He put his feet to the floor and stood up, but a dizziness overcame him, and he sank back upon the bed, weak and limp. His heart was beating tumultuously and his breath came in short, quick gasps14. After a little these abnormalities passed and he raised himself on one elbow, resting his cheek on his hand. At the contact he started, amazed, bewildered. In some unaccountable manner he had grown a beard. His hand ran from his cheek to his chin. Close-cropped at the sides it was here an inch long and trimmed to a point, and his moustache was one of several months’ culture and training. He fancied he was dreaming and would awaken1 presently to find himself clean-shaven, as he had been for years.
And now, he remembered; after all, it was quite clear. He had been to the opera last night,3 had gone from there to the club, had returned home late, and, having a pressing business appointment at ten this morning, had dragged himself out of bed at eight, still fagged and aggravatingly15 sleepy. Now he had just had his coffee, and while Lutz was shaving him he was dozing16 and dreaming.
But how wonderfully real the transformation17 all seemed! He grew curious as to how he looked with beard and moustache, and, crawling out between the pale-blue velvet18 curtains, he sought a mirror. The revelation was dumfounding. He, Carey Grey, who from infancy19 had been as dark as a Spaniard, was as blond as a Norseman. He ran his fingers through his hair, tousled it, going closer to the glass to make sure that there was not some optical illusion. He puffed20 out his lip and pulled at his moustache until his lowered eyes could see it, and he thrust his chin forward and turned up the point of his beard with the back of his hand until it, too, came within the range of his vision. If this were a dream, he told himself, never before had dream been so real. If it were a reality, never before had reality been so mystifying.
4 His puzzled survey of himself was followed by a minute inspection21 of the room into which he had been so mysteriously transported. Its general aspect was foreign; its detail distinctly French. The walls were panelled and medallioned. The bed from which he had risen was one of a pair, each with its gilded22 papier maché frieze23 and its looped-back blue velvet curtains. At the head of each bed were six pillows and another of down at the foot. The full-length mirror into which he had gazed was duplicated between two windows. Upon the mantel was a bronze and gilt24 clock, flanked by partially25 burned candles in brass26 sticks. Two tables, a couch, a washstand, a cheffonier, three chairs and a wardrobe completed the furnishing. A couple of companion pictures, unmistakably French both in conception and execution, decorated two of the wall panels. The hands of the clock stood at twenty minutes of four. He crossed to a window with three sets of curtains and three sets of cord loops all of a tangle27, and looked out.
For the spectacle that confronted him he was not prepared. The change in his appearance had5 indeed been incomprehensible; the strangeness of the room in which he awakened28 was inexplicable29; but to discover at a glance that he was no longer on his native soil, that without his knowledge he had been carried across sea and land and dropped into a Paris hotel on the Boulevard des Italiens, was not only inconceivable but terrifying. He was very pale, and his brain was reeling. Twice he drew trembling fingers across his eyes, as if to wipe out the kaleidoscope of the street below; but when he looked again the view was even more convincing. It was a bit of the French Capital with which he was almost as familiar as with that part of Fifth avenue lying within range of his club windows or with that portion of Broad street near Wall into which he had been wont30 to glance from his office in the Mills Building.
He turned away from it as from a nightmare, and, sitting down, tried to think. The idea that he was dreaming was not tenable. He knew that he was very wide awake and thoroughly31 possessed32 of his faculties33. His head still ached with a dull, swollen34, congested sensation such as follows a too6 riotous35 night, but he could recall nothing of the cause. It occurred to him now that he had read in the newspapers of cases where men had lost their memory for months and had wandered into remote states or countries. This must be the explanation. And in his aberration36 he had given way to some freak of fancy, had grown a beard and then had had it and his hair bleached37 corn colour. Men under similar mental derangement38, he recollected39, forgot their names and homes. Perhaps he had been in the same plight40. Now, however, his mind was clear on those points, at least, and he thanked God for his restoration.
Then he wondered how long he had been away. That night at the opera and the club; that morning he had risen early to keep an engagement, and had dozed41 off while his valet was shaving him—why, that was midwinter; and now, if he could judge by the trees on the boulevard, and the tables in front of the Café Riche across the road, and the straw hats, it must be early summer—late May or June; possibly, indeed, July. And all this time his friends at home—his mother, his fiancée, his partner—were probably thinking him dead. What7 a relief it would be to them to get the cablegrams he would send, telling that he was alive and well and was returning by the first steamer!
He smiled as he got up and went to the cheffonier and the wardrobe in search of clothes. He was thinking of the sensation the papers in New York must have made over his disappearance42; the theories they must have advanced and the pictures they must have published. And then the tragic43 side of the affair took hold of him, and he put himself in his mother’s place, in Hope’s place, and fancied he could appreciate, in a way at least, their anxiety as the days passed without tidings, and their grief and despair as weeks quadrupled into months.
Having discovered an assortment44 of garments, including a bathrobe of pongee silk, he looked about for a tub. Across the passage he found a bathroom, and a dip into cold water relieved his headache and balanced his nerves. When at length he was in attire45 which, while quite as unfamiliar10 as his yellow hair and beard, was nevertheless tasteful and well fitting, he emerged from his room, locked the door and started forth46 on a tour8 of investigation47. His curiosity had grown with his dressing48, enhanced, perhaps, by his failure to find in any drawer, closet, or pocket a scrap49 of writing or printing from which he could gain a clue concerning his recent past. His sole discovery indeed had been a wallet containing two fifty-franc notes and a trunk key.
A tall, round-faced portier in green livery smiled and bowed, rather obsequiously50 he thought, as he passed out through the wide portal into the boulevard. Then the commingled51 scent52 of asphalt and macadam and burning charcoal—that characteristically Parisian odour—smote his olfactories53, and before his eyes was the afternoon panorama54 of the gayest of Paris thoroughfares. It was the newspaper hour, and a kiosk in front of the hotel was being besieged55 by a horde56, each hungry for his favourite journal. Every man that passed had a paper in his hand or in his pocket. Some were reading as they walked. On the roadway carriages, fiacres, omnibuses were crowding, and Grey noted57, with a sense of old friends returned, the varnished58 hats of the cochers. The chairs under the awnings60 of the cafés were filling,9 and the white-aproned waiters were coming and going with their inevitable61 bustle62 of trays and glasses.
At the corner of the rue63 St. Anne he crossed to the north side of the boulevard and turned into the rue Taitbout, in which, he remembered, there was a telegraph office, for he meant to lose no time in despatching his cables. As he picked his way through the narrow street the messages took form, and on reaching the office it was but the labour of a moment to put them on paper, poke64 them in through the little window and pay the stipulated65 toll66. To his mother he wired:
Safe and well. Sailing first steamer. H?tel Grammont.
And the others—one addressed to Hope Van Tuyl, East Sixty-fourth street, New York, and one to “Malgrey,” the code name of the stock brokerage firm in which he was a junior partner—were similar.
Rejoining the throng67 of pedestrians68 on the boulevard, he sauntered leisurely69 towards the Avenue de l’Opéra, his mind still busy with conjectures70.
The billboards71 in front of the Théatre du Vaudeville10 caught his eye, but the attractions they announced made no impression. At the groups of idlers seated at little round tables before the Café Américain he scarcely glanced and his own unfamiliar reflection in the plate glass of the shop windows he failed utterly72 to recognise. He crossed the Place de l’Opéra without so much as turning his head, and halting at the far corner stepped in under the ample awning59 of the Café de la Paix and found a seat. Of the waiter who approached him he ordered a mazagran and some Egyptian cigarettes, and when they were brought he sat for some time, heedless of his surroundings, his brain racked with futile73 speculations74.
“Pardon, monsieur!”
Someone in passing had inadvertently touched his foot and was apologising. Startled out of his reverie he looked up, and his face lighted. Instantly he was on his feet.
“Frothingham, by all that’s good!” he exclaimed.
The other, tall, straight and swarthy, turned upon him a look in which mystification and suspicion fought for supremacy75.
11 “Really,” he said, coldly, “I—I don’t remember ever having——”
“Of course, of course,” Grey interrupted, not without some embarrassment76, “I can quite understand that you shouldn’t recognise me. You see, I—well, I’m Carey Grey.”
Mr. Frothingham’s demeanour showed no change.
“Carey Grey,” he repeated, icily; “I used to know a Carey Grey in New York, a member of the Knickerbocker and the union; but he was nearly as dark as I am, and besides—why, he’s dead.”
“If you don’t mind sitting down a bit,” Grey went on, as he staggered under the news of his own demise77, “I’ll try to explain. I’m Carey Grey, just the same—the Carey Grey, of the Knickerbocker and the union, and I’m not dead.”
Frothingham recognised his voice now, and mystification routed suspicion from the field. He took a chair and Grey sat down, too, with the marble-topped table between them.
“First and foremost,” Grey began, “tell me what day of the month it is.”
12 “The fourteenth.”
“Of what?”
“Of June, of course.”
“And of the week?”
“Thursday.”
“Thanks. I hadn’t the slightest idea.”
Frothingham fancied the man had gone mad.
“The whole thing is most extraordinary,” Grey went on, and then he proceeded to relate his afternoon’s experience, while his listener preserved an interested but incredulous silence.
“Can’t remember a blessed thing,” the narrator concluded, “since that morning last winter—I suppose it was last winter. What year is this?”
He was told.
“Yes, it was last winter, then—January, if I’m not mistaken.”
Frothingham looked thoughtful and counted back. He wondered whether it was insanity78 or drugs, or—cunning.
“You must have heard something of it,” Grey went on, eagerly. “Did the newspapers say I was dead?”
“I think that was the ultimate conclusion.”
13 “I suppose they searched for me?”
“Oh, yes, they searched. They followed up every clue. There were columns in the papers for days—yes, for weeks.”
Grey sighed audibly.
“I can’t understand it,” he said, with something of distress79 in his voice; “I never thought my head was weak. To be sure, I’d been under rather a strain, with the market in the unsettled condition it was, but my memory was always clear enough. Why, I could give you the closing price and highest and lowest of about every active stock on the list, day after day, without an error of an eighth. By the way, do you know how things have been going in the Street? What’s New York Central now—and St. Paul?”
“Really, I have lost track, Grey,” replied Frothingham indifferently.
“I must get a Paris Herald80,” the man who had been out of the world for five months continued; “I’m the modern Rip Van Winkle. Thousands of things have happened—must have happened, and I’m in blank ignorance. I just cabled to New York—to Mallory, my partner, and——”
14 “You what!” exclaimed Frothingham, in amazement81.
“Cabled to Mallory. You know him—Dick Mallory, my partner. He’ll be surprised to hear I’m alive, I suppose.”
“Good God, man!”
“What’s the matter?”
The two sat staring at each other across the table, each a picture of sudden startled bewilderment.
“Then you really don’t know?” Frothingham asked. “Oh, that’s impossible! You can’t make me believe—see here, Carey, you’re very clever and all that, but you don’t think for one minute, do you, that you are taking me in? I did fancy for a little while that you’d gone off your head; but I was wrong. You’re sharp and shrewd, and you feared I had recognised you and that that was why I stumbled over your foot; so you made up your mind that you’d block my game by recognising me and telling me this pipe dream. Oh, come, come, be fair! You know; and you know that I know.”
Grey caught his breath sharply as this torrent15 of insult surged upon him. The blood rushed to his face only to desert it. His fists doubled instinctively82, and he rose to his feet, white with indignant anger.
“Take that back!” he commanded, in a hoarse83 whisper. “Take it back, I say, or I’ll——”
There was no mistaking his earnestness, his determination; no, nor at this juncture84, his honesty. Frothingham was convinced even against his judgment85.
“Oh, I say,” he retorted, mildly, “don’t make a scene, old chap. If I said anything, I—I—well, of course you don’t understand. I see it now. I’m sure I was wrong, and I ask your pardon. There now, sit down.”
“I don’t know that I care to,” Grey replied, the words of the other still rankling86. “I’m not used to being called a blackguard. I’ve never in my life done anything to be seriously ashamed of, and nobody has ever dared, until this day, to utter such an insinuation.”
Frothingham was silent for a moment, the mere87 suggestion of a smile on his lips. He calmly unbuttoned one of his gloves and then buttoned it again.
16 “God forbid,” he said, without looking up, “that I should be the first to imply anything; but—I wish you would sit down, Grey!—you say you’ve lost count for five months, and—well, there are some things that you ought to know.”
Grey resumed his seat. Now the man was talking reasonably. Of course there were things that he ought to know—hundreds of things probably in which he was personally interested. The thought instantly became appalling88. What, indeed, might not have happened in five months? Where had he been during that time? And what had he been doing?
“Yes,” he admitted, “you are quite right, I suppose. One of the things, for instance, is——”
“One of the things, for instance, is,” repeated the other, interrupting him, “that you left New York suddenly—disappeared totally and—you ought to know this for your own salvation—under a cloud.”
Grey started, and the colour that had returned to his face fled again. He leaned across the table, resting his arms on its marble top.
“Under a cloud!” he exclaimed, breathlessly.17 “My God, Frothingham! What do you mean?”
“I’d rather not go into details,” was the answer, given very quietly. “It’s not a pleasant position that I have chosen for myself, and I prefer that you don’t question me. What you have told me—and I’m satisfied now it is the truth—has put another light on the whole business. And you really cabled to New York?”
“Not half an hour ago. I sent three.”
“It’s too late, I suppose, to stop them.”
“I fancy so.”
“I’d see, if I were you. It is important.”
“But why? For God’s sake, man, tell me why.”
“No,” said Frothingham, rising; “you’d better read about it for yourself. It will be more satisfactory. You can find a file of the New York Herald at the office of the Paris paper. It’s only a block or so away, you know. Look up last January. But I’d try to stop those cables first. I must be off now; I’ve got an appointment.” And he joined the now much augmented89 throng on the promenade90.
18 Grey dropped a five-franc piece on the table, and hurried into a fiacre that stood in waiting.
“Rue Taitbout, 46,” he directed.
But when he reached there it was to learn that his messages had been dispatched and that no power on earth could recall them.
点击收听单词发音
1 awaken | |
vi.醒,觉醒;vt.唤醒,使觉醒,唤起,激起 | |
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2 awakening | |
n.觉醒,醒悟 adj.觉醒中的;唤醒的 | |
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3 obtruded | |
v.强行向前,强行,强迫( obtrude的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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4 linen | |
n.亚麻布,亚麻线,亚麻制品;adj.亚麻布制的,亚麻的 | |
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5 eyelids | |
n.眼睑( eyelid的名词复数 );眼睛也不眨一下;不露声色;面不改色 | |
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6 inert | |
adj.无活动能力的,惰性的;迟钝的 | |
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7 numb | |
adj.麻木的,失去感觉的;v.使麻木 | |
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8 rumble | |
n.隆隆声;吵嚷;v.隆隆响;低沉地说 | |
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9 throbbing | |
a. 跳动的,悸动的 | |
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10 unfamiliar | |
adj.陌生的,不熟悉的 | |
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11 unfamiliarity | |
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12 plunge | |
v.跳入,(使)投入,(使)陷入;猛冲 | |
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13 descended | |
a.为...后裔的,出身于...的 | |
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14 gasps | |
v.喘气( gasp的第三人称单数 );喘息;倒抽气;很想要 | |
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15 aggravatingly | |
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16 dozing | |
v.打瞌睡,假寐 n.瞌睡 | |
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17 transformation | |
n.变化;改造;转变 | |
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18 velvet | |
n.丝绒,天鹅绒;adj.丝绒制的,柔软的 | |
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19 infancy | |
n.婴儿期;幼年期;初期 | |
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20 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 | |
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21 inspection | |
n.检查,审查,检阅 | |
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22 gilded | |
a.镀金的,富有的 | |
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23 frieze | |
n.(墙上的)横饰带,雕带 | |
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24 gilt | |
adj.镀金的;n.金边证券 | |
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25 partially | |
adv.部分地,从某些方面讲 | |
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26 brass | |
n.黄铜;黄铜器,铜管乐器 | |
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27 tangle | |
n.纠缠;缠结;混乱;v.(使)缠绕;变乱 | |
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28 awakened | |
v.(使)醒( awaken的过去式和过去分词 );(使)觉醒;弄醒;(使)意识到 | |
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29 inexplicable | |
adj.无法解释的,难理解的 | |
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30 wont | |
adj.习惯于;v.习惯;n.习惯 | |
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31 thoroughly | |
adv.完全地,彻底地,十足地 | |
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32 possessed | |
adj.疯狂的;拥有的,占有的 | |
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33 faculties | |
n.能力( faculty的名词复数 );全体教职员;技巧;院 | |
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34 swollen | |
adj.肿大的,水涨的;v.使变大,肿胀 | |
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35 riotous | |
adj.骚乱的;狂欢的 | |
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36 aberration | |
n.离开正路,脱离常规,色差 | |
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37 bleached | |
漂白的,晒白的,颜色变浅的 | |
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38 derangement | |
n.精神错乱 | |
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39 recollected | |
adj.冷静的;镇定的;被回忆起的;沉思默想的v.记起,想起( recollect的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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40 plight | |
n.困境,境况,誓约,艰难;vt.宣誓,保证,约定 | |
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41 dozed | |
v.打盹儿,打瞌睡( doze的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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42 disappearance | |
n.消失,消散,失踪 | |
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43 tragic | |
adj.悲剧的,悲剧性的,悲惨的 | |
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44 assortment | |
n.分类,各色俱备之物,聚集 | |
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45 attire | |
v.穿衣,装扮[同]array;n.衣着;盛装 | |
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46 forth | |
adv.向前;向外,往外 | |
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47 investigation | |
n.调查,调查研究 | |
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48 dressing | |
n.(食物)调料;包扎伤口的用品,敷料 | |
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49 scrap | |
n.碎片;废料;v.废弃,报废 | |
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50 obsequiously | |
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51 commingled | |
v.混合,掺和,合并( commingle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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52 scent | |
n.气味,香味,香水,线索,嗅觉;v.嗅,发觉 | |
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53 olfactories | |
n.嗅觉的( olfactory的名词复数 ) | |
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54 panorama | |
n.全景,全景画,全景摄影,全景照片[装置] | |
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55 besieged | |
包围,围困,围攻( besiege的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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56 horde | |
n.群众,一大群 | |
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57 noted | |
adj.著名的,知名的 | |
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58 varnished | |
浸渍过的,涂漆的 | |
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59 awning | |
n.遮阳篷;雨篷 | |
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60 awnings | |
篷帐布 | |
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61 inevitable | |
adj.不可避免的,必然发生的 | |
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62 bustle | |
v.喧扰地忙乱,匆忙,奔忙;n.忙碌;喧闹 | |
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63 rue | |
n.懊悔,芸香,后悔;v.后悔,悲伤,懊悔 | |
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64 poke | |
n.刺,戳,袋;vt.拨开,刺,戳;vi.戳,刺,捅,搜索,伸出,行动散慢 | |
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65 stipulated | |
vt.& vi.规定;约定adj.[法]合同规定的 | |
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66 toll | |
n.过路(桥)费;损失,伤亡人数;v.敲(钟) | |
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67 throng | |
n.人群,群众;v.拥挤,群集 | |
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68 pedestrians | |
n.步行者( pedestrian的名词复数 ) | |
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69 leisurely | |
adj.悠闲的;从容的,慢慢的 | |
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70 conjectures | |
推测,猜想( conjecture的名词复数 ) | |
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71 billboards | |
n.广告牌( billboard的名词复数 ) | |
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72 utterly | |
adv.完全地,绝对地 | |
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73 futile | |
adj.无效的,无用的,无希望的 | |
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74 speculations | |
n.投机买卖( speculation的名词复数 );思考;投机活动;推断 | |
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75 supremacy | |
n.至上;至高权力 | |
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76 embarrassment | |
n.尴尬;使人为难的人(事物);障碍;窘迫 | |
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77 demise | |
n.死亡;v.让渡,遗赠,转让 | |
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78 insanity | |
n.疯狂,精神错乱;极端的愚蠢,荒唐 | |
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79 distress | |
n.苦恼,痛苦,不舒适;不幸;vt.使悲痛 | |
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80 herald | |
vt.预示...的来临,预告,宣布,欢迎 | |
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81 amazement | |
n.惊奇,惊讶 | |
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82 instinctively | |
adv.本能地 | |
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83 hoarse | |
adj.嘶哑的,沙哑的 | |
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84 juncture | |
n.时刻,关键时刻,紧要关头 | |
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85 judgment | |
n.审判;判断力,识别力,看法,意见 | |
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86 rankling | |
v.(使)痛苦不已,(使)怨恨不已( rankle的现在分词 ) | |
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87 mere | |
adj.纯粹的;仅仅,只不过 | |
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88 appalling | |
adj.骇人听闻的,令人震惊的,可怕的 | |
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89 Augmented | |
adj.增音的 动词augment的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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90 promenade | |
n./v.散步 | |
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