筑；砖石

参考例句：

• Masonry is a careful skill.砖石工艺是一种精心的技艺。
• The masonry of the old building began to crumble.旧楼房的砖石结构开始崩落。

168 deflected   

偏离的

参考例句：

• The ball deflected off Reid's body into the goal. 球打在里德身上反弹进球门。
• Most of its particles are deflected. 此物质的料子大多是偏斜的。

169 scorching   

adj. 灼热的

参考例句：

• a scorching, pitiless sun 灼热的骄阳
• a scorching critique of the government's economic policy 对政府经济政策的严厉批评

170 hampered   

妨碍，束缚，限制( hamper的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• The search was hampered by appalling weather conditions. 恶劣的天气妨碍了搜寻工作。
• So thought every harassed, hampered, respectable boy in St. Petersburg. 圣彼德堡镇的那些受折磨、受拘束的体面孩子们个个都是这么想的。

171 haze   

n.霾，烟雾；懵懂，迷糊；vi.(over)变模糊

参考例句：

• I couldn't see her through the haze of smoke.在烟雾弥漫中，我看不见她。
• He often lives in a haze of whisky.他常常是在威士忌的懵懂醉意中度过的。

172 curb   

n.场外证券市场，场外交易；vt.制止，抑制

参考例句：

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

173 denser   

adj. 不易看透的, 密集的, 浓厚的, 愚钝的

参考例句：

• The denser population necessitates closer consolidation both for internal and external action. 住得日益稠密的居民，对内和对外都不得不更紧密地团结起来。 来自英汉非文学 - 家庭、私有制和国家的起源
• As Tito entered the neighbourhood of San Martino, he found the throng rather denser. 蒂托走近圣马丁教堂附近一带时，发现人群相当密集。

174 chambers   

n.房间( chamber的名词复数 )；（议会的）议院；卧室；会议厅

参考例句：

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

175 galloping   

adj. 飞驰的, 急性的 动词gallop的现在分词形式

参考例句：

• The horse started galloping the moment I gave it a good dig. 我猛戳了马一下，它就奔驰起来了。
• Japan is galloping ahead in the race to develop new technology. 日本在发展新技术的竞争中进展迅速，日新月异。

176 huddled   

挤在一起（huddle的过去式与过去分词形式）

参考例句：

• We huddled together for warmth. 我们挤在一块取暖。
• We huddled together to keep warm. 我们挤在一起来保暖。

177 undoubtedly   

adv.确实地，无疑地

参考例句：

• It is undoubtedly she who has said that.这话明明是她说的。
• He is undoubtedly the pride of China.毫无疑问他是中国的骄傲。

178 shuddering   

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

参考例句：

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

179 advertising   

n.广告业；广告活动 a.广告的；广告业务的

参考例句：

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

180 smack   

vt.拍，打，掴；咂嘴；vi.含有…意味；n.拍

参考例句：

• She gave him a smack on the face.她打了他一个嘴巴。
• I gave the fly a smack with the magazine.我用杂志拍了一下苍蝇。

181 smacked   

拍，打，掴( smack的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• He smacked his lips but did not utter a word. 他吧嗒两下嘴，一声也不言语。
• She smacked a child's bottom. 她打孩子的屁股。

182 saluting   

v.欢迎，致敬( salute的现在分词 )；赞扬，赞颂

参考例句：

• 'Thank you kindly, sir,' replied Long John, again saluting. “万分感谢，先生。”高个子约翰说着又行了个礼。 来自英汉文学 - 金银岛
• He approached the young woman and, without saluting, began at once to converse with her. 他走近那年青女郎，马上就和她攀谈起来了，连招呼都不打。 来自辞典例句

183 sob   

n.空间轨道的轰炸机；呜咽，哭泣

参考例句：

• The child started to sob when he couldn't find his mother.孩子因找不到他妈妈哭了起来。
• The girl didn't answer,but continued to sob with her head on the table.那个女孩不回答，也不抬起头来。她只顾低声哭着。

184 batch   

n.一批(组，群)；一批生产量

参考例句：

• The first batch of cakes was burnt.第一炉蛋糕烤焦了。
• I have a batch of letters to answer.我有一批信要回复。

185 janitor   

n.看门人，管门人

参考例句：

• The janitor wiped on the windows with his rags.看门人用褴褛的衣服擦着窗户。
• The janitor swept the floors and locked up the building every night.那个看门人每天晚上负责打扫大楼的地板和锁门。

186 sifted   

v.筛( sift的过去式和过去分词 )；筛滤；细查；详审

参考例句：

• She sifted through her papers to find the lost letter. 她仔细在文件中寻找那封丢失的信。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• She sifted thistles through her thistle-sifter. 她用蓟筛筛蓟。 来自《简明英汉词典》

187 middle-aged   

adj.中年的

参考例句：

• I noticed two middle-aged passengers.我注意到两个中年乘客。
• The new skin balm was welcome by middle-aged women.这种新护肤香膏受到了中年妇女的欢迎。

188 aged   

adj.年老的，陈年的

参考例句：

• He had put on weight and aged a little.他胖了，也老点了。
• He is aged,but his memory is still good.他已年老，然而记忆力还好。

189 shrieking   

v.尖叫( shriek的现在分词 )

参考例句：

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

190 mingled   

混合，混入( mingle的过去式和过去分词 )； 混进，与…交往[联系]

参考例句：

• The sounds of laughter and singing mingled in the evening air. 笑声和歌声交织在夜空中。
• The man and the woman mingled as everyone started to relax. 当大家开始放松的时候，这一男一女就开始交往了。

191 hue   

n.色度；色调；样子

参考例句：

• The diamond shone with every hue under the sun.金刚石在阳光下放出五颜六色的光芒。
• The same hue will look different in different light.同一颜色在不同的光线下看起来会有所不同。

192 shrieks   

n.尖叫声( shriek的名词复数 )v.尖叫( shriek的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• shrieks of fiendish laughter 恶魔般的尖笑声
• For years, from newspapers, broadcasts, the stages and at meetings, we had heard nothing but grandiloquent rhetoric delivered with shouts and shrieks that deafened the ears. 多少年来， 报纸上， 广播里， 舞台上， 会场上的声嘶力竭，装腔做态的高调搞得我们震耳欲聋。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

193 hoarse   

adj.嘶哑的，沙哑的

参考例句：

• He asked me a question in a hoarse voice.他用嘶哑的声音问了我一个问题。
• He was too excited and roared himself hoarse.他过于激动，嗓子都喊哑了。

194 imprisoned   

下狱，监禁( imprison的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• He was imprisoned for two concurrent terms of 30 months and 18 months. 他被判处30个月和18个月的监禁，合并执行。
• They were imprisoned for possession of drugs. 他们因拥有毒品而被监禁。

195 suffocating   

a.使人窒息的

参考例句：

• After a few weeks with her parents, she felt she was suffocating.和父母呆了几个星期后，她感到自己毫无自由。
• That's better. I was suffocating in that cell of a room.这样好些了，我刚才在那个小房间里快闷死了。

196 beckoning   

adj.引诱人的，令人心动的v.（用头或手的动作）示意，召唤( beckon的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• An even more beautiful future is beckoning us on. 一个更加美好的未来在召唤我们继续前进。 来自辞典例句
• He saw a youth of great radiance beckoning to him. 他看见一个丰神飘逸的少年向他招手。 来自辞典例句

197 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。

198 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

199 clattered   

发出咔哒声（clatter的过去式与过去分词形式）

参考例句：

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

200 lining   

n.衬里，衬料

参考例句：

• The lining of my coat is torn.我的外套衬里破了。
• Moss makes an attractive lining to wire baskets.用苔藓垫在铁丝篮里很漂亮。

201 literally   

adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实

参考例句：

• He translated the passage literally.他逐字逐句地翻译这段文字。
• Sometimes she would not sit down till she was literally faint.有时候，她不走到真正要昏厥了，决不肯坐下来。

202 swarmed   

密集( swarm的过去式和过去分词 )； 云集； 成群地移动； 蜜蜂或其他飞行昆虫成群地飞来飞去

参考例句：

• When the bell rang, the children swarmed out of the school. 铃声一响，孩子们蜂拥而出离开了学校。
• When the rain started the crowd swarmed back into the hotel. 雨一开始下，人群就蜂拥回了旅社。

203 swarm   

n.(昆虫)等一大群；vi.成群飞舞；蜂拥而入

参考例句：

• There is a swarm of bees in the tree.这树上有一窝蜜蜂。
• A swarm of ants are moving busily.一群蚂蚁正在忙碌地搬家。

204 pennants   

n.校旗( pennant的名词复数 )；锦标旗；长三角旗；信号旗

参考例句：

• Their manes streamed like stiff black pennants in the wind. 它们的鬃毛直立起来，在风中就像一面面硬硬的黑色三角旗。 来自互联网
• Bud ashtrays, bar towels, coasters, football pennants, and similar items were offered for sale. 同时它还制作烟灰缸、酒吧餐巾、杯垫子、杯托子、足球赛用的三角旗以及诸如此类的物品用于销售。 来自互联网

205 roiled   

v.搅混（液体）( roil的过去式和过去分词 )；使烦恼；使不安；使生气

参考例句：

• American society is being roiled by the controversy over homosexual marriage. 当今美国社会正被有关同性恋婚姻的争论搞得不得安宁。 来自互联网
• In the past few months, instability has roiled Tibet and Tibetan-inhabited areas. 在过去的几个月里，西藏和藏人居住区不稳定。 来自互联网

206 erect   

n./v.树立，建立，使竖立；adj.直立的，垂直的

参考例句：

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

207 swirling   

v.旋转，打旋( swirl的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• Snowflakes were swirling in the air. 天空飘洒着雪花。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• She smiled, swirling the wine in her glass. 她微笑着，旋动着杯子里的葡萄酒。 来自辞典例句

208 thicket   

n.灌木丛，树林

参考例句：

• A thicket makes good cover for animals to hide in.丛林是动物的良好隐蔽处。
• We were now at the margin of the thicket.我们现在已经来到了丛林的边缘。

209 vertical   

adj.垂直的，顶点的，纵向的；n.垂直物，垂直的位置

参考例句：

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

210 battering   

n.用坏，损坏v.连续猛击( batter的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• The film took a battering from critics in the US. 该影片在美国遭遇到批评家的猛烈抨击。
• He kept battering away at the door. 他接连不断地砸门。 来自《简明英汉词典》

211 tauten   

vt.& vi.（使某物）变紧；拉紧；绷紧；紧张

参考例句：

• There are exercises that tauten facial muscles. 有些练习动作可以让面部肌肉紧绷起来。 来自辞典例句
• She had cosmetic surgery to tauten her drooping breasts. 她动美容外科手术，使下垂的乳房坚挺起来。 来自互联网

212 scurry   

vi.急匆匆地走；使急赶；催促；n.快步急跑，疾走；仓皇奔跑声；骤雨，骤雪；短距离赛马

参考例句：

• I jumped on the sofa after I saw a mouse scurry by.看到一只老鼠匆匆路过,我从沙发上跳了起来。
• There was a great scurry for bargains.大家急忙着去抢购特价品。

213 dangling   

悬吊着( dangle的现在分词 )； 摆动不定； 用某事物诱惑…； 吊胃口

参考例句：

• The tooth hung dangling by the bedpost, now. 结果，那颗牙就晃来晃去吊在床柱上了。
• The children sat on the high wall,their legs dangling. 孩子们坐在一堵高墙上，摇晃着他们的双腿。

214 bulged   

凸出( bulge的过去式和过去分词 )； 充满； 塞满（某物）

参考例句：

• His pockets bulged with apples and candy. 他的口袋鼓鼓地装满了苹果和糖。
• The oranges bulged his pocket. 桔子使得他的衣袋胀得鼓鼓的。

215 smear   

v.涂抹；诽谤，玷污；n.污点；诽谤，污蔑

参考例句：

• He has been spreading false stories in an attempt to smear us.他一直在散布谎言企图诽谤我们。
• There's a smear on your shirt.你衬衫上有个污点。

216 shards   

n.（玻璃、金属或其他硬物的）尖利的碎片( shard的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Eyewitnesses spoke of rocks and shards of glass flying in the air. 目击者称空中石块和玻璃碎片四溅。 来自辞典例句
• Ward, Josh Billings, and a host of others have survived only in scattered shards of humour. 沃德、比林斯和许多别的作家能够留传下来的只是些幽默的残章断简。 来自辞典例句

217 smoldering   

v.用文火焖烧，熏烧，慢燃( smolder的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• The mat was smoldering where the burning log had fallen. 燃烧的木棒落下的地方垫子慢慢燃烧起来。 来自辞典例句
• The wood was smoldering in the fireplace. 木柴在壁炉中闷烧。 来自辞典例句

218 combustion   

n.燃烧；氧化；骚动

参考例句：

• We might be tempted to think of combustion.我们也许会联想到氧化。
• The smoke formed by their combustion is negligible.由它燃烧所生成的烟是可忽略的。

219 doused   

v.浇水在…上( douse的过去式和过去分词 )；熄灯[火]

参考例句：

• The car was doused in petrol and set alight. 这辆汽车被浇上汽油点燃了。
• He doused the lamp,and we made our way back to the house. 他把灯熄掉，我们就回到屋子里去。 来自《简明英汉词典》

220 sprained   

v.&n. 扭伤

参考例句：

• I stumbled and sprained my ankle. 我摔了一跤，把脚脖子扭了。
• When Mary sprained her ankles, John carried her piggyback to the doctors. 玛丽扭伤了足踝，约翰驮她去看医生。

221 bandanna   

n.大手帕

参考例句：

• He knotted the bandanna around his neck.他在脖子上系了一条印花大围巾。
• He wiped his forehead with a blue bandanna and smiled again.他用一条蓝色的大手帕擦擦前额，又笑了笑。

222 wagon   

n.四轮马车，手推车，面包车；无盖运货列车

参考例句：

• We have to fork the hay into the wagon.我们得把干草用叉子挑进马车里去。
• The muddy road bemired the wagon.马车陷入了泥泞的道路。

223 apparatus   

n.装置，器械；器具，设备

参考例句：

• The school's audio apparatus includes films and records.学校的视听设备包括放映机和录音机。
• They had a very refined apparatus.他们有一套非常精良的设备。

224 untying   

untie的现在分词

参考例句：

• The tying of bow ties is an art; the untying is easy. 打领带是一种艺术，解领带则很容易。
• As they were untying the colt, its owners asked them, "Why are you untying the colt?" 33他们解驴驹的时候，主人问他们说，解驴驹作什么？

225 tarpaulin   

n.涂油防水布，防水衣，防水帽

参考例句：

• The pool furniture was folded,stacked,and covered with a tarpaulin.游泳池的设备都已经折叠起来，堆在那里，还盖上了防水布。
• The pool furniture was folded,stacked,and covered with a tarpaulin.游泳池的设备都已经折叠起来，堆在那里，还盖上了防水布。

226 hoisting   

起重，提升

参考例句：

• The hoisting capacity of that gin pole (girder pole, guy derrick) is sixty tons. 那个起重抱杆（格状抱杆、转盘抱杆）的起重能力为60吨。 来自口语例句
• We must use mechanical hoisting to load the goods. 我们必须用起重机来装载货物。

227 joints   

接头( joint的名词复数 )； 关节； 公共场所（尤指价格低廉的饮食和娱乐场所） （非正式）； 一块烤肉 （英式英语）

参考例句：

• Expansion joints of various kinds are fitted on gas mains. 各种各样的伸缩接头被安装在煤气的总管道上了。
• Expansion joints of various kinds are fitted on steam pipes. 各种各样的伸缩接头被安装在蒸气管道上了。

228 gusts   

一阵强风( gust的名词复数 )； （怒、笑等的）爆发； （感情的）迸发； 发作

参考例句：

• Her profuse skirt bosomed out with the gusts. 她的宽大的裙子被风吹得鼓鼓的。
• Turbulence is defined as a series of irregular gusts. 紊流定义为一组无规则的突风。

229 projections   

预测( projection的名词复数 )； 投影； 投掷； 突起物

参考例句：

• Their sales projections are a total thumbsuck. 他们的销售量预测纯属估计。
• The council has revised its projections of funding requirements upwards. 地方议会调高了对资金需求的预测。

230 friction   

n.摩擦，摩擦力

参考例句：

• When Joan returned to work,the friction between them increased.琼回来工作后，他们之间的摩擦加剧了。
• Friction acts on moving bodies and brings them to a stop.摩擦力作用于运动着的物体，并使其停止。

231 illustrated   

adj. 有插图的，列举的 动词illustrate的过去式和过去分词

参考例句：

• His lecture was illustrated with slides taken during the expedition. 他在讲演中使用了探险时拍摄到的幻灯片。
• The manufacturing Methods: Will be illustrated in the next chapter. 制作方法将在下一章说明。

232 alley   

n.小巷，胡同；小径，小路

参考例句：

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

233 weird   

adj.古怪的，离奇的；怪诞的，神秘而可怕的

参考例句：

• From his weird behaviour,he seems a bit of an oddity.从他不寻常的行为看来，他好像有点怪。
• His weird clothes really gas me.他的怪衣裳简直笑死人。

234 canopy   

n.天篷，遮篷

参考例句：

• The trees formed a leafy canopy above their heads.树木在他们头顶上空形成了一个枝叶茂盛的遮篷。
• They lay down under a canopy of stars.他们躺在繁星点点的天幕下。

235 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。

236 anguished   

adj.极其痛苦的v.使极度痛苦(anguish的过去式)

参考例句：

• Desmond eyed her anguished face with sympathy. 看着她痛苦的脸，德斯蒙德觉得理解。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The loss of her husband anguished her deeply. 她丈夫的死亡使她悲痛万分。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》

237 rattled   

慌乱的，恼火的

参考例句：

• The truck jolted and rattled over the rough ground. 卡车嘎吱嘎吱地在凹凸不平的地面上颠簸而行。
• Every time a bus went past, the windows rattled. 每逢公共汽车经过这里，窗户都格格作响。

238 affected   

adj.不自然的，假装的

参考例句：

• She showed an affected interest in our subject.她假装对我们的课题感到兴趣。
• His manners are affected.他的态度不自然。

239 racing   

n.竞赛，赛马；adj.竞赛用的，赛马用的

参考例句：

• I was watching the racing on television last night.昨晚我在电视上看赛马。
• The two racing drivers fenced for a chance to gain the lead.两个赛车手伺机竞相领先。

240 redeemed   

adj. 可赎回的，可救赎的 动词redeem的过去式和过去分词形式

参考例句：

• She has redeemed her pawned jewellery. 她赎回了当掉的珠宝。
• He redeemed his watch from the pawnbroker's. 他从当铺赎回手表。

241 anonymous   

adj.无名的；匿名的；无特色的

参考例句：

• Sending anonymous letters is a cowardly act.寄匿名信是懦夫的行为。
• The author wishes to remain anonymous.作者希望姓名不公开。

242 fascination   

n.令人着迷的事物，魅力，迷恋

参考例句：

• He had a deep fascination with all forms of transport.他对所有的运输工具都很着迷。
• His letters have been a source of fascination to a wide audience.广大观众一直迷恋于他的来信。

243 whooshing   

v.（使）飞快移动( whoosh的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• I love deadlines. I especially like the whooshing sound they make as they go flying by. 我喜欢最后期待。我尤其喜欢它们飞驰而过时发出的嗖嗖声。 来自互联网
• The constant whooshing of the wind across the roof wouldn't fade into the background. 不断跑车疾速的风雨整个屋顶不会褪色的背景。 来自互联网

244 gutted   

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

参考例句：

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

245 wreckage   

n.（失事飞机等的）残骸，破坏，毁坏

参考例句：

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

246 prettily   

adv.优美地；可爱地

参考例句：

• It was prettily engraved with flowers on the back.此件雕刻精美，背面有花饰图案。
• She pouted prettily at him.她冲他撅着嘴，样子很可爱。

247 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》

248 blessing   

n.祈神赐福；祷告；祝福，祝愿

参考例句：

• The blessing was said in Hebrew.祷告用了希伯来语。
• A double blessing has descended upon the house.双喜临门。

249 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。

250 parlor   

n.店铺，营业室；会客室，客厅

参考例句：

• She was lying on a small settee in the parlor.她躺在客厅的一张小长椅上。
• Is there a pizza parlor in the neighborhood?附近有没有比萨店？

251 casually   

adv.漠不关心地，无动于衷地，不负责任地

参考例句：

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

252 hopped   

跳上[下]( hop的过去式和过去分词 )； 单足蹦跳； 齐足（或双足）跳行； 摘葎草花

参考例句：

• He hopped onto a car and wanted to drive to town. 他跳上汽车想开向市区。
• He hopped into a car and drove to town. 他跳进汽车，向市区开去。

253 wanly   

adv.虚弱地；苍白地，无血色地

参考例句：

• She was smiling wanly. 她苍白无力地笑着。 来自互联网

254 gale   

n.大风，强风，一阵闹声（尤指笑声等）

参考例句：

• We got our roof blown off in the gale last night.昨夜的大风把我们的房顶给掀掉了。
• According to the weather forecast,there will be a gale tomorrow.据气象台预报，明天有大风。

255 deserted   

adj.荒芜的，荒废的，无人的，被遗弃的

参考例句：

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

256 fixed   

adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的

参考例句：

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

257 diffused   

散布的，普及的，扩散的

参考例句：

• A drop of milk diffused in the water. 一滴牛奶在水中扩散开来。
• Gases and liquids diffused. 气体和液体慢慢混合了。

258 trampled   

踩( trample的过去式和过去分词 )； 践踏； 无视； 侵犯

参考例句：

• He gripped his brother's arm lest he be trampled by the mob. 他紧抓着他兄弟的胳膊，怕他让暴民踩着。
• People were trampled underfoot in the rush for the exit. 有人在拼命涌向出口时被踩在脚下。

259 carving   

n.雕刻品，雕花

参考例句：

• All the furniture in the room had much carving.房间里所有的家具上都有许多雕刻。
• He acquired the craft of wood carving in his native town.他在老家学会了木雕手艺。

260 quaint   

adj.古雅的，离奇有趣的，奇怪的

参考例句：

• There were many small lanes in the quaint village.在这古香古色的村庄里，有很多小巷。
• They still keep some quaint old customs.他们仍然保留着一些稀奇古怪的旧风俗。

261 melancholy   

n.忧郁，愁思；adj.令人感伤（沮丧）的，忧郁的

参考例句：

• All at once he fell into a state of profound melancholy.他立即陷入无尽的忧思之中。
• He felt melancholy after he failed the exam.这次考试没通过，他感到很郁闷。

262 imprinted   

v.盖印（imprint的过去式与过去分词形式）

参考例句：

• The terrible scenes were indelibly imprinted on his mind. 那些恐怖场面深深地铭刻在他的心中。
• The scene was imprinted on my mind. 那个场面铭刻在我的心中。 来自《简明英汉词典》

263 shoveled   

vt.铲，铲出（shovel的过去式与过去分词形式）

参考例句：

• The hungry man greedily shoveled the food into his mouth. 那个饥饿的人贪婪地、大口大口地吃。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
• They shoveled a path through the snow. 他们在雪中铲出一条小路。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

264 residential   

adj.提供住宿的；居住的；住宅的

参考例句：

• The mayor inspected the residential section of the city.市长视察了该市的住宅区。
• The residential blocks were integrated with the rest of the college.住宿区与学院其他部分结合在了一起。

265 isolated   

adj.与世隔绝的

参考例句：

• His bad behaviour was just an isolated incident. 他的不良行为只是个别事件。
• Patients with the disease should be isolated. 这种病的患者应予以隔离。

266 relics   

[pl.］n.遗物，遗迹，遗产；遗体，尸骸

参考例句：

• The area is a treasure house of archaeological relics. 这个地区是古文物遗迹的宝库。
• Xi'an is an ancient city full of treasures and saintly relics. 西安是一个有很多宝藏和神圣的遗物的古老城市。

267 recede   

vi.退(去)，渐渐远去；向后倾斜，缩进

参考例句：

• The colleges would recede in importance.大学的重要性会降低。
• He saw that the dirty water had begun to recede.他发现那污浊的水开始往下退了。

268 scooped   

v.抢先报道( scoop的过去式和过去分词 )；（敏捷地）抱起；抢先获得；用铲[勺]等挖（洞等）

参考例句：

• They scooped the other newspapers by revealing the matter. 他们抢先报道了这件事。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The wheels scooped up stones which hammered ominously under the car. 车轮搅起的石块，在车身下发出不吉祥的锤击声。 来自《简明英汉词典》

269 stunning   

adj.极好的；使人晕倒的

参考例句：

• His plays are distinguished only by their stunning mediocrity.他的戏剧与众不同之处就是平凡得出奇。
• The finished effect was absolutely stunning.完工后的效果非常美。

270 slanted   

有偏见的； 倾斜的

参考例句：

• The sun slanted through the window. 太阳斜照进窗户。
• She had slanted brown eyes. 她有一双棕色的丹凤眼。

271 urns   

n.壶( urn的名词复数 )；瓮；缸；骨灰瓮

参考例句：

• Wine utensils unearthed include jars, urns, pots, bowls and cups. 发掘出的酒器皿有瓶、瓮、罐、壶、碗和杯子。 来自互联网
• Ernie yearned to learn to turn urns. 呕尼渴望学会转咖啡壶。 来自互联网

272 terminology   

n.术语；专有名词

参考例句：

• He particularly criticized the terminology in the document.他特别批评了文件中使用的术语。
• The article uses rather specialized musical terminology.这篇文章用了相当专业的音乐术语。

273 ornaments   

n.装饰( ornament的名词复数 )；点缀；装饰品；首饰v.装饰，点缀，美化( ornament的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• The shelves were chock-a-block with ornaments. 架子上堆满了装饰品。
• Playing the piano sets up resonance in those glass ornaments. 一弹钢琴那些玻璃饰物就会产生共振。 来自《简明英汉词典》

274 gilt   

adj.镀金的；n.金边证券

参考例句：

• The plates have a gilt edge.这些盘子的边是镀金的。
• The rest of the money is invested in gilt.其余的钱投资于金边证券。

275 spine   

n.脊柱，脊椎；(动植物的)刺；书脊

参考例句：

• He broke his spine in a fall from a horse.他从马上跌下摔断了脊梁骨。
• His spine developed a slight curve.他的脊柱有点弯曲。

276 capability   

n.能力；才能；(pl)可发展的能力或特性等

参考例句：

• She has the capability to become a very fine actress.她有潜力成为杰出演员。
• Organizing a whole department is beyond his capability.组织整个部门是他能力以外的事。

277 illicitly   

违法地，不正地

参考例句：

• That substance illicitly to fool quality-inspection testers because it can mimic the properties of protein. 乳制品之所以添加三聚氰胺是因为它可以虚增蛋白质含量、在质量测试中蒙混过关。
• Western governments international bodies should police Gaza's borders and crossing-points to stop weapons illicitly coming in. 西方政府和国际组织应该巡查加沙边界和交叉区域，阻止武器的非法流入。