AMARANTA úRSULA returned with the angels of December, driven on a sailor's breeze, leading her husband by a silk rope tied around his neck. She appeared without warning, wearing an ivory-colored dress, a string of pearls that reached almost to her knees, emerald and topaz rings, and with her straight hair in a smooth bun held behind her ears by swallow-tail brooches. The man whom she had married six months before was a thin, older Fleming with the look of a sailor about him. She had only to push open the door to the parlor1 to realize that her absence had been longer and more destructive than she had imagined.
"Good Lord," she shouted, more gay than alarmed, "it's obvious that there's no woman in this house!"
The baggage would not fit on the porch. Besides Fernanda's old trunk, which they had sent her off to school with, she had two upright trunks, four large suitcases, a bag for parasols, eight hatboxes, a gigantic cage with half a hundred canaries, and her husband's velocipede, broken down in a special case which allowed him to carry it like a cello2. She did not even take a day of rest after the long trip. She put on some worn denim3 overalls4 that her husband had brought along with other automotive items and set about on a new restoration of the house. She scattered5 the red ants, who had already taken possession of the porch, brought the rose bushes back to life, uprooted6 the weeds, and planted ferns, oregano, and begonias again in the pots along the railing. She took charge of a crew of carpenters, locksmiths, and masons, who filled in the cracks in the floor, put doors and windows back on their hinges, repaired the furniture, and white-washed the walls inside and out, so that three months after her arrival one breathed once more the atmosphere of youth and festivity that had existed during the days of the pianola. No one in the house had ever been in a better mood at all hours and under any circumstances, nor had anyone ever been readier to sing and dance and toss all items and customs from the past into the trash. With a sweep of her broom she did away with the funeral mementos7 and piles of useless trash and articles of superstition8 that had been piling up in the corners, and the only thing she spared, out of gratitude9 to úrsula, was the daguerreotype10 of Remedios in the parlor. "My, such luxury," she would shout, dying with laughter. "A fourteen-year-old grandmother!" When one of the masons told her that the house was full of apparitions11 and that the only way to drive them out was to look for the treasures they had left buried, she replied amid loud laughter that she did not think it was right for men to be superstitious12. She was so spontaneous, so emancipated13, with such a free and modern spirit, that Aureli-ano did not know what to do with his body when he saw her arrive. "My, my!" she shouted happily with open arms. "Look at how my darling cannibal has grown!" Before he had a chance to react she had already put a record on the portable phonograph she had brought with her and was trying to teach him the latest dance steps. She made change the dirty pants that he had inherited from Colonel Aureli-ano Buendía and gave him some youthful shirts and two-toned shoes, and she would push him into the street when he was spending too much time in Melquíades' room.
Active, small, and indomitable like úrsula, and almost as pretty and provocative14 as Remedios the Beauty, she was endowed with a rare instinct for anticipating fashion. When she received pictures of the most recent fashions in the mail, they only proved that she had not been wrong about the models that she designed herself and sewed on Amaranta's primitive15 pedal machine. She subscribed16 to every fashion magazine, art publication. and popular music review published in Europe, and she had only to glance at them to realize that things in the world were going just as she imagined they were. It was incomprehensible why a woman with that spirit would have returned to a dead town burdened by dust and heat, and much less with a husband who had more than enough money to live anywhere in the world and who loved her so much that he let himself be led around by her on a silk leash17. As time passed, however, her intention to stay was more obvious, because she did not make any plans that were not a long way off, nor did she do anything that did not have as an aim the search for a comfortable life and a peaceful old age in Macon-do. The canary cage showed that those aims were made up on the spur of the moment. Remembering that her mother had told her in a letter about the extermination18 of the birds, she had delayed her trip several months until she found a ship that stopped at the Fortunate Isles19 and there she chose the finest twenty-five pairs canaries so that she could repopulate the skies of Macon-do. That was the most lamentable20 of her numerous frustrated21 undertakings23. As the birds reproduced Amaranta úrsula would release them in pairs, and no sooner did they feel themselves free than they fled the town. She tried in vain to awaken24 love in them by means of the bird cage that úrsula had built during the first reconstruction25 of the house. Also in vain were the artificial nests built of esparto grass in the almond trees and the birdseed strewn about the roofs, and arousing the captives so that their songs would dissuade26 the deserters, because they would take flights on their first attempts and make a turn in the sky, just the time needed to find the direction to the Fortunate Isles.
They had met two years before they were married, when the sports biplane in which he was making rolls over the school where Amaranta úrsula was studying made an intrepid27 maneuver28 to avoid the flagpole and the primitive framework of canvas and aluminum29 foil was caught by the tail on some electric wires. From then on, paying no attention to his leg in splints, on weekends he would pick up Amaranta úrsula at the nun's boardinghouse where she lived, where the rules were not as severe as Fernanda had wanted, and he would take her to his country club. They began to love each other at an altitude of fifteen hundred feet in the Sunday air of the moors30, and they felt all the closer togetas the beings on earth grew more and more minute. She spoke31 to him of Macon-do as the brightest and most peaceful town on earth, and of an enormous house, scented32 with oregano, where she wanted to live until old age with a loyal husband and two strong sons who would be named Rodrigo Gonzalo, never Aureli-ano and José Arcadio, and a daughter who would be named Virginia and never Remedios. She had evoked34 the town idealized by nostalgia35 with such strong tenacity36 that Gaston understood that she would not get married unless he took her to live in Macon-do. He agreed to it, as he agreed later on to the leash, because he thought it was a passing fancy that could be overcome in time. But when two years in Macon-do had passed Amaranta úrsula was as happy as on the first day, he began to show signs of alarm. By that time he had dissected37 every dissectible insect in the region, he spoke Spanish like a native, and he had solved all of the crossword38 puzzles in the magazines that he received in the mail. He did not have the pretext39 climate to hasten their return because nature had endowed him with a colonial liver which resisted the drowsiness40 siesta41 time water that had vinegar worms in it. He liked the native cooking so much that once he ate eighty-two iguana42 eggs at one sitting. Amaranta úrsula, on the other hand, had brought in by train fish and shellfish in boxes of ice, canned meats and preserved fruits, which were the only things she could eat, and she still dressed in European style and received designs by mail in spite of the fact that she had no place to go and no one to visit and by that time her husband was not in a mood to appreciate her short skirts, her tilted43 felt hat, and her seven-strand necklaces. Her secret seemed to lie in the fact that she always found a way to keep busy, resolving domestic problems that she herself had created, and doing a poor job on a thousand things which she would fix on the following day with a pernicious diligence that made one think of Fernanda and the hereditary44 vice45 of making something just to unmake it. Her festive46 genius was still so alive then that when she received new records she would invite Gaston to stay in the parlor until very late to practice the dance steps that her schoolmates described to her in sketches47 and they would generally end up making love on the Viennese rocking chairs or on the bare floor. The only thing that she needed to be completely happy was the birth children, but she respected the pact48 she had made with her husband not to have any until they had been married for five years.
Looking for something to fill his idle hours with, Gaston became accustomed to spending the morning in Melquíades' room with the shy Aureli-ano. He took pleasure in recalling with him the most hidden corners of his country, which Aureli-ano knew as if he had spent much time there. When Gaston asked him what he had done to obtain knowledge that was not in the encyclopedia49, he received the same answer as José Arcadio: "Everything Is known." In addition to Sanskrit he had learned English and French and a little Latin and Greek. Since he went out every afternoon at that time and Amaranta úrsula had set aside a weekly sum for him for his personal expenses, his room looked like a branch of the wise Catalonian's bookstore. He read avidly50 until late at night, although from the manner in which he referred to his reading, Gaston thought that he did not buy the books in order to learn but to verify the truth of his knowledge, that none of them interested him more than the parchments, to which he dedicated51 most his time in the morning. Both Gaston and his wife would have liked to incorporate him into the family life, but Aureli-ano was a hermetic man with a cloud of mystery that time was making denser52. It was such an unfathomable condition that Gaston failed in his efforts to become intimate with him and had to seek other pastimes for his idle hours. It was around that time that he conceived the idea of establishing an airmail service.
It was not a new project. Actually, he had it fairly well advanced when he met Amaranta úrsula, except that it was not for Macon-do, but for the Belgian Congo, where his family had investments in palm oil. The marriage the decision to spend a few months in Macon-do to please his wife had obliged him to postpone53 it. But when he saw that Amaranta úrsula was determined54 to organize a commission for public improvement and even laughed at him when he hinted at the possibility of returning, he understood that things were going to take a long time and he reestablished contact his forgotten partners in Brussels, thinking that it was just as well to be a pioneer in the Caribbean as in- Africa. While his steps were progressing he prepared a landing field in the old enchanted55 region which at that time looked like a plain of crushed flintstone, and he studied the wind direction, the geography of the coastal56 region, and the best routes for aerial navigation, without knowing that his diligence, so similar to that of Mr. Herbert, was filling the town with the dangerous suspicion that his plan was not to set up routes but to plant banana trees. Enthusiastic over the idea that, after all, might justify57 his permanent establishment in Macon-do, he took several trips to the capital of the province, met with authorities, obtained licenses58, and drew up contracts for exclusive rights. In the meantime he maintained a correspondence with his partners in Brussels which resembled that of Fernanda with the invisible doctors, and he finally convinced them to ship the first airplane under the care of an expert mechanic, who would assemble it in the nearest port and fly it to Macon-do. One year after his first meditations59 and meteorological calculations, trusting in the repeated promises of his correspondents, he had acquired the habit of strolling through the streets, looking at the sky, hanging onto the sound of the breeze in hopes that the airplane would appear.
Although she had not noticed it, the return of Amaranta úrsula had brought on a radical60 change in Aureli-ano's life. After the death of José Arcadio he had become a regular customer at the wise Catalonian's bookstore. Also, the freedom that he enjoyed then and the time at his disposal awoke in him a certain curiosity about the town, which he came to know without any surprise. He went through the dusty and solitary61 streets, examining with scientific interest the inside of houses in ruin, the metal screens on the windows broken by rust22 and the dying birds, and the inhabitants bowed down by memories. He tried to reconstruct in his imagination the annihilated62 splendor63 of the old banana-company town, whose dry swimming pool was filled to the brim with rotting men's and women's shoes, in the houses of which, destroyed by rye grass, he found the skeleton of a German shepherd dog still tied to a ring by a steel chain a telephone that was ringing, ringing, ringing until he picked it up and an anguished64 and distant woman spoke in English, and he said yes, that the strike was over, that three thousand dead people had been thrown into the sea, that the banana company had left, and that Macon-do finally had peace after many years. Those wanderings led him to the prostrate65 red-light district, where in other times bundles banknotes had been burned to liven up the revels66, and which at that time was a maze67 of streets more afflicted68 and miserable69 than the others, with a few red lights still burning and with deserted70 dance halls adorned71 with the remnants of wreaths, where the pale, fat widows of no one, the French great-grandmothers and the Babylonian matriarchs, were still waiting beside their photographs. Aureli-ano could not find anyone who remembered his family, not even Colonel Aureli-ano Buendía, except for the oldest of the West Indian Negroes, an old man whose cottony hair gave him the look of a photographic negative and who was still singing the mournful sunset psalms72 in the door of his house. Aureli-ano would talk to him in the tortured Papiamento that he had learned in a few weeks and sometimes he would share his chicken-head soup, prepared by the great-granddaughter, with him. She was a large black woman with solid bones, the hips73 of a mare74, teats like live melons, and a round and perfect head armored with a hard surface of wiry hair which looked like a medieval warrior's mail headdress. Her name was Nigromanta. In those days Aureli-ano lived off the sale of silverware, candlesticks, and other bric-a-brac from the house. When he was penniless, which was most of the time, he got people in the back of the market to give him the chicken heads that they were going to throw away and he would take them to Nigromanta to make soups, fortified75 with purslane and seasoned with mint. When the great-grandfather died Aureli-ano stopped going by the house, but he would run into Nigromanta under the dark almond trees on the square, using her wild-animal whistles to lure76 the few night owls77. Many times he stayed with her, speaking in Papiamento about chicken-head soup and other dainties of misery78, and he would have kept right on if she had not let him know that his presence frightened off customers. Although he sometimes felt the temptation and although Nigromanta herself might have seemed to him as the natural culmination79 of a shared nostalgia, he did not go to bed with her. So Aureli-ano was still a virgin33 when Amaranta úrsula returned to Macon-do and gave him a sisterly embrace that left him breathless. Every time he saw her, and worse yet when she showed him the latest dances, he felt the same spongy release in his bones that had disturbed his great-great-grandfather when Pilar Ternera made her pretexts80 about the cards in the granary. Trying to squelch81 the torment82, he sank deeper into the parchments and eluded83 the innocent flattery of that aunt who was poisoning his nights with a flow of tribulation84, but the more he avoided her the more the anxiety with which he waited for her stony85 laughter, her howls of a happy cat, and her songs of gratitude, agonizing86 in love at all hours and in the most unlikely parts of the house. One night thirty feet from his bed, on the silver workbench, the couple unhinged bellies87 broke the bottles and ended up making love in a pool of muriatic acid. Aureli-ano not only could not sleep for a single second, but he spent the next day with a fever, sobbing89 with rage. The first night that he waited for Nigromanta to come to the shadows of the almond trees it seemed like an eternity90, pricked91 as he was by the needles of uncertainty92 and clutching in his fist the peso and fifty cents that he had asked Amaranta úrsula for, not so much because he needed it as to involve her, debase her, prostitute her in his adventure in some way. Nigromanta took him to her room, which was lighted with false candlesticks, to her folding cot with the bedding stained from bad loves, and to her body a wild dog, hardened and without soul, which prepared itself to dismiss him as if he were a frightened child, and suddenly it found a man whose tremendous power demanded a movement of seismic93 readjustment from her insides.
They became lovers. Aureli-ano would spend his mornings deciphering parchments and at siesta time he would go to the bedroom where Nigromanta was waiting for him, to teach him first how to do it like earthworms, then like snails94, and finally like crabs95, until she had to leave him and lie in wait for vagabond loves. Several weeks passed before Aureli-ano discovered that around her waist she wore a small belt that seemed to be made out a cello string, but which was hard as steel and had no end, as if it had been born and grown with her. Almost always, between loves, they would eat naked in the bed, in the hallucinating heat and under the daytime stars that the rust had caused to shine on the zinc96 ceiling. It was the first time that Nigromanta had had a steady man, a bone crusher from head to toe, as she herself said, dying with laughter, and she had even begun to get romantic illusions when Aureli-ano confided97 in her about his repressed passion for Amaran-ta úrsula, which he had not been able to cure with the substitution but which was twisting him inside all the more as experience broadened the horizons of love. After that Nigromanta continued to receive the same warmth as ever but she made him pay for her services so strictly98 that when Aureli-ano had no money she would make an addition to his bill, which was not figured in numbers but by marks that she made with her thumbnail behind the door. At sundown, while she was drifting through the shadows in the square, Aureli-ano, was going along the porch like a stranger, scarcely greeting Amaranta úrsula and Gaston, who usually dined at that time, and shutting herself up in his room again, unable to read or write or even think because of the anxiety brought on by the laughter, the whispering, the preliminary frolics, then the explosions of agonizing happiness that capped the nights in the house. That was his life two years before Gaston began to wait for the airplane, and it went on the same way on the afternoon that he went to the bookstore of the wise Catalonian and found four ranting99 boys in a heated argument about the methods used to kill cockroaches101 in the Middle Ages. The old bookseller, knowing about Aureli-ano's love for books that had been read only by the Venerable Bede, urged him with a certain fatherly malice102 to get into the discussion, and without even taking a breath, he explained that the cockroach100, the oldest winged insect on the face of the earth, had already been the victim slippers103 in the Old Testament104, but that since the species was definitely resistant105 to any and all methods of extermination, from tomato dices106 with borax to flour and sugar, and with its one thousand six hundred three varieties had resisted the most ancient, tenacious107, and pitiless persecution108 that mankind had unleashed109 against any living thing since the beginnings, including man himself, to such an extent that just as an instinct for reproduction was attributed to humankind, so there must have been anotone more definite and pressing, which was the instinct to kill cockroaches, and if the latter had succeeded in escaping human ferocity it was because they had taken refuge in the shadows, where they became invulnerable because of man's congenital fear of the dark, but on the other hand they became susceptible110 to the glow of noon, so that by the Middle Ages already, and in present times, and per omnia secula seculorum, the only effective method for killing111 cockroaches was the glare of the sun.
That encyclopedic coincidence was the beginning of a great friendship. Aureli-ano continued getting together in the afternoon with the four arguers, whose names were álvaro, Germán, Alfonso, and Gabriel, the first and last friends that he ever had in his life. For a man like him, holed up in written reality, those stormy sessions that began in the bookstore and ended at dawn in the brothels were a revelation. It had never occurred to him until then to think that literature was the best plaything that had ever been invented to make fun of people, as álvaro demonstrated during one night of revels. Some time would have to pass before Aureli-ano realized that such arbitrary attitudes had their origins in the example of the wise Catalonian, for whom wisdom was worth nothing if it could not be used to invent a way preparing chick peas.
The afternoon on which Aureli-ano gave his lecture on cockroaches, the argument ended up in the house of the girls who went to bed because of hunger, a brothel lies on the outskirts112 of Macon-do. The proprietress was a smiling mamasanta, tormented113 by a mania114 for opening and closing doors. Her eternal smile seemed to have been brought on by the credulity of her customers, who accepted as something certain an establishment that did not exist except in the imagination, because even the tangible115 things there were unreal: the furniture that fell apart when one sat on it, the disemboweled phonograph with a nesting hen inside, the garden of paper flowers, the calendars going back to the years before the arrival of the banana company, the frames with prints cut out magazines that had never been published. Even the timid little whores who came from the neighborhood: when the proprietress informed them that customers had arrived they were nothing but an invention. They would appear without any greeting in their little flowered dresses left over from days when they were five years younger, and they took them off with the same innocence116 with which they had put them on, and in the paroxysms of love they would exclaim good heavens, look how that roof is falling in, and as soon as they got their peso and fifty cents they would spend it on a roll with cheese that the proprietress sold them, smiling more than ever, because only she knew that that meal was not true either. Aureli-ano, whose world at that time began with Melquíades' parchments and ended in Nigromanta's bed, found a stupid cure for timidity in the small imaginary brothel. At first he could get nowhere, in rooms where the proprietress would enter during the best moments love and make all sorts of comments about the intimate charms of the protagonists117. But with time he began to get so familiar with those misfortunes of the world that on one night that was more unbalanced than the others he got undressed in the small reception room and ran through the house balancing a bottle of beer on his inconceivable maleness. He was the one who made fashionable the extravagances that the proprietress celebrated118 with her eternal smile, without protesting, without believing in them just as when Germán tried to burn the house down to show that it did not exist, and as when Alfonso wrung119 the neck of the parrot and threw it into the pot where the chicken stew120 was beginning to boil.
Although Aureli-ano felt himself linked to the four friends by a common affection and a common solidarity121, even to the point where he thought of them as if they were one person, he was closer to Gabriel than to the others. The link was born on the night when he casually122 mentioned Colonel Aureli-ano Buendía and Gabriel was the only one who did not think that he was making fun somebody. Even the proprietress, who normally did not take part in the conversation argued with a madam's wrathful passion that Colonel Aureli-ano Buendía, of whom she had indeed heard speak at some time, was a figure invented by the government as a pretext for killing Liberals. Gabriel, on the other hand, did not doubt the reality of Colonel Aureli-ano Buendía because he had been a companion in arms and inseparable friend of his great-great-grandfather Colonel Geri-neldo Márquez. Those fickle123 tricks of memory were even more critical when the killing of the workers was brought up. Every time that Aureli-ano mentioned the matter, not only the proprietress but some people older than she would repudiate124 the myth of the workers hemmed125 in at the station and the train with two hundred cars loaded with dead people, and they would even insist that, after all, everything had been set forth126 in judicial127 documents and in primary-school textbooks: that the banana company had never existed. So that Aureli-ano and Gabriel were linked by a kind of complicity based on real facts that no one believed in, and which had affected128 their lives to the point that both of them found themselves off course in the tide of a world that had ended and of which only the nostalgia remained. Gabriel would sleep wherever time overtook him. Aureli-ano put him up several times in the silver workshop, but he would spend his nights awake, disturbed by the noise of the dead people who walked through the bedrooms until dawn. Later he turned him over to Nigromanta, who took him to her well-used room when she was free and put down his account with vertical129 marks behind the door in the few spaces left free by Aureli-ano's debts.
In spite their disordered life, the whole group tried to do something permanent at the urging of the wise Catalonian. It was he, with his experience as a former professor of classical literature and his storehouse of rare books, who got them to spend a whole night in search of the thirty-seventh dramatic situation in a town where no one had any interest any more in going beyond primary school. Fascinated by the discovery of friendship, bewildered by the enchantments130 of a world which had been forbidden to by Fernanda's meanness, Aureli-ano abandoned the scrutiny131 of the parchments precisely132 when they were beginning to reveal themselves as predictions in coded lines of poetry. But the subsequent proof that there was time enough for everything without having to give up the brothels gave him the drive to return to Melquíades' room, having decided133 not to flag in his efforts until he had discovered the last keys. That was during the time that Gaston began to wait for the airplane and Amaranta úrsula was so lonely that one morning she appeared in the room.
"Hello, cannibal," she said to him. "Back in your cave again?"
She was irresistible134, with a dress she had designed and one of the long shadvertebra necklaces that she herself had made. She had stopped using the leash, convinced of her husband's faithfulness, and for the first time since her return she seemed to have a moment of ease. Aureli-ano did not need to see her to know that she had arrived. She put her elbows on the table, so close and so helpless that Aureli-ano heard the deep sound of her bones, and she became interested in the parchments. Trying to overcome his disturbance135, he grasped at the voice that he was losing, the life that was leaving him, the memory that was turning into a petrified136 polyp, and he spoke to her about the priestly destiny of Sanskrit, the scientific possibility of seeing the future showing through in time as one sees what is written on the back of a sheet of paper through the light, the necessity of deciphering the predictions so that they would not defeat themselves, and the Centuries of Nostradamus and the destruction of Cantabria predicted by Saint Milanus. Suddenly, without interrupting the chat, moved by an impulse that had been sleeping in him since his origins, Aureli-ano put his hand on hers, thinking that that final decision would put an end to his doubts. She grabbed his index finger with the affectionate innocence with which she had done so in childhood, however, and she held it while he kept on answering questions. They remained like that, linked by icy index fingers that did not transmit anything in any way until she awoke from her momentary137 dream and slapped her forehead with her hand. "The ants!" she exclaimed. And then she forgot about the manuscripts, went to the door with a dance step, and from there she threw Aureli-ano a kiss the tips of her fingers as she had said goodbye to father on the afternoon when they sent her to Brussels.
"You can tell me later," she said. "I forgot that today's the day to put quicklime on the anthills."
She continued going to the room occasionally when she had something to do in that part of the house and she would stay there for a few minutes while her husband continued to scrutinize138 the sky. Encouraged by that change, Aureli-ano stayed to eat with the family at that time as he had not done since the first months of Amaranta úrsula's return. Gaston was pleased. During the conversations after meals, which usually went on for more than an hour, he complained that his partners were deceiving him. They had informed the loading of the airplane on board a ship that did not arrive, although his shipping139 agents insisted, that it would never arrive because it was not on the list Caribbean ships, his partners insisted that the shipment was correct and they even insinuated140 that Gaston was lying to them in his letters. The correspondence reached such a degree of mutual141 suspicion that Gaston decided not to write again and he began to suggest the possibility of a quick trip to Brussels to clear things up and return with the airplane. The plan evaporated, however, as soon as Amaranta úrsula reiterated142 her decision not to move from Macon-do even if she lost a husband. During the first days Aureli-ano shared the general opinion that Gaston was a fool on a velocipede, and that brought on a vague feeling of pity. Later, when he obtained deeper information on the nature of men in the brothels, he thought that Gaston's meekness144 had its origins in unbridled passion. But when he came to know him better and realized his true character was the opposite of his submissive conduct, he conceived the malicious145 suspicion that even the wait for the airplane was an act. Then he thought that Gaston was not as foolish as he appeared, but, quite the contrary, was a man of infinite steadiness, ability, and patience who had set about to conquer his wife with the weariness of eternal agreement, of never saying no, of simulating a limitless conformity146, letting her become enmeshed in her own web until the day she could no longer bear the tedium147 of the illusions close at hand and would pack the bags herself to go back to Europe. Aureli-ano's former pity turned into a violent dislike. Gaston's system seemed so perverse148 to him, but at the same time so effective, that he ventured to warn Amaranta úrsula. She made fun of his suspicions, however, without even noticing the heavy weight of love, uncertainty, and jealousy149 that he had inside. It had not occurred to her that she was arousing something more than fraternal affection in Aureli-ano until she pricked her finger trying to open a can of peaches and he dashed over to suck the blood out with an avidity and a devotion that sent a chill up her spine150.
"Aureli-ano!" She laughed, disturbed. "You're too suspicious to be a good bat."
Then Aureli-ano went all out. Giving her some small, orphaned151 kisses in the hollow of her wounded hand, he opened up the most hidden passageways of his heart and drew out an interminable and lacerated intestine152, the terrible parasitic153 animal that had incubated in his martyrdom. He told her how he would get up at midnight to weep in loneliness and rage over the underwear that she had left to dry in the bathroom. He told her about the anxiety with which he had asked Nigromanta to howl like a cat and sob88 gaston gaston gaston in his ear, and with how much astuteness154 he had ransacked155 her vials of perfume so that he could smell it on the necks of the little girls who went to bed because of hunger. Frightened by the passion of that outburst, Amaranta úrsula was closing her fingers, contracting them like a shellfish until her wounded hand, free of all pain and any vestige156 of pity, was converted into a knot of emeralds and topazes and stony and unfeeling bones.
"Fool!" she said as if she were spitting. "I'm sailing on the first ship leaving for Belgium."
álvaro had come to the wise Catalonian's bookstore one of those afternoons proclaiming at the top of his lungs his latest discovery: a zoological brothel. It was called The Golden Child and it was a huge open air salon157 through which no less than two hundred bitterns who told the time with a deafening158 cackling strolled at will. In wire pens that surrounded the dance floor and among large Amazonian camellias there were herons of different colors, crocodiles as fat as pigs, snakes with twelve rattles159, and a turtle a gilded160 shell who dove in a small artificial ocean. There was a big white dog, meek143 and a pederast, who would give stud services nevertheless in order to be fed. The atmosphere had an innocent denseness161, as if it had just been created, and the beautiful mulatto girls who waited hopelessly among the bloodred petals162 and the outmoded phonograph records knew ways of love that man had left behind forgotten in the earthly paradise. The first night that the group visited that greenhouse of illusions the splendid and taciturn old woman who guarded the entrance in a wicker rocking chair felt that time was turning back to its earliest origins when among the five who were arriving she saw a bony, jaundiced man with Tartar cheekbones, marked forever and from the beginning of the world with the pox of solitude163.
She was seeing Colonel Aureli-ano Buendía once more as she had seen him in the light of a lamp long before the wars, long before the desolation of glory and the exile of disillusionment, that remote dawn when he went to her bedroom to give the first command of his life: the command to give him love. It was Pilar Ternera. Years before, when she had reached one hundred forty-five years of age, she had given up the pernicious custom keeping track of her age and she went on living in the static and marginal time of memories, in a future perfectly164 revealed and established, beyond the futures165 disturbed by the insidious166 snares167 and suppositions of her cards.
From that night on Aureli-ano, took refuge in the compassionate168 tenderness and understanding of his unknown great-great-grandmother. Sitting in her wicker rocking chair, she would recall the past, reconstruct the grandeur169 and misfortunes of the family and the splendor of Macon-do, which was now erased170, while álvaro frightened the crocodiles with his noisy laughter and Alfonso invented outlandish stories about the bitterns who had pecked out the eyes of four customers who misbehaved the week before, and Gabriel was in the room of the pensive171 mulatto girl who did not collect in money but in letters to a smuggler172 boyfriend who was in prison on the other side of the Orinoco because the border guards had caught him and had made him sit on a chamberpot that filled up with a mixture of shit and diamonds. That true brothel, with that maternal173 proprietress, was the world of which Aureli-ano had dreamed during his prolonged captivity174. He felt so well, so close to perfect companionship, that he thought of no other refuge on the afternoon on which Amaranta úrsula had made his illusions crumble175. He was ready to unburden himself with words so that someone could break the knots that bound his chest, but he only managed to let out a fluid, warm, and restorative weeping in Pilar Ternera's lap. She let him finish, scratching his head with the tips of her fingers, and without his having revealed that he was weeping from love, she recognized immediately the oldest sobs176 in the history of man-.
"It's all right, child," she consoled him. "Now tell me who it is."
When Aureli-ano told her, Pilar Ternera let out a deep laugh, the old expansive laugh that ended up as a cooing of doves. There was no mystery in the heart of a Buendía that was impenetrable for her because a century of cards and experience had taught her that the history of the family was a machine with unavoidable repetitions, a turning wheel that would have gone on spilling into eternity were it not for the progressive and irremediable wearing of the axle.
"Don't worry," she said, smiling. "Wherever she is right now, she's waiting for you."
It was half past four in the afternoon when Amaranta úrsula came out of her bath. Aureli-ano saw her go by his room with a robe of soft folds a towel wrapped around her head like a turban. He followed her almost on tiptoes, stumbling from drunkenness, and he went into the nuptial177 bedroom just as she opened the robe and closed it again in fright. He made a silent signal toward the next room where the door was half open and where Aureli-ano knew that Gaston was beginning to write a letter.
"Go away," she said voicelessly.
Aureli-ano, smiled, picked her up by the waist with both hands like a pot of begonias, and dropped her on back on the bed. With a brutal178 tug179 he pulled off her bathrobe before she had time to resist and he loomed180 over an abyss of newly washed nudity whose skin color, lines of fuzz, and hidden moles181 had all been imagined in the shadows of the other rooms. Amaranta úrsula defended herself sincerely with the astuteness of a wise woman, weaseling her slippery, flexible, and fragrant182 weasel's body as she tried to knee him in the kidneys and scorpion183 his face with her nails, but without either of them giving a gasp184 that might not have been taken for that breathing of a person watching the meager185 April sunset through the open window. It was a fierce fight, a battle to the death, but it seemed to be without violence because it consisted distorted attacks and ghostly evasions186, slow, cautious, solemn, so that during it all there was time for the petunias187 to bloom and for Gaston to forget about his aviator's dream in the next room, as if they were two enemy lovers seeking reconciliation188 at the bottom of an aquarium189. In the heat of that savage190 and ceremonious struggle, Amaranta úrsula understood that her meticulous191 silence was so irrational192 that it could awaken the suspicions of her nearby husband much more than the sound of warfare193 that they were trying to avoid. Then she began to laugh with her lips tight together, without giving up the fight, but defending herself with false bites and deweaseling her body little by little until they both were conscious of being adversaries194 and accomplices195 at the same time and the affray degenerated196 into a conventional gambol197 and the attacks became caresses198. Suddenly, almost playfully, like one more bit of mischief199, Amaranta úrsula dropped her defense200, and when she tried to recover, frightened by what she herself had made possible, it was too late. A great commotion201 immobilized her in center of gravity, planted her in her place, and her defensive202 will was demolished203 by the irresistible anxiety to discover what the orange whistles the invisible globes on the other side of death were like. She barely had time to reach out her hand and grope for the towel to put a gag between her teeth so that she would not let out the cat howls that were already tearing at her insides.
十二月初旬，阿玛兰塔.乌苏娜一路顺风地回来了。她拉着丈夫系在脖子上的丝带，领他到了家，她是事先没打招呼便突然出现的；她身穿乳白色衣服，脖子上戴着的那串珍珠几乎拖到膝盖，手指上是绿宝石和黄宝石的戒指，光洁、整齐的头发梳成一个发辔，用燕尾状的发针别在耳后。六个月前同她结婚的男人，年岁较大，瘦瘦的；象个水手，是法兰德斯人。她一推开客厅的门，就感到自己离开这儿已经很久了。房子破得比想象的更厉害。
“天啊，”她叫了一声，语气快活多于惊讶，“显然，这房子里没有女人！”
门廊上放不下她的行李，菲兰达的那只旧箱子，是家里送她上学时给她的，此外还有一对竖着的大木箱、四只大手提箱、一只装阳伞的提包、八个帽盒、一个装了五十只金丝雀的大笼子，另外就是丈夫的自行车，这辆自行车是拆开来装在一只特制箱子里的。他象抱大提琴似的抱着箱子走。尽管经过长途跋涉，但她连一天都没休息。她全身都换上她丈夫夹在自动玩具里一道带来的粗布衣服，把这座房子里里外外打扫一遍。她扫去了在门廊里做窝的红蚂蚁，让玫瑰花丛恢复生机，铲除了杂草，种上羊齿蕨和薄荷，沿着篱笆墙又摆上了一盆盆秋海棠。她叫来一大群木匠、锁匠和泥瓦匠，让他们在地上抹缝，把门窗装好，将家具修复一新，把墙壁里里外外粉刷了一遍。就这样，在她回来三个月以后，人们又可以呼吸到自动钢琴时代曾经有过的朝气蓬勃、愉快欢乐的气息了。在这座房子里，在任何时候和任何情况下，都不曾有过一个人的情绪比现在还好，也不曾有过一个人比她更想唱，更想跳，更想把一切陈规陋习抛进垃圾堆里。她用笤帚扫掉了丧葬的祭奠品，扫掉了一堆堆破烂，扫掉了角落里成年累月堆积起来的迷信用具。出于对乌苏娜的感激，她留下了一件东西，那就是挂在客厅里的雷麦黛丝的照片。“啊唷，真逗人，”她这样喊道，笑得上气不接下气。“一个十四岁的姑妈！”一个泥瓦匠告诉她，这座房子里全是妖怪，要赶走它们只有找到它们埋藏的金银财宝才行。她笑着回答说，男人不该相信迷信。她那么天真、洒脱，那么大方、时新，使奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚见她过来便感到手足无措。 “啊唷！啊唷！”她双臂张开，快活地叫道。“看看我的小鬼头是怎么长大的！”没等他反应过来，她已经在她随身带来的手提留声机上放了一张唱片，打算教他跳最新式的舞。她叫他换下奥雷连诺上校传给他的脏裤子，送给他一些颜色鲜艳的衬衫和两色皮鞋，如果他在梅尔加德斯的房间里呆久了，她就把他推到街上去。
她象乌苏娜一样活泼、纤小、难以驾驭，并且几乎同俏姑娘雷麦黛丝同样漂亮和诱人。她有一种能够预测时尚的罕见本能。当她从邮件里收到最新式的时装图片时，旁人不得不赞赏她亲自设计的式样：她用阿玛兰塔的老式脚踏缝纫机缝制的衣服和图片上的完全一样。她订阅了欧洲出版的所有时装杂志、美术刊物、大众音乐评论，她经常只要瞟上一眼，便知道世界万物正按照她的想象发展变化，具有这种气质的女人，居然要回到这个满是灰尘、热得要命的死镇上来，真是不可理解，何况她有一个殷实的丈夫，钱多得足以在世界上任何地方生活，而且他对她很有感情，甘心让她牵着丝带到处走。随着时光的流逝，她准备久居的意思更加明显，因为她的计划是长远的，她的打算就是在马孔多寻求舒适的生活以安度晚年。金丝雀笼子表明她的决定不是突然的。她想起了母亲在一封信里告诉过她关于捕杀鸟类的事情，就把动身的时间推迟了几个月，直到发现了停泊在幸福岛的一只轮船。她在岛上挑选了二十五对最好的金丝雀，这样她就可以使马孔多的天空又有飞鸟生存了。这是她无数次失败中最可悲的一次。鸟儿繁殖以后，阿玛兰塔·乌苏娜却把它们一对对地放出去；鸟儿们获得了自由，便立即从小镇飞走了。她想用乌苏娜第一次重建房子时所做的鸟笼来唤起鸟儿们的感情，可是没有成功。她又在杏树上用芦草编织了鸟巢，在巢顶撒上鸟食，引诱笼中的鸟儿唱歌，想借它们的歌声劝阻那些飞出笼子的鸟儿不要远走高飞，但也失败了，因为鸟儿一有机会展开翅膀，便在空中兜一个圈子，辨别了一下幸福岛的方向，飞去了。
回来一年之后，阿玛兰塔·乌苏娜虽然没有结交什么朋友，也没有举行任何宴会，但她仍然相信，要拯救这个灾难深重的村镇是办得到的。她的丈夫加斯东怕冒犯她，总是小心翼翼的。从他走下火车的那个决定命运的下午起，他就觉得妻子的决心是怀乡病引起的。他肯定她迟早会在现实生活中遭到挫折。他不肯花点功夫安装自行车，却在泥瓦匠们搅乱的蜘蛛网里寻找最大的卵。他用指甲弄破这些卵，花费几个小时在放大镜下面观察钻出来的小蜘蛛。后来，他想到阿玛兰塔·乌苏娜正在继续她的修缮工作，双手不得空闲，他才决定安装那辆前轮比后轮大得多的漂亮自行车。他还努力捕捉本地所能找到的每一种昆虫，给它们治病。他把昆虫放在果酱瓶里，送给列日（比利时城名。）大学教自然史的老师：尽管当时他的主要职务是飞行员，但他曾在那个大学里学过昆虫学的高年级课程。他骑自行车时总要穿上杂技师的紧身衣，套上华丽而俗气的袜子，戴上福尔摩斯式的帽子；但他步行的时候，却穿一尘不染的亚麻布西服，脚登白色鞋子，打一个丝领结，戴一顶硬草帽，手里还握一根柳木手杖。他的浅色眼睛突出了他水手的容貌，小胡子柔软齐整，活象松鼠皮。他虽然比妻子起码大十五岁，可是他的机敏和果决却能使她感到愉快。他具有一个好丈夫必备的气质，这就弥补了年龄上的差异。其实人们看到他已经四十来岁了，还保持着谨小慎微的习惯，脖子上系着丝带，骑着马戏团用的自行车，怎么也不会想到他和妻子之间曾经有过狂热的爱情生活，而且在最不适宜的或者情绪冲动的场合，他俩还会象刚开始恋爱时那样顺从彼此的需要，干出有伤风化的事来；随着时光的消逝，经过越来越多不寻常的事情的磨炼，他俩之间的这种激情就变得更加深沉和炽热了。加斯东不仅是个具有无穷智慧和想象力的狂热的情人，或许还是这样一名驾驶员，为了求得紫罗兰地里的片刻欢乐，他宁愿紧急着陆，几乎使自己和爱人丧命也在所不惜。
他俩是在认识两年以后结婚的，当时他驾驶着运动用的双翼飞机在阿玛兰塔·乌苏娜就读的学校上空盘旋。为了躲开一根旗杆，他作了一个大胆的动作，老式的帆篷和铝制机尾被电线缠住了。从那时起，他顾不上装着夹板的腿，每逢周末都把阿玛兰塔.乌苏哪从她居住的修女公寓接走;那里的规矩不象菲兰达想象得那么严格，他可以带她到他的乡村俱乐部去。星期天，在一千五百英尺高处荒野的空气中，他们开始相爱了。地面上的生物变得越来越小，他们彼此也就越来越亲近了。她对他说起马孔多，说它是世界上最美丽、最宁静的城镇；她又谈起一座散发着薄荷香味的大房子，她想在那儿同一个忠实的丈夫、两个强健的儿子和一个女儿生活到老。儿子取名罗德里格和贡泽洛，而决不能叫什么奥雷连诺和霍·阿卡蒂奥；女儿要叫弗吉妮娅，决不能起雷麦黛丝之类的名字。她因思恋故乡而把那个小镇理想化了，她的感情那么强烈坚定，使得加斯东明白，除非带她回马孔多定居，否则休想跟她结婚。他同意了，就象他后来同意系上那条丝带一样，因为这不过是暂时的喜好，早晚都要改变的。可是在马孔多过了两年以后，阿玛兰塔·乌苏娜仍象刚来的头一天那么快活。他开始发出警号了。那时候，他已经解剖了这个地区每一种可以解剖的昆虫。他的西班牙语说得象个本地人，他解开了寄来的杂志上所有的字谜。他不能用气候这个借口来催促他俩返回，因为大自然已经赋予他一个适合异乡水土的肝脏，使他能够对付午休时间的困劲，而且他还服用长了醋虫的水。他非常喜爱本地的饭食，以致有一次他一顿吃了八十二只鬣蜴（产于美洲或西印度的一种大蜥蜴蛋。）另外，阿玛兰塔·乌苏娜已经从火车上运来了一箱箱冰冻的鱼、罐头肉和蜜饯水果——这是她唯一能吃的东西。虽然她无处可走，无人要访问，她的衣着仍旧是欧洲式样的，她仍然不断地收到邮寄来的新样式。然而她的丈夫没有心思欣赏她的短裙、歪戴的毡帽和七股项圈。她的秘诀似乎在于她总是能够变戏法似的忙忙碌碌，不停地解决自己制造的一些家务困难。她为第二天安排了许多事情，结果什么也没干成。她干活的劲头很足，但是效果很糟，使人想起菲兰达，想起“做”只是为了“拆”的那种传统恶习。她爱好玩乐的情趣仍然很浓，她收到了新唱片，就叫加斯东到客厅里呆到很晚，教他跳舞，那舞姿是她的同学画在草图上寄给她的。孩子的诞生是她唯一感到欣慰的事，但她尊重与丈夫的约定，直到婚后五年才生了孩子。
为了找些事来填补空虚和无聊，加斯东常常同胆小的奥雷连诺.布恩蒂亚在梅尔加德斯的房间里呆上一个早晨。他愉快地同奥雷连诺.布恩蒂亚回忆他的回家阴暗角落里的生活。奥雷连诺.布恩蒂亚也知道这些事，仿佛在那儿生活过很久似的。加斯东问起他为了获得百科全书上没有的知识作过什么努力。加斯东得到的回答是与霍·阿卡蒂奥相同的：“一切都能认识嘛。”除了梵文，奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚还学了英语、法语以及一点拉丁语和希腊语。当时由于他每天下午都要出去，阿玛兰塔.乌苏娜便每周拿出一点钱供他花销。他的房间就象博学的加泰隆尼亚人那家书店的分店。他经常贪婪地阅读到深夜，从他阅读时采取的方式看来，加斯东认为他买书不是为了学习，而是为了验证他已有的知识是否正确。书里的内容与羊皮纸手稿一样引不起他的兴趣，但是读书占去了他上午的大部分时间。加斯东和妻子都希望奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚变成他们家庭的一员，但是奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚是一个性格内向的人，老是处在一团令人莫测的迷雾里。加斯东努力跟他亲近，但是没有成功，只得去找其他的事情来做，借以排遣无聊的时光。就在这时，他产生了开办航空邮政的想法。
这并不是个新计划。加斯东认识阿玛兰塔.乌苏娜的时候就想好了这个计划，但那不是为了马孔多，而是为了比属刚果，他家里的人在那里的棕榈油事业方面投了资。结婚以及婚后为了取悦妻子到马孔多生活了几个月，这就使他不得不把这项计划暂时搁置起来。嗣后，他看到阿玛兰塔.乌苏娜决心组织一个改善公共环境的委员会，并且在他暗示可能回去时，遭到了阿玛兰塔·乌苏娜的一番嘲笑，他就意识到事情要大大地延搁了。他跟布鲁塞尔失去联系的合伙人重新建立了联系，想到在加勒比地区作一名创业者并不比在非洲差。在他稳步前进的过程中，他准备在这迷人的古老地区建筑一个机场，这个地域在当时看来象是碎石铺成的平地。他研究风向，研究海边的地势，研究飞机航行最好的路线；他还不知道，他的这番类似赫伯特式的奋斗精神使小镇产生了一种极大的怀疑，人家说他不是在筹划航线，而是打算种植香蕉树。他满腔热情地抱定了一个想法——这个想法也许终究会证明他在马孔多长远的做法是对的——到省城去了几次，拜访了一些专家，获得了许可证，又草拟了取得专利权的合同。同时，他跟布鲁塞尔的合伙人保持着通信联系，就象菲兰达同没有见过的医生通信一样。在一名熟练技师照管下，第一架飞机将用船运来，那位技师要在抵达最近的港口后将飞机装配好，飞到马孔多，这终于使人们信服了。在他首次勘察并且作出气象计算一年之后，他的通信朋友的多次承诺使他充满了信心。他养成了一个习惯：在树丛间漫步，仰望天空，倾听风声，期待飞机出现。
阿玛兰塔·乌苏娜的归来给奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚的生活带来了根本的变化，而她本人却没有注意到这一点。霍.阿卡蒂奥死后，奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚在博学的加泰隆尼亚书商那里成了一个常客。他那时喜欢自由自在，加上他有随意支配的时间，暂时对小镇产生了好奇心。他感到了这一点，也不觉得惊异。他走过满地灰尘、寂寥冷落的街道，用刨根究底的兴趣考察日渐破败的房子内部，看到了窗上被铁锈和死鸟弄坏的铁丝网以及被往事压折了腰的居民。他试图凭想象恢复这个市镇和香蕉公司的辉煌时代。现在，镇上干涸了的游泳池让男人和女人的烂鞋子填得满满的；在黑麦草毁坏了的房子里面，他发现一头德国牧羊犬的骸骨，上面仍然套着颈圈，颈圈上还联着一段铁链子；一架电话机还在叮铃铃地响个不停。他一拿起耳机，便听到一个极为痛苦的妇女在遥远的地方用英语讲话。他回答说战争已经结束了。三千名死难者已经抛进海里，香蕉公司已经离开，多年之后马孔多终于享受到了和平。他在闲逛中不觉来到平坦的红灯地区。从前那儿焚烧过成捆的钞票，借以增添宴会的光彩，当时的街道纵横交错，如同迷宫一般，比其他的街道更加不幸，那里依然点着几盏红灯，凋零的花环装饰着几家冷落的舞厅；不知谁家的苍白、肥胖的寡妇、法国老太婆和巴比伦女人，仍然守在她们的留声机旁边。奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚找不到一个还记得他家的人，甚至记不得奥雷连诺上校了，只有那位年纪最老的西印度黑人——头发好象棉花卷、脸盘犹如照相底版的老人，仍然站在他的房门前唱着庄严的落日赞歌。奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚用他几个星期里学会的结结巴巴的巴比亚曼托语同老人谈话。老人请他喝他的曾孙女烧好的鸡头汤。他的曾孙女是一个黝黑的大块头女人，她有结实的骨架和母马似的臀部；乳房好象长在藤上的甜瓜；铁丝色的头发仿佛中世纪武士的头盔，保护着没有缺陷的、圆圆的头颅。她的名字叫尼格罗曼塔。在那些日子里，奥雷连诺，布恩蒂亚靠变卖银器、烛台和家里的其他古董过活，他一文钱都没有时（多数时候他都如此），就到市场上阴暗的地方去，求人家把打算丢弃的鸡头送给他，他拿了这些鸡头叫尼格罗曼塔煮汤，配上马齿苋菜，加点薄荷调味。尼格罗曼塔的曾祖父死后，奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚停止了走街串巷，但是他常常跑到尼格罗曼塔那里去，在庭院中漆黑的杏树下，把她模仿动物叫的口笛拿来，引诱几只夜猫子。他更多的时候是跟她呆在一起的，用巴比亚曼托语评论鸡头汤以及穷困中尝到的其他可口的美味。要是她不告诉他，他的到来吓跑了其他的主顾，他就一直呆着不走。尽管他有时也受到一些诱惑，但是在他看来，尼格罗曼塔本人也象他一样患着思乡病，因此他并没有跟她一起睡觉。在阿玛兰塔.乌苏娜回到马孔多以后，并且象姐姐一般地拥抱他、使他喘不过气来时，奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚还是个童男子。每当他见到她，特别是她表演最新式的舞蹈时，他都有一种骨头酥软的感觉，如同当年皮拉·苔列娜借口到库房里玩纸牌，也曾使他的高祖父神魂不定一样。他埋头在羊皮纸手稿中，想排遣苦恼，躲开姑娘天真烂漫的诱惑，因为她给他带来了一系列的痛苦，破坏了他夜间的宁静。但是，他越是躲着她，就越是焦灼地期待着她，想听到她冷漠的大笑声，听到她小猫撒欢似的嗥叫声，听到她的歌声。而在这屋里最不合适的地方，每时每刻她都在发泄情欲。一天夜里，在隔壁离他的床三十叹的工作台上，夫妇俩疯狂地拥抱，结果打碎了一些瓶子，在盐酸的水洼里结束了一场好事。奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚一夜没有合眼，第二天发了高烧，气得直哭。晚上，他在杏树的阴影下第一次等待尼格罗曼塔，只觉得时间过得实在太慢，他忐忑不安，如坐针毡，手里攥着向阿玛兰塔·乌苏娜要来的一比索和五十生丁。他要这钱是出于需要，想拿它作某种尝试，以便使尼格罗曼塔就范，好侮辱她，糟蹋她。尼格罗曼塔把他带到了自己屋里。他们就这样私通。奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚整个上午都在辨认羊皮纸手稿，午睡时间就去卧室，尼格罗曼塔正在那儿等着他。
尼格罗曼塔第一次有了一个固定的男人，正如她狂笑着说的，有了一个从头到脚都象碎骨机的人。奥雷连诺，布恩蒂亚却偷偷告诉她：他爱阿玛兰塔·乌苏娜，但他的爱是受压抑的，即使有了替身，也无法得到满足，特别是由于经验多了，对谈情说爱的眼界也开阔了，那就更无法满足了。为此，她甚至产生了浪漫的想法。以后，尼格罗曼塔一如既往地热情接待他，但却坚持要他为她的接待付钱，在奥雷连诺，布恩蒂亚没有钱时，她甚至还要记上一笔账，这笔账不是用数目字记的，而是用她的大拇指甲在门背后划上。日落时分，当她在广场暗处游荡的时候，奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚象陌生人似的，也正好沿门廊走着。通常，他很少向正在吃饭的阿玛兰塔·乌苏娜和加斯东打招呼，他把自己关回屋里。但由于听到他俩大声狂笑、悄悄耳语，以及后来他俩在黑夜中的欢乐，他焦躁不安，书看不下去，笔动不起来，连问题都不能思考。这就是加斯东在开始等待飞机之前两年中奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚的生活。这种生活一直如此。一天午后，他去博学的加泰隆尼亚人的书店，发现四个孩子吵闹不休，热烈地争论中世纪的人用什么方法杀死蟑螂。老书商知道奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚对“可敬的比德”（大约673一735，盎格鲁撒克逊僧侣，历史学家。）读过的书有一种癖好，使用父亲般的严肃态度请他加入争论，于是他滔滔不绝他讲开了：据《旧约》上说，地球上最古老的有翅昆虫——蟑螂，一直是人们脚下的牺牲品，但是这种昆虫对于消灭它们的一切方法都有抵抗力，即使掺了硼砂的蕃茄片以及面粉和白糖，都奈何它们不得。它们有一千六百零三个变种，已经抵御了最古老、最持久、最无情的迫害，抵御了人类开天辟地以来对任何生物都不曾使用过、对自己也不曾使用过的迫害手段。由于人类的迫害，蟑螂就有繁殖的本能，因此人类也有另一种更加坚定不移、更加咄咄逼人的杀死蟑螂的本能，如果说蟑螂成功地逃脱了人类的残酷迫害，那只是因为它们在阴暗的地方找到了避难所，它们在那里不会受到伤害，因为人们生来害怕黑暗。可是它们对阳光却很敏感，所以在中世纪，在当代，甚至永远都是如此，杀死蟑螂的唯一有效办法就是把它们放在太阳底下。
学识上的一致是伟大友谊的开端。奥雷连诺.布恩蒂亚下午继续同四位争论对手见面，他们是阿尔伐罗、杰尔曼、阿尔丰索和加布里埃尔，这四位是他一生中的第一批也是最后一批朋友。象他这样整天埋头书堆的人，从书店开始到黎明时刻在妓院里结束的暴风雨般的聚会，对他真是一种启示。直到那时他还从未想到过，文艺是迄今为止用来嘲弄人的一切发明中最好的玩意儿。阿尔伐罗在一天晚宴中就是这样说的。过了一些时候奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚才想到明白，此说来源于博学的加泰隆尼亚人。老头子认为：知识要是不能用来发明一种烹饪鹰嘴豆的方法，那就一文不值了。
奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚发表关于蟑螂的演说的那天下午，辩论是在马孔多镇边一个妓院里结束的，姑娘们因为饥饿都睡觉去了。鸨母是一个面带笑容的、假惺惺的人，不断的开门关门使她有些不耐烦。她脸上的笑容似乎是为容易上当的主顾装出来的，主顾们却认真地领受这种微笑，而这种微笑只是一种幻觉，实际上并不存在，因为这里可以触摸的一切东西都是不真实的：这里的椅子，人一坐上去就会散架；留声机里的零件换上了一只抱蛋的母鸡，花园里都是纸花，日历上的日子还是香蕉公司来到之前的日子，画框里镶着的画是从没有出版过的杂志上剪下来的，就拿附近地区来的那些羞怯的小娘儿们来说，鸨母一喊接客，她们除了装模作样，什么也不会干。她们穿着五年前剩下的瘦小的花布衫出现在嫖客面前，一句问候的话也不说，她们天真无邪地穿上这些衣服，同样天真无邪地脱去这些衣服。情欲达到高潮时，她们会大叫“天哪”，并且看着天花板如何坍塌下来。拿到一比索五十生地之后，她们便立刻去向鸨母买夹干酪的面包卷来吃。那时鸨母会笑得更甜了，因为只有她知道，那些食物也都是骗人货。奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚当时的生活，开头是阅读梅尔加德斯的手稿，最后是到尼格罗曼塔的床上。他在妓院里，发现了一种医治羞怯症的笨办法。起初，他毫无进展，他呆在房间里，鸨母在他们兴致正浓的时刻走进来，把相亲相爱的迷人之处向他俩作一番介绍。不过，时间一长，他开始熟悉人世间的不幸了，因此在一天夜里，情况比往常更加令人心神不定，他在小小的接待室里脱光了衣服，拿着一瓶啤酒，以他那不可思议的男子气概，跑着穿过那座房子。奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚把鸨母始终笑脸迎客的态度看做一种时髦作风，既不反对，也不相信，就象杰尔曼为了证明房子并不存在而要烧掉房子一样，也象阿尔丰索拧断鹦鹉的脖子，扔进滚沸的炖锅里一样，他都无动于衷。
奥雷连诺·布恩蒂亚感到，有一种共同的感情和友谊把他跟四位朋友联结在一起，他一想到他们，就仿佛他们是一个人。尽管如此，他还是比较接近加布里埃尔。这种关系是一天晚上产生的，当时他偶然提到了奥雷连诺上校，只有加布里埃尔一个人认为他不是在说笑话。甚至通常并不参加争论的鸨母，也摆出一副太太们特有的激愤样儿，争辩地说：她有时确实听说过奥雷连诺上校这个人
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parlor
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cello
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| n.大提琴 | |
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denim
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| n.斜纹棉布；斜纹棉布裤，牛仔裤 | |
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overalls
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| n.（复）工装裤；长罩衣 | |
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scattered
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| adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的 | |
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uprooted
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| v.把（某物）连根拔起( uproot的过去式和过去分词 )；根除；赶走；把…赶出家园 | |
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mementos
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| 纪念品，令人回忆的东西( memento的名词复数 ) | |
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superstition
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| n.迷信，迷信行为 | |
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gratitude
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daguerreotype
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apparitions
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| n.特异景象( apparition的名词复数 )；幽灵；鬼；（特异景象等的）出现 | |
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superstitious
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| adj.迷信的 | |
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emancipated
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provocative
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| adj.挑衅的，煽动的，刺激的，挑逗的 | |
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primitive
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| adj.原始的；简单的；n.原(始)人，原始事物 | |
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subscribed
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leash
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| n.牵狗的皮带，束缚；v.用皮带系住 | |
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extermination
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isles
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| 岛( isle的名词复数 ) | |
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lamentable
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| adj.令人惋惜的，悔恨的 | |
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frustrated
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| adj.挫败的，失意的，泄气的v.使不成功( frustrate的过去式和过去分词 )；挫败；使受挫折；令人沮丧 | |
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22
rust
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| n.锈；v.生锈；(脑子)衰退 | |
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23
undertakings
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| 企业( undertaking的名词复数 )； 保证； 殡仪业； 任务 | |
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24
awaken
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| vi.醒，觉醒；vt.唤醒，使觉醒，唤起，激起 | |
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25
reconstruction
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| n.重建，再现，复原 | |
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26
dissuade
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| v.劝阻，阻止 | |
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27
intrepid
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| adj.无畏的，刚毅的 | |
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28
maneuver
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| n.策略[pl.]演习；v.(巧妙)控制；用策略 | |
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29
aluminum
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| n.(aluminium)铝 | |
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30
moors
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| v.停泊，系泊（船只）( moor的第三人称单数 ) | |
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31
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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32
scented
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| adj.有香味的；洒香水的；有气味的v.嗅到(scent的过去分词) | |
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33
virgin
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| n.处女，未婚女子；adj.未经使用的；未经开发的 | |
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34
evoked
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| [医]诱发的 | |
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35
nostalgia
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| n.怀乡病，留恋过去，怀旧 | |
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36
tenacity
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| n.坚韧 | |
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37
dissected
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| adj.切开的，分割的，（叶子）多裂的v.解剖（动物等）( dissect的过去式和过去分词 )；仔细分析或研究 | |
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38
crossword
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| n.纵横字谜，纵横填字游戏 | |
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39
pretext
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| n.借口，托词 | |
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40
drowsiness
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| n.睡意；嗜睡 | |
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41
siesta
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| n.午睡 | |
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42
iguana
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| n.美洲大蜥蜴，鬣鳞蜥 | |
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43
tilted
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| v. 倾斜的 | |
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44
hereditary
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| adj.遗传的，遗传性的，可继承的，世袭的 | |
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45
vice
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| n.坏事；恶习；[pl.]台钳，老虎钳；adj.副的 | |
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46
festive
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| adj.欢宴的，节日的 | |
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47
sketches
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| n.草图( sketch的名词复数 )；素描；速写；梗概 | |
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48
pact
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| n.合同，条约，公约，协定 | |
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49
encyclopedia
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| n.百科全书 | |
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50
avidly
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| adv.渴望地，热心地 | |
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51
dedicated
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| adj.一心一意的；献身的；热诚的 | |
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52
denser
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| adj. 不易看透的, 密集的, 浓厚的, 愚钝的 | |
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53
postpone
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| v.延期，推迟 | |
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54
determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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55
enchanted
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| adj. 被施魔法的，陶醉的，入迷的 动词enchant的过去式和过去分词 | |
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56
coastal
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| adj.海岸的，沿海的，沿岸的 | |
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57
justify
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| vt.证明…正当(或有理)，为…辩护 | |
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58
licenses
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| n.执照( license的名词复数 )v.批准，许可，颁发执照( license的第三人称单数 ) | |
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59
meditations
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| 默想( meditation的名词复数 )； 默念； 沉思； 冥想 | |
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60
radical
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| n.激进份子，原子团，根号；adj.根本的，激进的，彻底的 | |
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61
solitary
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| adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士 | |
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62
annihilated
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| v.（彻底）消灭( annihilate的过去式和过去分词 )；使无效；废止；彻底击溃 | |
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63
splendor
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| n.光彩；壮丽，华丽；显赫，辉煌 | |
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64
anguished
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| adj.极其痛苦的v.使极度痛苦(anguish的过去式) | |
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65
prostrate
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| v.拜倒，平卧，衰竭；adj.拜倒的，平卧的，衰竭的 | |
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66
revels
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| n.作乐( revel的名词复数 )；狂欢；着迷；陶醉v.作乐( revel的第三人称单数 )；狂欢；着迷；陶醉 | |
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67
maze
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| n.迷宫，八阵图，混乱，迷惑 | |
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68
afflicted
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| 使受痛苦，折磨( afflict的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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69
miserable
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| adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的 | |
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70
deserted
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| adj.荒芜的，荒废的，无人的，被遗弃的 | |
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71
adorned
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| [计]被修饰的 | |
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72
psalms
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| n.赞美诗( psalm的名词复数 )；圣诗；圣歌；(中的) | |
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73
hips
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| abbr.high impact polystyrene 高冲击强度聚苯乙烯，耐冲性聚苯乙烯n.臀部( hip的名词复数 )；[建筑学]屋脊；臀围（尺寸）；臀部…的 | |
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74
mare
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| n.母马，母驴 | |
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75
fortified
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| adj. 加强的 | |
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76
lure
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| n.吸引人的东西，诱惑物；vt.引诱，吸引 | |
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77
owls
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| n.猫头鹰( owl的名词复数 ) | |
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78
misery
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| n.痛苦，苦恼，苦难；悲惨的境遇，贫苦 | |
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79
culmination
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| n.顶点；最高潮 | |
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80
pretexts
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| n.借口，托辞( pretext的名词复数 ) | |
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81
squelch
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| v.压制，镇压；发吧唧声 | |
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82
torment
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| n.折磨；令人痛苦的东西(人)；vt.折磨；纠缠 | |
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83
eluded
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| v.（尤指机敏地）避开( elude的过去式和过去分词 )；逃避；躲避；使达不到 | |
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84
tribulation
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| n.苦难，灾难 | |
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85
stony
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| adj.石头的，多石头的，冷酷的，无情的 | |
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86
agonizing
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| adj.痛苦难忍的；使人苦恼的v.使极度痛苦；折磨(agonize的ing形式) | |
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87
bellies
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| n.肚子( belly的名词复数 )；腹部；（物体的）圆形或凸起部份；腹部…形的 | |
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88
sob
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| n.空间轨道的轰炸机；呜咽，哭泣 | |
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89
sobbing
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| <主方>Ⅰ adj.湿透的 | |
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90
eternity
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| n.不朽，来世；永恒，无穷 | |
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91
pricked
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| 刺，扎，戳( prick的过去式和过去分词 )； 刺伤； 刺痛； 使剧痛 | |
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92
uncertainty
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| n.易变，靠不住，不确知，不确定的事物 | |
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93
seismic
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| a.地震的，地震强度的 | |
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94
snails
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| n.蜗牛；迟钝的人；蜗牛( snail的名词复数 ) | |
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95
crabs
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| n.蟹( crab的名词复数 )；阴虱寄生病；蟹肉v.捕蟹( crab的第三人称单数 ) | |
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96
zinc
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| n.锌；vt.在...上镀锌 | |
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97
confided
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| v.吐露（秘密，心事等）( confide的过去式和过去分词 )；（向某人）吐露（隐私、秘密等） | |
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98
strictly
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| adv.严厉地，严格地；严密地 | |
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99
ranting
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| v.夸夸其谈( rant的现在分词 )；大叫大嚷地以…说教；气愤地)大叫大嚷；不停地大声抱怨 | |
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100
cockroach
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| n.蟑螂 | |
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101
cockroaches
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| n.蟑螂( cockroach的名词复数 ) | |
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102
malice
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| n.恶意，怨恨，蓄意；[律]预谋 | |
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103
slippers
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| n. 拖鞋 | |
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104
testament
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| n.遗嘱；证明 | |
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105
resistant
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| adj.(to)抵抗的，有抵抗力的 | |
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106
dices
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| n.骰子( dice的名词复数 )；掷骰子游戏v.将…切成小方块，切成丁( dice的第三人称单数 ) | |
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107
tenacious
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| adj.顽强的，固执的，记忆力强的，粘的 | |
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108
persecution
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| n. 迫害,烦扰 | |
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109
unleashed
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| v.把（感情、力量等）释放出来，发泄( unleash的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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110
susceptible
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| adj.过敏的，敏感的；易动感情的，易受感动的 | |
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111
killing
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| n.巨额利润；突然赚大钱，发大财 | |
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112
outskirts
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| n.郊外，郊区 | |
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113
tormented
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| 饱受折磨的 | |
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114
mania
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| n.疯狂；躁狂症，狂热，癖好 | |
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115
tangible
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| adj.有形的，可触摸的，确凿的，实际的 | |
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116
innocence
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| n.无罪；天真；无害 | |
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117
protagonists
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| n.（戏剧的）主角( protagonist的名词复数 )；（故事的）主人公；现实事件（尤指冲突和争端的）主要参与者；领导者 | |
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118
celebrated
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| adj.有名的，声誉卓著的 | |
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119
wrung
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| 绞( wring的过去式和过去分词 )； 握紧（尤指别人的手）； 把（湿衣服）拧干； 绞掉（水） | |
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120
stew
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| n.炖汤，焖，烦恼；v.炖汤，焖，忧虑 | |
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121
solidarity
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| n.团结；休戚相关 | |
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122
casually
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| adv.漠不关心地，无动于衷地，不负责任地 | |
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123
fickle
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| adj.(爱情或友谊上)易变的，不坚定的 | |
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124
repudiate
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| v.拒绝，拒付，拒绝履行 | |
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125
hemmed
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| 缝…的褶边( hem的过去式和过去分词 )； 包围 | |
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126
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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127
judicial
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| adj.司法的，法庭的，审判的，明断的，公正的 | |
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128
affected
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| adj.不自然的，假装的 | |
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129
vertical
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| adj.垂直的，顶点的，纵向的；n.垂直物，垂直的位置 | |
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130
enchantments
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| n.魅力( enchantment的名词复数 )；迷人之处；施魔法；着魔 | |
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131
scrutiny
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| n.详细检查，仔细观察 | |
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132
precisely
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| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
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133
decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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134
irresistible
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| adj.非常诱人的，无法拒绝的，无法抗拒的 | |
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135
disturbance
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| n.动乱，骚动；打扰，干扰；(身心)失调 | |
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136
petrified
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| 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) | |
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137
momentary
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| adj.片刻的，瞬息的；短暂的 | |
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138
scrutinize
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| n.详细检查，细读 | |
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139
shipping
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| n.船运（发货，运输，乘船） | |
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140
insinuated
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| v.暗示( insinuate的过去式和过去分词 )；巧妙或迂回地潜入；（使）缓慢进入；慢慢伸入 | |
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141
mutual
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| adj.相互的，彼此的；共同的，共有的 | |
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142
reiterated
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| 反复地说，重申( reiterate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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143
meek
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| adj.温顺的，逆来顺受的 | |
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144
meekness
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| n.温顺，柔和 | |
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145
malicious
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| adj.有恶意的，心怀恶意的 | |
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146
conformity
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| n.一致，遵从，顺从 | |
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147
tedium
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| n.单调；烦闷 | |
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148
perverse
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| adj.刚愎的；坚持错误的，行为反常的 | |
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149
jealousy
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| n.妒忌，嫉妒，猜忌 | |
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150
spine
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| n.脊柱，脊椎；(动植物的)刺；书脊 | |
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151
orphaned
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| [计][修]孤立 | |
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152
intestine
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| adj.内部的；国内的；n.肠 | |
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153
parasitic
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| adj.寄生的 | |
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154
astuteness
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| n.敏锐；精明；机敏 | |
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155
ransacked
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| v.彻底搜查( ransack的过去式和过去分词 )；抢劫，掠夺 | |
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156
vestige
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| n.痕迹，遗迹，残余 | |
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157
salon
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| n.[法]沙龙；客厅；营业性的高级服务室 | |
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158
deafening
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| adj. 振耳欲聋的, 极喧闹的 动词deafen的现在分词形式 | |
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159
rattles
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| （使）发出格格的响声， （使）作嘎嘎声( rattle的第三人称单数 )； 喋喋不休地说话； 迅速而嘎嘎作响地移动，堕下或走动； 使紧张，使恐惧 | |
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gilded
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| a.镀金的，富有的 | |
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161
denseness
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| 稠密，密集，浓厚； 稠度 | |
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162
petals
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| n.花瓣( petal的名词复数 ) | |
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163
solitude
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| n. 孤独; 独居,荒僻之地,幽静的地方 | |
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164
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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futures
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| n.期货，期货交易 | |
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insidious
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| adj.阴险的，隐匿的，暗中为害的，（疾病）不知不觉之间加剧 | |
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167
snares
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| n.陷阱( snare的名词复数 )；圈套；诱人遭受失败（丢脸、损失等）的东西；诱惑物v.用罗网捕捉，诱陷，陷害( snare的第三人称单数 ) | |
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168
compassionate
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| adj.有同情心的，表示同情的 | |
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169
grandeur
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| n.伟大，崇高，宏伟，庄严，豪华 | |
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erased
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| v.擦掉( erase的过去式和过去分词 )；抹去；清除 | |
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171
pensive
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| a.沉思的,哀思的,忧沉的 | |
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172
smuggler
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| n.走私者 | |
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173
maternal
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| adj.母亲的，母亲般的，母系的，母方的 | |
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174
captivity
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| n.囚禁；被俘；束缚 | |
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175
crumble
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| vi.碎裂，崩溃；vt.弄碎，摧毁 | |
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176
sobs
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| 啜泣（声），呜咽（声）( sob的名词复数 ) | |
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nuptial
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| adj.婚姻的，婚礼的 | |
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178
brutal
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| adj.残忍的，野蛮的，不讲理的 | |
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179
tug
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| v.用力拖(或拉)；苦干；n.拖；苦干；拖船 | |
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loomed
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| v.隐约出现，阴森地逼近( loom的过去式和过去分词 )；隐约出现，阴森地逼近 | |
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181
moles
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| 防波堤( mole的名词复数 )； 鼹鼠； 痣； 间谍 | |
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182
fragrant
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| adj.芬香的，馥郁的，愉快的 | |
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183
scorpion
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| n.蝎子，心黑的人，蝎子鞭 | |
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184
gasp
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| n.喘息，气喘；v.喘息；气吁吁他说 | |
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185
meager
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| adj.缺乏的，不足的，瘦的 | |
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186
evasions
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| 逃避( evasion的名词复数 )； 回避； 遁辞； 借口 | |
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187
petunias
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| n.矮牵牛（花）( petunia的名词复数 ) | |
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188
reconciliation
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| n.和解，和谐，一致 | |
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189
aquarium
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| n.水族馆，养鱼池，玻璃缸 | |
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190
savage
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| adj.野蛮的；凶恶的，残暴的；n.未开化的人 | |
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191
meticulous
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| adj.极其仔细的，一丝不苟的 | |
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192
irrational
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| adj.无理性的，失去理性的 | |
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193
warfare
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| n.战争(状态)；斗争；冲突 | |
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194
adversaries
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| n.对手，敌手( adversary的名词复数 ) | |
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195
accomplices
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| 从犯，帮凶，同谋( accomplice的名词复数 ) | |
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196
degenerated
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| 衰退，堕落，退化( degenerate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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197
gambol
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| v.欢呼，雀跃 | |
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198
caresses
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| 爱抚，抚摸( caress的名词复数 ) | |
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199
mischief
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| n.损害，伤害，危害；恶作剧，捣蛋，胡闹 | |
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200
defense
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| n.防御，保卫；[pl.]防务工事；辩护，答辩 | |
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201
commotion
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| n.骚动，动乱 | |
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202
defensive
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| adj.防御的；防卫的；防守的 | |
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203
demolished
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| v.摧毁( demolish的过去式和过去分词 )；推翻；拆毁（尤指大建筑物）；吃光 | |
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