Chapter V

For some considerable time I heard nothing of Pursewarden’s sister, though I knew that she was still up at the summer legation. As for Mountolive, his visits were recorded among the office memoranda¹, so that I knew he came up from Cairo for the night about every ten days. For a while I half expected a signal from him, but as time wore on I almost began to forget his existence as presumably he had forgotten mine. So it was that her voice, when first it floated over the office telephone, came as an unexpected intrusion — a surprise in a world where surprises were few and not unwelcome. A curiously² disembodied voice which might have been that of uncertain adolescence³, saying: ‘I think you know of me. As a friend of my brother I would like to talk to you.’ The invitation to dinner the following evening she described as ‘private, informal and unofficial’ which suggested to me that Mountolive himself would be present. I felt the stirring of an unusual curiosity as I walked up the long drive with its very English hedges of box, and through the small coppice of pines which encircled the summer residence. It was an airless hot night — such as must presage⁴ the gathering⁵ of a khamseen somewhere in the desert which would later roll its dust clouds down the city’s streets and squares like pillars of smoke. But as yet the night air was harsh and clear. I rang the bell twice without result, and was beginning to think that perhaps it might be out of order when I heard a soft swift step inside. The door opened and there stood Liza with an expression of triumphant⁶ eagerness on her blind face. I found her extraordinarily⁷ beautiful at first sight, though a little on the short side. She wore a dress of some dark soft stuff with a collar cut very wide, out of which her slender throat and head rose as if out of the corolla of a flower. She stood before me with her face thrown upwards⁸, forwards — with an air of spectral⁹ bravery — as if presenting her lovely neck to an invisible executioner. As I uttered my own name she smiled and nodded and repeated it back to me in a whisper tense as a thread. ‘Thank goodness, at last you have come’ she said, as though she had lived in the expectation of my visit for years! As I stepped forward she added quickly ‘Please forgive me if I…. It is my only way of knowing.’ And I suddenly felt her soft warm fingers on my face, moving swiftly over it as if spelling it out, I felt a stirring of some singular unease, composed of sensuality and disgust, as these expert fingers travelled over my cheeks and lips. Her hands were small and well-shaped; the fingers conveyed an extraordinary impression of delicacy¹⁰, for they appeared to turn up slightly at the ends to present their white pads, like antennae¹¹, to the world. I had once seen a world-famous pianist with just such fingers, so sensitive that they appeared to grow into the keyboard as he touched it. She gave a small sigh, as if of relief, and taking me by the wrist drew me across the hall and into the living-room with its expensive and featureless official furniture where Mountolive stood in front of the fireplace with an air of uneasy concern. Somewhere a radio softly played. We shook hands and in his handclasp I felt something infirm, indecisive which was matched by the fugitive¹² voice in which he excused his long silence. ‘I had to wait until Liza was ready’ he said, rather mysteriously. Mountolive had changed a good deal, though he still bore all the marks of the superficial elegance¹³ which was a prerequisite¹⁴ for his work, and his clothes were fastidiously chosen — for even (I thought grimly) informal undress is still a uniform for a diplomat¹⁵. His old kindness and attentiveness¹⁶ were still there. Yet he had aged¹⁷. I noticed that he now needed reading-glasses, for they lay upon a copy of The Times beside the sofa. And he had grown a moustache which he did not trim and which had altered the shape of his mouth, and emphasized a certain finely bred feebleness of feature. It did not seem possible to imagine him ever to have been in the grip of a passion strong enough to qualify the standard responses of an education so definitive¹⁸ as his. Nor now, looking from one to the other, could I credit the suspicions which Clea had voiced about his love for this strange blind witch who now sat upon the sofa staring sightlessly at me, with her hands folded in her lap — those rapacious¹⁹, avaricious²⁰ hands of a musician. Had she coiled herself, like a small hateful snake, at the centre of his peaceful life? I accepted a drink from his fingers and found, in the warmth of his smile, that I remembered having liked and admired him. I did so still. ‘We have both been eager to see you, and particularly Liza, because she felt that you might be able to help her. But we will talk about all that later.’ And with an abrupt²¹ smoothness he turned away from the real subject of my visit to enquire²² whether my post pleased me, and whether I was happy in it. An exchange of courteous²³ pleasantries which provoked the neutral answers appropriate to them. Yet here and there were gleams of new information. ‘Liza was quite determined²⁴ you should stay here; and so we got busy to arrange it!’ Why? Simply that I should submit to a catechism about her brother, who in truth I could hardly claim to have known, and who grew more and more mysterious to me every day — less important as a personage, more and more so as an artist? It was clear that I must wait until she chose to speak her mind. Yet it was baffling to idle away the time in the exchange of superficialities. Yet these smooth informalities reigned²⁵, and to my surprise the girl herself said nothing — not a word. She sat there on the sofa, softly and attentively²⁶, as if on a cloud. She wore, I noticed, a velvet²⁷ ribbon on her throat. It occurred to me that her pallor, which had so much struck Clea, was probably due to not being able to make-up in the mirror. But Clea had been right about the shape of her mouth, for once or twice I caught an expression, cutting and sardonic²⁸, which was a replica²⁹ of her brother’s. Dinner was wheeled in by a servant, and still exchanging small talk we sat down to eat it; Liza ate swiftly, as if she were hungry, and quite unerringly, from the plate which Mountolive filled for her. I noticed when she reached for her wineglass that her expressive³⁰ fingers trembled slightly. At last, when the meal was over, Mountolive rose with an air of scarcely disguised relief and excused himself. ‘I’m going to leave you alone to talk shop to Liza. I shall have to do some work in the Chancery this evening. You will excuse me, won’t you?’ I saw an apprehensive³¹ frown shadow Liza’s face for a moment, but it vanished almost at once and was replaced by an expression which suggested something between despair and resignation. Her fingers picked softly, suggestively at the tassel³² of a cushion. When the door had closed behind him she still sat silent, but now preternaturally still, her head bent³³ downwards³⁴ as if she were trying to decipher a message written in the palm of her hand. At last she spoke³⁵ in a small cold voice, pronouncing the words incisively³⁶ as if to make her meaning plain. ‘I had no idea it would be difficult to explain when first I thought of asking your help. This book….’ There was a long silence. I saw that little drops of perspiration³⁷ had come out on her upper lip and her temples looked as if they had tightened³⁸ under stress. I felt a certain compassion³⁹ for her distress⁴⁰ and said: ‘I can’t claim to have known him well, though I saw him quite frequently. In truth, I don’t think we liked each other very much.’ ‘Originally’ she said sharply, cutting across my vagueness with impatience⁴¹ ‘I thought I might persuade you to do the book about him. But now I see that you will have to know everything. It is not easy to know where to begin. I myself doubt whether the facts of his life are possible to put down and publish. But I have been driven to think about the matter, first because his publishers insist on it — they say there is a great public demand; but mostly because of the book which this shabby journalist is writing, or has written. Keats.’ ‘Keats’ I echoed with surprise. ‘He is here somewhere I believe; but I do not know him. He has been put up to the idea by my brother’s wife. She hated him, you know, after she found out; she thought that my brother and I had between us ruined her life. Truthfully I am afraid of her. I do not know what she has told Keats, or what he will write. I see now that my original idea in having you brought here was to get you to write a book which would … disguise the truth somehow. It only became clear to me just now when I was confronted by you. It would be inexpressibly painful to me if anything got out which harmed my brother’s memory.’ Somewhere to the east I heard a grumble⁴³ of thunder. She stood up with an air of panic and after a moment’s hesitation⁴⁴ crossed to the grand piano and struck a chord. Then she banged the cover down and turned once more to me, saying: ‘I am afraid of thunder. Please may I hold your hand in a firm grip.’ Her own was deathly cold. Then, shaking back her black hair she said: ‘We were lovers, you know. That is really the meaning of his story and mine. He tried to break away. His marriage foundered⁴⁵ on this question. It was perhaps dishonest of him not to have told her the truth before he married her. Things fall out strangely. For many years we enjoyed a perfect happiness, he and I. That it ended tragically⁴⁶ is nobody’s fault I suppose. He could not free himself from my inside hold on him, though he tried and struggled. I could not free myself from him, though truthfully I never wished to until … until the day arrived which he had predicted so many years before when the man he always called “the dark stranger” arrived. He saw him so clearly when he gazed into the fire. It was David Mountolive. For a little while I did not tell him that I had fallen in love, the fated love. (David would not let me. The only person we told was Nessim’s mother. David asked my permission.) But my brother knew it quite unerringly and wrote after a long silence asking me if the stranger had come. When he got my letter he seemed suddenly to realize that our relationship might be endangered or crushed in the way his had been with his wife — not by anything we did, no, but by the simple fact of my existence. So he committed suicide. He explained it all so clearly in his last letter to me. I can recite it by heart. He said: “For so many years I have waited in anguished⁴⁹ expectation for your letter. Often, often I wrote it for you in my own head, spelling it out word by magical word. I knew that in your happiness you would at once turn to me to express a passionate⁵⁰ gratitude⁵¹ for what I had given you — for learning the meaning of all love through mine: so that when the stranger came you were ready…. And today it came! this long-awaited message, saying that he had read the letters, and I knew for the first time a sense of inexpressible relief as I read the lines. And joy — such joy as I never hoped to experience in my life — to think of you suddenly plunging⁵² into the full richness of life at last, no longer tied, manacled to the image of your tormented⁵³ brother! Blessings⁵⁴ tumbled from my lips. But then, gradually, as the cloud lifted and dispersed⁵⁵ I felt the leaden tug⁵⁶ of another truth, quite unforeseen, quite unexpected. The fear that, so long as I was still alive, still somewhere existing in the world, you would find it impossible truly to escape from the chains in which I have so cruelly held you all these years. At this fear my blood has turned chill — for I know that truthfully something much more definitive is required of me if you are ever to renounce⁵⁸ me and start living. I must really abandon you, really remove myself from the scene in a manner which would permit no further equivocation⁵⁹ in our vacillating hearts. Yes, I had anticipated the joy, but not that it would bring with it such a clear representation of certain death. This was a huge novelty! Yet it is the completest gift I can offer you as a wedding present! And if you look beyond the immediate⁶⁰ pain you will see how perfect the logic⁶¹ of love seems to one who is ready to die for it.” ’ She gave a short clear sob⁶² and hung her head. She took the handkerchief from the breast pocket of my coat and pressed it to her trembling lip. I felt stupefied by the sad weight of all this calamitous⁶³ information. I felt, in the ache of pity for Pursewarden, a new recognition of him growing up, a new enlightenment. So many things became clearer. Yet there were no words of consolation⁶⁴ or commiseration⁶⁵ which could do justice to so tragic⁴⁷ a situation. She was talking again. ‘I will give you the private letters to read so that you can advise me. These are the letters which I was not to open but was to keep until David came. He would read them to me and we would destroy them — or so he said. Is it strange — his certainty? The other ordinary letters were of course read to me in the usual way; but these private letters, and they are very many, were all pierced with a pin in the top left-hand corner. So that I could recognize them and put them aside. They are in that suitcase over there. I would like you to take them away and study them. Oh, Darley, you have not said a word. Are you prepared to help me in this dreadful predicament? I wish I could read your expression.’ ‘Of course I will help you. But just how and in what sense?’ ‘Advise me what to do! None of this would have arisen had not this shabby journalist intervened and been to see his wife.’ ‘Did your brother appoint a literary executor?’ ‘Yes. I am his executor.’ ‘Then you have a right to refuse to allow any of his unsold writings to be published while they’re in copyright. Besides, I do not see how such facts could be made public without your own permission, even in an unauthorized biography. There is no cause whatsoever⁶⁶ to worry. No writer in his senses could touch such material; no publisher in the world would undertake to print it if he did. I think the best thing I can do is to try and find out something about this book of Keats’s. Then at least you will know where you stand.’ ‘Thank you, Darley. I could not approach Keats myself because I knew he was working for her. I hate and fear her — perhaps unjustly. I suppose too that I have a feeling of having wronged her without wishing it. It was a deplorable mistake on his part not to tell her before their marriage; I think he recognized it, too, for he was determined that I should not make the same mistake when at last David appeared. Hence the private letters, which leave no one in doubt. Yet it all fell out exactly as he had planned it, had prophesied⁶⁷ it. That very first night when I told David I took him straight home to read them. We sat on the carpet in front of the gas-fire and he read them to me one by one in that unmistakable voice — the stranger’s voice.’ She gave a queer blind smile at the memory and I had a sudden compassionate⁶⁸ picture of Mountolive sitting before the fire, reading these letters in a slow faltering⁶⁹ voice, stunned⁷⁰ by the revelation of his own part in this weird⁷¹ masque, which had been planned for him years before, without his knowing. Liza sat beside me, lost in deep thought, her head hanging. Her lips moved slowly as if she were spelling something out in her own mind, following some interior recitation. I shook her hand softly as if to waken her. ‘I should leave you now’ I said softly. ‘And why should I see the private letters at all? There is no need.’ ‘Now that you know the worst and best I would like you to advise me about destroying them. It was his wish. But David feels that they belong to his writings, and that we have a duty to preserve them. I cannot make up my mind about this. You are a writer. Try and read them as a writer, as if you had written them, and then tell me whether you would wish them preserved or not. They are all together in that suitcase. There are one or two other fragments which you might help me edit if you have time or if you think them suitable. He always puzzled me — except when I had him in my arms.’ A sudden expression of savage⁷² resentment⁷³ passed across her white face. As if she had been goaded⁷⁴ by a sudden disagreeable memory. She passed her tongue over her dry lips and as we stood up together she added in a small husky voice: ‘There is one thing more. Since you have seen so far into our lives why should you not look right to the bottom? I always keep this close to me.’ Reaching down into her dress she took out a snapshot and handed it to me. It was faded and creased⁷⁵. A small child with long hair done up in ribbons sat upon a park bench, gazing with a melancholy⁷⁶ and wistful smile at the camera and holding out a white stick. It took me a moment or so to identify those troubling lines of mouth and nose as the features of Pursewarden himself and to realize that the little girl was blind. ‘Do you see her?’ said Liza in a thrilling whisper that shook the nerves by its strange tension, its mixture of savagery⁷⁷, bitterness and triumphant anguish⁴⁸. ‘Do you see her? She was our child. It was when she died that he was overcome with remorse⁷⁸ for a situation which had brought us nothing but joy before. Her death suddenly made him guilty. Our relationship foundered there; and yet it became in another way even more intense, closer. We were united by our guilt⁷⁹ from that moment. I have often asked myself why it should be so. Tremendous unbroken happiness and then … one day, like an iron shutter⁸⁰ falling, guilt.’ The word dropped like a falling star and expired in the silence. I took this unhappiest of all relics⁸¹ and pressed it into her cold hands. ‘I will take the letters’ I said. ‘Thank you’ she replied with an air now of dazed exhaustion⁸². ‘I knew we had a friend in you. I shall count on your help.’ As I softly closed the front door behind me I heard a chord struck upon the piano — a single chord which hung in the silent air, its vibrations⁸³ diminishing like an echo. As I crossed among the trees I caught a glimpse of Mountolive sneaking⁸⁴ towards the side door of the house. I suddenly divined that he had been walking up and down outside the house in an agony of apprehension⁸⁵, with the air of a schoolboy waiting outside his housemaster’s study to receive a beating. I felt a pang⁸⁶ of sympathy for him, for his weakness, for the dreadful entanglement⁸⁷ in which he had, found himself. I found to my surprise that it was still early. Clea had gone to Cairo for the day and was not expected back. I took the little suitcase to her flat and sitting on the floor unpacked⁸⁸ it. In that quiet room, by the light of her candles, I began to read the private letters with a curious interior premonition, a stirring of something like fear — so dreadful a thing is it to explore the inmost secrets of another human being’s life. Nor did this feeling diminish as I proceeded, rather it deepened into a sort of terror almost a horror of what might be coming next. The letters! Ferocious⁸⁹, sulky, brilliant, profuse⁹⁰ — the torrent⁹¹ of words in that close hand flowed on and on endlessly, studded with diamond-hard images, a wild self-analytical frenzy⁹² of despair, remorse and passion. I began to tremble as one must in the presence of a great master, to tremble and mutter. With an interior shock I realized that there was nothing in the whole length and breadth of our literature with which to compare them! Whatever other masterpieces Pursewarden may have written these letters outshone them all in their furious, unpremeditated brilliance⁹³ and prolixity⁹⁴. Literature, I say! But these were life itself, not a studied representation of it in a form — life itself, the flowing undivided stream of life with all its pitiable will-intoxicated memories, its pains, terrors and submissions⁹⁵. Here illusion and reality were fused in one single blinding vision of a perfect incorruptible passion which hung over the writer’s mind like a dark star — the star of death! The tremendous sorrow and beauty which this man expressed so easily — the terrifying abundance of his gifts — filled me with helpless despair and joy at once. The cruelty and the richness! It was as if the words poured from every pore in his body — execrations, groans⁹⁶, mixed tears of joy and despair — all welded to the fierce rapid musical notation⁹⁸ of a language perfected by its purpose. Here at last the lovers confronted one another, stripped to the bone, stripped bare. In this strange and frightening experience I caught a glimpse, for a moment, of the true Pursewarden — the man who had always eluded⁹⁹ me. I thought with shame of the shabby passages in the Justine manuscript which I had devoted¹⁰⁰ to him — to my image of him! I had, out of envy or unconscious jealousy¹⁰¹, invented a Pursewarden to criticize. In everything I had written there I had accused him only of my own weaknesses — even down to completely erroneous estimates of qualities like social inferiorities which were mine, had never been his. It was only now, tracing out the lines written by that rapid unfaltering pen, that I realized that poetic¹⁰² or transcendental knowledge somehow cancels out purely¹⁰³ relative knowledge, and that his black humours were simply ironies¹⁰⁴ due to his enigmatic knowledge whose field of operation was above, beyond that of the relative fact-finding sort. There was no answer to the questions I had raised in very truth. He had been quite right. Blind as a mole¹⁰⁶, I had been digging about in the graveyard¹⁰⁷ of relative fact piling up data, more information, and completely missing the mythopoeic reference which underlies¹⁰⁸ fact. I had called this searching for truth! Nor was there any way in which I might be instructed in the matter — save by the ironies I had found so wounding. For now I realized that his irony¹⁰⁹ was really tenderness turned inside out like a glove! And seeing Purse-warden thus, for the first time, I saw that through his work he had been seeking for the very tenderness of logic itself, of the Way Things Are; not the logic of syllogism¹¹⁰ or the tide-marks of emotions, but the real essence of fact-finding, the naked truth, the Inkling … the whole pointless Joke. Yes, Joke! I woke up with a start and swore. If two or more explanations of a single human action are as good as each other then what does action mean but an illusion — a gesture made against the misty¹¹¹ backcloth of a reality made palpable by the delusive¹¹² nature of human division merely? Had any novelist before Pursewarden considered this question? I think not. And in brooding over these terrible letters I also suddenly stumbled upon the true meaning of my own relationship to Pursewarden, and through him to all writers. I saw, in fact, that we artists form one of those pathetic human chains which human beings form to pass buckets of water up to a fire, or to bring in a lifeboat. An uninterrupted chain of humans born to explore the inward riches of the solitary¹¹³ life on behalf of the unheeding unforgiving community; manacled together by the same gift. I began to see too that the real ‘fiction’ lay neither in Arnauti’s pages nor Pursewarden’s — nor even my own. It was life itself that was a fiction — we were all saying it in our different ways, each understanding it according to his nature and gift. It was now only that I began to see how mysteriously the configuration¹¹⁴ of my own life had taken its shape from the properties of those elements which lie outside the relative life — in the kingdom which Pursewarden calls the ‘heraldic universe’. We were three writers, I now saw, confided¹¹⁵ to a mythical¹¹⁶ city from which we were to draw our nourishment¹¹⁷, in which we were to confirm our gifts. Arnauti, Pursewarden, Darley — like Past, Present and Future tense! And in my own life (the staunchless stream flowing from the wounded side of Time!) the three women who also arranged themselves as if to represent the moods of the great verb, Love: Melissa, Justine and Clea. And realizing this I was suddenly afflicted¹¹⁸ by a great melancholy and despair at recognizing the completely limited nature of my own powers, hedged about as they were by the limitations of an intelligence too powerful for itself, and lacking in sheer word-magic, in propulsion, in passion, to achieve this other world of artistic¹¹⁹ fulfilment. I had just locked those unbearable¹²⁰ letters away and was sitting in melancholy realization¹²¹ of this fact when the door opened and Clea walked in, radiant and smiling. ‘Why, Darley, what are you doing sitting in the middle of the floor in that rueful attitude? And my dear there are tears in your eyes.’ At once she was down beside me on her knees, all tenderness. ‘Tears of exasperation’ I said, and then, embracing her, ‘I have just realized that I am not an artist at all. There is not a shred¹²² of hope of my ever being one.’ ‘What on earth have you been up to?’ ‘Reading Pursewarden’s letters to Liza.’ ‘Did you see her?’ ‘Yes. Keats is writing some absurd book ——’ ‘But I just ran into him. He’s back from the desert for the night.’ I struggled to my feet. It seemed to me imperative¹²³ that I should find him and discover what I could about his project. ‘He spoke’ said Clea ‘about going round to Pombal’s for a bath. I expect you’ll find him there if you hurry.’ Keats! I thought to myself as I hurried down the street towards the flat; he was also to play his part in this shadowy representation, this tableau¹²⁴ of the artist’s life. For it is always a Keats that is chosen to interpret, to drag his trail of slime over the pitiful muddled¹²⁵ life of which the artist, with such pain, recaptures these strange solitary jewels of self-enlightenment. After those letters it seemed to me more than ever necessary that people like Keats if possible be kept away from interfering¹²⁶ in matters beyond their normal concerns. As a journalist with a romantic story (suicide is the most romantic act for an artist) he doubtless felt himself to be in the presence of what he, in the old days, would have called ‘A stunner. A Story in a Million’. I thought that I knew my Keats — but of course once more I had completely forgotten to take into account the operations of Time, for Keats had changed as we all had, and my meeting with him turned out to be as unexpected as everything else about the city. I had mislaid my key and had to ring for Hamid to open the door for me. Yes, he said, Mr. Keats was there, in the bath. I traversed the corridor and tapped at the door behind which came the sound of rushing water and a cheerful whistling. ‘By God, Darley, how splendid’ he shouted in answer to my call. ‘Come in while I dry. I heard you were back.’ Under the shower stood a Greek god! I was so surprised at the transformation¹²⁷ that I sat down abruptly¹²⁸ on the lavatory¹²⁹ and studied this … apparition¹³⁰. Keats was burnt almost black, and his hair had bleached¹³¹ white. Though slimmer, he looked in first-class physical condition. The brown skin and ashen¹³² hair had made his twinkling eyes bluer than ever. He bore absolutely no resemblance to my memories of him! ‘I just sneaked¹³³ off for the night’ he said, speaking in a new rapid and confident voice. ‘I’m developing one of those blasted desert sores on my elbow, so I got a chit and here I am. I don’t know what the hell causes them, nobody does; perhaps all the tinned muck we eat up there in the desert! But two days in Alex and an injection and presto¹³⁴! The bloody¹³⁵ thing dears up again! I say, Darley, what fun to meet again. There’s so much to tell you. This war!’ He was bubbling over with high spirits. ‘God, this water is a treat. I’ve been revelling¹³⁶.’ ‘You look in tremendous shape.’ ‘I am. I am.’ He smacked¹³⁷ himself exuberantly¹³⁸ on the buttocks ‘Golly though, it is good to come into Alex. Contrasts make you appreciate things so much better. Those tanks get so hot you feel like frying whitebait. Reach my drink, there’s a good chap.’ On the floor stood a tall glass of whisky and soda¹³⁹ with an ice cube in it. He shook the glass, holding it to his ear like a child. ‘Listen to the ice tinkling’ he cried in ecstasy¹⁴⁰. ‘Music to the soul, the tinkle¹⁴¹ of ice.’ He raised his glass, wrinkled up his nose at me and drank my health. ‘You look in quite good shape, too’ he said, and his blue eyes twinkled with a new mischievous¹⁴² light. ‘Now for some clothes and then … my dear chap, I’m rich. I’ll give you a slap-up dinner at the Petit Coin. No refusals, I’ll not be baulked. I particularly wanted to see you and talk to you. I have news.’ He positively¹⁴³ skipped into the bedroom to dress and I sat on Pombal’s bed to keep him company while he did so. His high spirits were quite infectious. He seemed hardly able to keep still. A thousand thoughts and ideas bubbled up inside him which he wanted to express simultaneously¹⁴⁴. He capered¹⁴⁵ down the stairs into the street like a schoolboy, taking the last flight at a single bound. I thought he would break into a dance along Rue⁵⁷ Fuad. ‘But seriously’ he said, squeezing my elbow so hard that it hurt. ‘Seriously, life is wonderful’ and as if to illustrate¹⁴⁶ his seriousness he burst into ringing laughter. ‘When I think how we used to brood and worry.’ Apparently¹⁴⁷ he included me in this new euphoric outlook on life. ‘How slowly we took everything, I feel ashamed to remember it!’ At the Petit Coin we secured a corner table after an amiable¹⁴⁸ altercation¹⁴⁹ with a naval¹⁵⁰ lieutenant¹⁵¹, and he at once took hold of Menotti and commanded champagne¹⁵² to be brought. Where the devil had he got this new laughing authoritative¹⁵³ manner which instantly commanded sympathetic respect without giving offence? ‘The desert!’ he said, as if in answer to my unspoken question. ‘The desert, Darley, old boy. That is something to be seen.’ From a capacious pocket he produced a copy of the Pickwick Papers. ‘Damn!’ he said. ‘I mustn’t forget to get this copy replaced. Or the crew will bloody well fry me.’ It was a sodden¹⁵⁴, dog-eared little book with a bullet hole in the cover, smeared¹⁵⁵ with oil. ‘It’s our only library, and some bastard¹⁵⁶ must have wiped himself on the middle third. I’ve sworn to replace it. Actually there’s a copy at the flat. I don’t suppose Pombal would mind my pinching it. It’s absurd. When there isn’t any action we he about reading it aloud to one another, under the stars! Absurd, my dear chap, but then everything is more absurd. More and more absurd every day.’ ‘You sound so happy’ I said, not without a certain envy. ‘Yes’ he said in a smaller voice, and suddenly, for the first time, became relatively¹⁵⁷ serious. ‘I am. Darley, let me make you a confidence. Promise not to groan⁹⁷.’ ‘I promise.’ He leaned forward and said in a whisper, his eyes twinkling, ‘I’ve become a writer at last!’ Then suddenly he gave his ringing laugh. ‘You promised not to groan’ he said. ‘I didn’t groan.’ ‘Well, you looked groany and supercilious¹⁵⁸. The proper response would have been to shout “Hurrah!” ’ ‘Don’t shout so loud or they’ll ask us to leave.’ ‘Sorry. It came over me.’ He drank a large bumper¹⁵⁹ of champagne with the air of someone toasting himself and leaned back in his chair, gazing at me quizzically with the same mischievous sparkle in his blue eyes. ‘What have you written?’ I asked. ‘Nothing’ he said, smiling. ‘Not a word as yet. It’s all up here.’ He pointed¹⁶⁰ a brown finger at his temple. ‘But now at least I know it is. Somehow whether I do or don’t actually write isn’t important — it isn’t, if you like, the whole point about becoming a writer at all, as I used to think.’ In the street outside a barrel organ began playing with its sad hollow iteration. It was a very ancient English barrel organ which old blind Arif had found on a scrap¹⁶¹ heap and had fixed¹⁶² up in a somewhat approximate manner. Whole notes misfired and several chords were hopelessly out of tune¹⁶³. ‘Listen’ said Keats, with deep emotion, ‘just listen to old Arif.’ He was in that delicious state of inspiration which only comes when champagne supervenes upon a state of fatigue¹⁶⁴ — a melancholy tipsiness which is wholly inspiriting. ‘Gosh!’ he went on in rapture¹⁶⁵, and began to sing in a very soft husky whisper, marking time with his finger, ‘Taisez-vous, petit babouin’. Then he gave a great sigh of repletion¹⁶⁶, and chose himself a cigar from Menotti’s great case of specimens¹⁶⁷, sauntering back to the table where he once more sat before me, smiling rapturously. ‘This war’ he said at last, ‘I really must tell you…. It is quite different to what I imagined it must be like.’ Under his champagne-bedizened tipsiness he had become relatively grave all at once. He said: ‘Nobody seeing it for the first time could help crying out with the whole of his rational mind in protest at it: crying out “It must stop!” My dear chap, to see the ethics¹⁶⁸ of man at his norm you must see a battlefield. The general idea may be summed up in the expressive phrase: “If you can’t eat it or **** it, then **** on it.” Two thousand years of civilization! It peels off in a flash. Scratch with your little finger and you reach the woad or the ritual war paint under the varnish¹⁶⁹! Just like that!’ He scratched the air between us languidly with his expensive cigar. ‘And yet — you know what? The most unaccountable and baffling thing. It has made a man of me, as the saying goes. More, a writer! My soul is quite clear, I suppose you could regard me as permanently¹⁷⁰ disfigured! I have begun it at last, that bloody joyful¹⁷¹ book of mine. Chapter by chapter it is forming in my old journalist’s noodle — no, not a journalist’s any more, a writer’s.’ He laughed again as if at the preposterous¹⁷² notion. ‘Darley, when I look around that … battlefield at night, I stand in an ecstasy of shame, revelling at the coloured lights, the flares¹⁷³ wallpapering the sky, and I say: “All this had to be brought about so that poor Johnny Keats could grow into a man.” That’s what. It is a complete enigma¹⁰⁵ to me, yet I am absolutely certain of it. No other way would have helped me because I was too damned stupid, do you see?’ He was silent for a while and somewhat distrait¹⁷⁴, drawing on his cigar. It was as if he were going over this last piece of conversation in his mind to consider its validity, word by word, as one tests a piece of machinery¹⁷⁵. Then he added, but with care and caution, and a certain expression of bemused concentration, like a man handling unfamiliar¹⁷⁶ terms: ‘The man of action and the man of reflection are really the same man, operating on two different fields. But to the same end! Wait, this is beginning to sound silly.’ He tapped his temple reproachfully and frowned. After a moment’s thought he went on, still frowning: ‘Shall I tell you my notion about it … the war? What I have come to believe? I believe the desire for war was first lodged¹⁷⁷ in the instincts as a biological shock-mechanism to precipitate¹⁷⁹ a spiritual crisis which couldn’t be done any other how in limited people. The less sensitive among us can hardly visualize¹⁸⁰ death, far less live joyfully¹⁸¹ with it. So the powers that arranged things for us felt they must concretize it, in order to lodge¹⁷⁸ death in the actual present. Purely helpfully, if you see what I mean!’ He laughed again, but ruefully this time. ‘Of course it is rather different now that the bystander is getting hit harder than the front-line bloke. It is unfair to the men of the tribe who would like to leave the wife and kids in relative safety before stumping¹⁸² off to this primitive¹⁸³ ordination¹⁸⁴. For my part I think the instinct has somewhat atrophied¹⁸⁵, and may be on the way out altogether; but what will they put in its place — that’s what I wonder? As for me, Darley, I can only say that no half-dozen French mistresses, no travels round the globe, no adventures in the peacetime world we knew could have grown me up so thoroughly¹⁸⁶ in half the time. You remember how I used to be? Look, I’m really an adult now — but of course ageing fast, altogether too fast! It will sound damn silly to you, but the presence of death out there as a normal feature of life — only in full acceleration¹⁸⁷ so to speak — has given me an inkling of Life Everlasting¹⁸⁸! And there was no other way I could have grasped it, damn it. Ah! well, I’ll probably get bumped off up there in full possession of my imbecility, as you might say.’ He burst out laughing once more, and gave himself three noiseless cheers, raising his cigar-hand ceremoniously at each cheer. Then he winked¹⁸⁹ carefully at me and filled his glass once more, adding with an air of vagueness the coda: ‘Life only has its full meaning to those who co-opt death!’ I could see that he was rather drunk by now, for the soothing¹⁹⁰ effects of the hot shower had worn off and the desert-fatigue had begun to reassert itself. ‘And Pursewarden?’ I said, divining the very moment at which to drop his name, like a hook, into the stream of our conversation. ‘Pursewarden!’ he echoed on a different note, which combined a melancholy sadness and affection. ‘But my dear Darley, it was something like this that he was trying to tell me, in his own rather bloody way. And I? I still blush with shame when I think of the questions I asked him. And yet his answers, which seemed so bloody enigmatic then, make perfect sense to me now. Truth is double-bladed, you see. There is no way to express it in terms of language, this strange bifurcated¹⁹¹ medium with its basic duality! Language! What is the writer’s struggle except a struggle to use a medium as precisely¹⁹² as possible, but knowing fully⁴² its basic imprecision? A hopeless task, but none the less rewarding for being hopeless. Because the task itself, the act of wrestling with an insoluble problem, grows the writer up! This was what the old bastard realized. You should read his letters to his wife. For all their brilliance how he whined¹⁹³ and cringed, how despicably he presented himself — like some Dostoievskian character beset¹⁹⁴ by some nasty compulsion neurosis! It is really staggering what a petty and trivial soul he reveals there.’ This was an amazing insight into the tormented yet wholly complete being of the letters which I myself had just read! ‘Keats’ I said, ‘for goodness’ sake tell me. Are you writing a book about him?’ Keats drank slowly and thoughtfully and replaced his glass somewhat unsteadily before saying: ‘No.’ He stroked his chin and fell silent. ‘They say you are writing something’ I persisted. He shook his head obstinately¹⁹⁵ and contemplated¹⁹⁶ his glass with a blurred¹⁹⁷ eye. ‘I wanted to’ he admitted at last, slowly. ‘I did a long review of the novels once for a small mag. The next thing I got a letter from his wife. She wanted a book done. A big rawboned Irish girl, very hysterical¹⁹⁸ and sluttish: handsome in a big way, I suppose. Always blowing her nose in an old envelope. Always in carpet slippers¹⁹⁹. I must say I felt for him. But I tumbled straight into a hornets’ nest there. She loathed²⁰⁰ him, and there seemed to be plenty to loathe²⁰¹, I must say. She gave me a great deal of information, and simply masses of letters and manuscripts. Treasure trove²⁰² all right. But, my dear chap, I couldn’t use this sort of stuff. If for no other reason than that I respect his memory and his work. No. No. I fobbed her off. Told her she would never get such things published. She seemed to want to be publicly martyred in print just to get back at him — old Pursewarden! I couldn’t do such a thing. Besides the material was quite hair-raising! I don’t want to talk about it. Really, I would never repeat the truth to a soul.’ We sat looking thoughtfully, even watchfully²⁰³ at each other, for a long moment before I spoke again. ‘Have you ever met his sister, Liza?’ Keats shook his head slowly. ‘No. What was the point? I abandoned the project right away, so there was no need to try and hear her story. I know she has a lot of manuscript stuff, because the wife told me so. But…. She is here isn’t she?’ His lip curled with the faintest suggestion of disgust. ‘Truthfully I don’t want to meet her. The bitter truth of the matter seems to me that the person old Pursewarden most loved — I mean purely spiritually — did not at all understand the state of his soul, so to speak, when he died: or even have the vaguest idea of the extent of his achievement. No, she was busy with a vulgar intrigue²⁰⁴ concerned with legalizing her relations with Mountolive. I suppose she feared that her marriage to a diplomat might be imperilled by a possible scandal. I may be wrong, but that is the impression I gathered. I believe she was going to try and get a whitewashing²⁰⁵ book written. But now, in a sense, I have my own Pursewarden, my own copy of him, if you like. It’s enough for me. What do the details matter, and why should I meet his sister? It is his work and not his life which is necessary to us — which offers one of the many meanings of the word with four faces!’ I had an impulse to cry out ‘Unfair’, but I restrained it. It is impossible in this world to arrange for full justice to be done to everyone. Keats’s eyelids²⁰⁶ drooped²⁰⁷. ‘Come’ I said, calling for the bill, ‘It’s time you went home and got some sleep.’ ‘I do feel rather tired’ he mumbled²⁰⁸. ‘Avanti.’ There was an old horse-drawn gharry in a side-street which we were glad to find. Keats protested that his feet were beginning to hurt and his arm to pain him. He was in a pleasantly exhausted²⁰⁹ frame of mind, and slightly tipsy after his potations. He lay back in the smelly old cab and closed his eyes. ‘D’you know, Darley’ he said indistinctly, ‘I meant to tell you but forgot. Don’t be angry with me, old fellow-bondsman, will you. I know that you and Clea, … Yes, and I’m glad. But I have the most curious feeling that one day I am going to marry her. Really. Don’t be silly about it. Of course I would never breathe a word, and it would happen years after this silly old war. But somewhere along the line I feel I’m bound to hitch²¹⁰ up with her.’ ‘Now what do you expect me to say?’ ‘Well, there are a hundred courses open. Myself I would start yelling and screaming at once if you said such a thing to me. I’d knock your block off, push you out of the cab, anything. I’d punch me in the eye.’ The gharry drew up with a jolt²¹¹ outside the house. ‘Here we are’ I said, and helped my companion down into the road. ‘I’m not as drunk as all that’ he cried cheerfully, shaking off my help, ‘ ’tis but fatigue, dear friend.’ And while I argued out the cost of the trip with the driver he went round and held a long private confabulation with the horse, stroking its nose. ‘I was giving it some maxims²¹² to live by’ he explained as we wound our weary way up the staircase. ‘But the champagne had muddled up my quotation-box. What’s that thing of Shakespeare’s about the lover and the cuckold all compact, seeking the bubble reputation e’en in the cannon’s mouth.’ The last phrase he pronounced in the strange (man-sawing-wood) delivery of Churchill. ‘Or something about swimmers into cleanness leaping — a pre-fab in the eternal mind no less!’ ‘You are murdering them both.’ ‘Gosh I’m tired. And there seems to be no bombardment tonight.’ ‘They are getting less frequent.’ He collapsed²¹³ on his bed fully dressed, slowly untying²¹⁴ his suede²¹⁵ desert boots and wriggling²¹⁶ with his toes until they slid slowly off and plopped to the floor. ‘Did you ever see Pursewarden’s little book called select Prayers for English Intellectuals? It was funny. “Dear Jesus, please keep me as eighteenth century as possible — but without the cd….” ’ He gave a sleepy chuckle²¹⁷, put his arms behind his head and started drifting into smiling sleep. As I turned out the light he sighed deeply and said: ‘Even the dead are overwhelming us all the time with kindnesses.’ I had a sudden picture of him as a small boy walking upon the very brink²¹⁸ of precipitous cliffs to gather seabirds’ eggs. One slip…. But I was never to see him again. Vale!

1 memoranda   

n. 备忘录, 便条 名词memorandum的复数形式

参考例句：

• There were memoranda, minutes of meetings, officialflies, notes of verbal di scussions. 有备忘录，会议记录，官方档案，口头讨论的手记。
• Now it was difficult to get him to address memoranda. 而现在，要他批阅备忘录都很困难。

2 curiously   

adv.有求知欲地；好问地；奇特地

参考例句：

• He looked curiously at the people.他好奇地看着那些人。
• He took long stealthy strides. His hands were curiously cold.他迈着悄没声息的大步。他的双手出奇地冷。

3 adolescence   

n.青春期，青少年

参考例句：

• Adolescence is the process of going from childhood to maturity.青春期是从少年到成年的过渡期。
• The film is about the trials and tribulations of adolescence.这部电影讲述了青春期的麻烦和苦恼。

4 presage   

n.预感，不祥感；v.预示

参考例句：

• The change could presage serious problems.这变化可能预示着有严重问题将要发生。
• The lowering clouds presage a storm.暗云低沉是暴风雨的前兆。

5 gathering   

n.集会，聚会，聚集

参考例句：

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

6 triumphant   

adj.胜利的，成功的；狂欢的，喜悦的

参考例句：

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

7 extraordinarily   

adv.格外地；极端地

参考例句：

• She is an extraordinarily beautiful girl.她是个美丽非凡的姑娘。
• The sea was extraordinarily calm that morning.那天清晨，大海出奇地宁静。

8 upwards   

adv.向上，在更高处...以上

参考例句：

• The trend of prices is still upwards.物价的趋向是仍在上涨。
• The smoke rose straight upwards.烟一直向上升。

9 spectral   

adj.幽灵的，鬼魂的

参考例句：

• At times he seems rather ordinary.At other times ethereal,perhaps even spectral.有时他好像很正常，有时又难以捉摸，甚至像个幽灵。
• She is compelling,spectral fascinating,an unforgettably unique performer.她极具吸引力，清幽如鬼魅，令人着迷，令人难忘，是个独具特色的演员。

10 delicacy   

n.精致，细微，微妙，精良；美味，佳肴

参考例句：

• We admired the delicacy of the craftsmanship.我们佩服工艺师精巧的手艺。
• He sensed the delicacy of the situation.他感觉到了形势的微妙。

11 antennae   

n.天线；触角

参考例句：

• Sometimes a creature uses a pair of antennae to swim.有时某些动物使用其一对触须来游泳。
• Cuba's government said that Cubans found watching American television on clandestine antennae would face three years in jail.古巴政府说那些用秘密天线收看美国电视的古巴人将面临三年监禁。

12 fugitive   

adj.逃亡的，易逝的；n.逃犯，逃亡者

参考例句：

• The police were able to deduce where the fugitive was hiding.警方成功地推断出那逃亡者躲藏的地方。
• The fugitive is believed to be headed for the border.逃犯被认为在向国境线逃窜。

13 elegance   

n.优雅；优美，雅致；精致，巧妙

参考例句：

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

14 prerequisite   

n.先决条件；adj.作为前提的，必备的

参考例句：

• Stability and unity are a prerequisite to the four modernizations.安定团结是实现四个现代化的前提。
• It is a prerequisite of entry to the profession that you pass the exams.做这一行的先决条件是要通过了有关的考试。

15 diplomat   

n.外交官，外交家；能交际的人，圆滑的人

参考例句：

• The diplomat threw in a joke, and the tension was instantly relieved.那位外交官插进一个笑话，紧张的气氛顿时缓和下来。
• He served as a diplomat in Russia before the war.战前他在俄罗斯当外交官。

16 attentiveness   

[医]注意

参考例句：

• They all helped one another with humourous attentiveness. 他们带着近于滑稽的殷勤互相周旋。 来自辞典例句
• Is not attentiveness the nature of, even the function of, Conscious? 专注不正是大我意识的本质甚或活动吗？ 来自互联网

17 aged   

adj.年老的，陈年的

参考例句：

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

18 definitive   

adj.确切的，权威性的；最后的，决定性的

参考例句：

• This book is the definitive guide to world cuisine.这本书是世界美食的权威指南。
• No one has come up with a definitive answer as to why this should be so.至于为什么该这样，还没有人给出明确的答复。

19 rapacious   

adj.贪婪的，强夺的

参考例句：

• He had a rapacious appetite for bird's nest soup.他吃燕窝汤吃个没够。
• Rapacious soldiers looted the houses in the defeated city.贪婪的士兵洗劫了被打败的城市。

20 avaricious   

adj.贪婪的，贪心的

参考例句：

• I call on your own memory as witness:remember we have avaricious hearts.假使你想要保证和证明，你可以回忆一下我们贪婪的心。
• He is so avaricious that we call him a blood sucker.他如此贪婪，我们都叫他吸血鬼。

21 abrupt   

adj.突然的，意外的；唐突的，鲁莽的

参考例句：

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

22 enquire   

v.打听，询问；调查，查问

参考例句：

• She wrote to enquire the cause of the delay.她只得写信去询问拖延的理由。
• We will enquire into the matter.我们将调查这事。

23 courteous   

adj.彬彬有礼的，客气的

参考例句：

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

24 determined   

adj.坚定的；有决心的

参考例句：

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

25 reigned   

vi.当政，统治（reign的过去式形式）

参考例句：

• Silence reigned in the hall. 全场肃静。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• Night was deep and dead silence reigned everywhere. 夜深人静，一片死寂。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

26 attentively   

adv.聚精会神地；周到地；谛；凝神

参考例句：

• She listened attentively while I poured out my problems. 我倾吐心中的烦恼时，她一直在注意听。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• She listened attentively and set down every word he said. 她专心听着，把他说的话一字不漏地记下来。 来自《简明英汉词典》

27 velvet   

n.丝绒，天鹅绒；adj.丝绒制的，柔软的

参考例句：

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

28 sardonic   

adj.嘲笑的，冷笑的，讥讽的

参考例句：

• She gave him a sardonic smile.她朝他讥讽地笑了一笑。
• There was a sardonic expression on her face.她脸上有一种嘲讽的表情。

29 replica   

n.复制品

参考例句：

• The original conservatory has been rebuilt in replica.温室已按原样重建。
• The young artist made a replica of the famous painting.这位年轻的画家临摹了这幅著名的作品。

30 expressive   

adj.表现的，表达…的，富于表情的

参考例句：

• Black English can be more expressive than standard English.黑人所使用的英语可能比正式英语更有表现力。
• He had a mobile,expressive,animated face.他有一张多变的，富于表情的，生动活泼的脸。

31 apprehensive   

adj.担心的，恐惧的，善于领会的

参考例句：

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

32 tassel   

n.流苏，穗；v.抽穗， （玉米）长穗须

参考例句：

• The corn has begun to tassel.玉米开始长出穗状雄花。
• There are blue tassels on my curtains.我的窗帘上有蓝色的流苏。

33 bent   

n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的

参考例句：

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

34 downwards   

adj./adv.向下的（地），下行的（地）

参考例句：

• He lay face downwards on his bed.他脸向下伏在床上。
• As the river flows downwards,it widens.这条河愈到下游愈宽。

35 spoke   

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

参考例句：

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

36 incisively   

adv.敏锐地，激烈地

参考例句：

• Incisively, she said, "I have no idea." 斩截地：“那可不知道。” 来自汉英文学 - 围城
• He was incisively critical. 他受到了尖锐的批评。 来自互联网

37 perspiration   

n.汗水；出汗

参考例句：

• It is so hot that my clothes are wet with perspiration.天太热了，我的衣服被汗水湿透了。
• The perspiration was running down my back.汗从我背上淌下来。

38 tightened   

收紧( tighten的过去式和过去分词 )； （使）变紧； （使）绷紧； 加紧

参考例句：

• The rope holding the boat suddenly tightened and broke. 系船的绳子突然绷断了。
• His index finger tightened on the trigger but then relaxed again. 他的食指扣住扳机，然后又松开了。

39 compassion   

n.同情，怜悯

参考例句：

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

40 distress   

n.苦恼，痛苦，不舒适；不幸；vt.使悲痛

参考例句：

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

41 impatience   

n.不耐烦，急躁

参考例句：

• He expressed impatience at the slow rate of progress.进展缓慢，他显得不耐烦。
• He gave a stamp of impatience.他不耐烦地跺脚。

42 fully   

adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地

参考例句：

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

43 grumble   

vi.抱怨；咕哝；n.抱怨，牢骚；咕哝，隆隆声

参考例句：

• I don't want to hear another grumble from you.我不愿再听到你的抱怨。
• He could do nothing but grumble over the situation.他除了埋怨局势之外别无他法。

44 hesitation   

n.犹豫，踌躇

参考例句：

• After a long hesitation, he told the truth at last.踌躇了半天，他终于直说了。
• There was a certain hesitation in her manner.她的态度有些犹豫不决。

45 foundered   

v.创始人( founder的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• Three ships foundered in heavy seas. 三艘船在波涛汹涌的海面上沉没了。 来自辞典例句
• The project foundered as a result of lack of finance. 该项目因缺乏资金而告吹。 来自辞典例句

46 tragically   

adv. 悲剧地，悲惨地

参考例句：

• Their daughter was tragically killed in a road accident. 他们的女儿不幸死于车祸。
• Her father died tragically in a car crash. 她父亲在一场车祸中惨死。

47 tragic   

adj.悲剧的，悲剧性的，悲惨的

参考例句：

• The effect of the pollution on the beaches is absolutely tragic.污染海滩后果可悲。
• Charles was a man doomed to tragic issues.查理是个注定不得善终的人。

48 anguish   

n.(尤指心灵上的)极度痛苦，烦恼

参考例句：

• She cried out for anguish at parting.分手时，她由于痛苦而失声大哭。
• The unspeakable anguish wrung his heart.难言的痛苦折磨着他的心。

49 anguished   

adj.极其痛苦的v.使极度痛苦(anguish的过去式)

参考例句：

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

50 passionate   

adj.热情的，热烈的，激昂的，易动情的，易怒的，性情暴躁的

参考例句：

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

51 gratitude   

adj.感激，感谢

参考例句：

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

52 plunging   

adj.跳进的，突进的v.颠簸( plunge的现在分词 )；暴跌；骤降；突降

参考例句：

• War broke out again, plunging the people into misery and suffering. 战祸复发，生灵涂炭。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• He is plunging into an abyss of despair. 他陷入了绝望的深渊。 来自《简明英汉词典》

53 tormented   

饱受折磨的

参考例句：

• The knowledge of his guilt tormented him. 知道了自己的罪责使他非常痛苦。
• He had lain awake all night, tormented by jealousy. 他彻夜未眠，深受嫉妒的折磨。

54 blessings   

n.（上帝的）祝福( blessing的名词复数 )；好事；福分；因祸得福

参考例句：

• Afflictions are sometimes blessings in disguise. 塞翁失马，焉知非福。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• We don't rely on blessings from Heaven. 我们不靠老天保佑。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

55 dispersed   

adj. 被驱散的, 被分散的, 散布的

参考例句：

• The clouds dispersed themselves. 云散了。
• After school the children dispersed to their homes. 放学后，孩子们四散回家了。

56 tug   

v.用力拖(或拉)；苦干；n.拖；苦干；拖船

参考例句：

• We need to tug the car round to the front.我们需要把那辆车拉到前面。
• The tug is towing three barges.那只拖船正拖着三只驳船。

57 rue   

n.懊悔，芸香，后悔；v.后悔，悲伤，懊悔

参考例句：

• You'll rue having failed in the examination.你会悔恨考试失败。
• You're going to rue this the longest day that you live.你要终身悔恨不尽呢。

58 renounce   

v.放弃；拒绝承认，宣布与…断绝关系

参考例句：

• She decided to renounce the world and enter a convent.她决定弃绝尘世去当修女。
• It was painful for him to renounce his son.宣布与儿子脱离关系对他来说是很痛苦的。

59 equivocation   

n.模棱两可的话，含糊话

参考例句：

• These actions must be condemned without equivocation. 对这些行为必须毫不含糊地予以谴责。 来自辞典例句
• With caution, and with some equivocation, Bohr took a further step. 玻尔谨慎地而又有些含糊其词地采取了更深入的步骤。 来自辞典例句

60 immediate   

adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的

参考例句：

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

61 logic   

n.逻辑(学)；逻辑性

参考例句：

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

62 sob   

n.空间轨道的轰炸机；呜咽，哭泣

参考例句：

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

63 calamitous   

adj.灾难的，悲惨的；多灾多难；惨重

参考例句：

• We are exposed to the most calamitous accidents. 我们遭受着极大的灾难。 来自辞典例句
• Light reveals the subtle alteration of things, the sly or calamitous impermanence or mortal life. 事物的细微变动，人生的狡猾，倏忽无常，一一都在光中显露出来。 来自辞典例句

64 consolation   

n.安慰，慰问

参考例句：

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

65 commiseration   

n.怜悯，同情

参考例句：

• I offered him my commiseration. 我对他表示同情。
• Self- commiseration brewed in her heart. 她在心里开始自叹命苦。 来自英汉文学 - 嘉莉妹妹

66 whatsoever   

adv.（用于否定句中以加强语气）任何；pron.无论什么

参考例句：

• There's no reason whatsoever to turn down this suggestion.没有任何理由拒绝这个建议。
• All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you,do ye even so to them.你想别人对你怎样，你就怎样对人。

67 prophesied   

v.预告，预言( prophesy的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• She prophesied that she would win a gold medal. 她预言自己将赢得金牌。
• She prophesied the tragic outcome. 她预言有悲惨的结果。 来自《简明英汉词典》

68 compassionate   

adj.有同情心的，表示同情的

参考例句：

• She is a compassionate person.她是一个有同情心的人。
• The compassionate judge gave the young offender a light sentence.慈悲的法官从轻判处了那个年轻罪犯。

69 faltering   

犹豫的，支吾的，蹒跚的

参考例句：

• The economy shows no signs of faltering. 经济没有衰退的迹象。
• I canfeel my legs faltering. 我感到我的腿在颤抖。

70 stunned   

adj. 震惊的，惊讶的 动词stun的过去式和过去分词

参考例句：

• The fall stunned me for a moment. 那一下摔得我昏迷了片刻。
• The leaders of the Kopper Company were then stunned speechless. 科伯公司的领导们当时被惊得目瞪口呆。

71 weird   

adj.古怪的，离奇的；怪诞的，神秘而可怕的

参考例句：

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

72 savage   

adj.野蛮的；凶恶的，残暴的；n.未开化的人

参考例句：

• The poor man received a savage beating from the thugs.那可怜的人遭到暴徒的痛打。
• He has a savage temper.他脾气粗暴。

73 resentment   

n.怨愤，忿恨

参考例句：

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

74 goaded   

v.刺激( goad的过去式和过去分词 )；激励；（用尖棒）驱赶；驱使（或怂恿、刺激）某人

参考例句：

• Goaded beyond endurance, she turned on him and hit out. 她被气得忍无可忍，于是转身向他猛击。
• The boxers were goaded on by the shrieking crowd. 拳击运动员听见观众的喊叫就来劲儿了。 来自《简明英汉词典》

75 creased   

（使…）起折痕，弄皱( crease的过去式和过去分词 )； （皮肤）皱起，使起皱纹； 皱皱巴巴

参考例句：

• You've creased my newspaper. 你把我的报纸弄皱了。
• The bullet merely creased his shoulder. 子弹只不过擦破了他肩部的皮肤。

76 melancholy   

n.忧郁，愁思；adj.令人感伤（沮丧）的，忧郁的

参考例句：

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

77 savagery   

n.野性

参考例句：

• The police were shocked by the savagery of the attacks.警察对这些惨无人道的袭击感到震惊。
• They threw away their advantage by their savagery to the black population.他们因为野蛮对待黑人居民而丧失了自己的有利地位。

78 remorse   

n.痛恨，悔恨，自责

参考例句：

• She had no remorse about what she had said.她对所说的话不后悔。
• He has shown no remorse for his actions.他对自己的行为没有任何悔恨之意。

79 guilt   

n.犯罪；内疚；过失，罪责

参考例句：

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

80 shutter   

n.百叶窗；(照相机)快门；关闭装置

参考例句：

• The camera has a shutter speed of one-sixtieth of a second.这架照像机的快门速度达六十分之一秒。
• The shutter rattled in the wind.百叶窗在风中发出嘎嘎声。

81 relics   

[pl.］n.遗物，遗迹，遗产；遗体，尸骸

参考例句：

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

82 exhaustion   

n.耗尽枯竭，疲惫，筋疲力尽，竭尽，详尽无遗的论述

参考例句：

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

83 vibrations   

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

参考例句：

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

84 sneaking   

a.秘密的，不公开的

参考例句：

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

85 apprehension   

n.理解，领悟；逮捕，拘捕；忧虑

参考例句：

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

86 pang   

n.剧痛，悲痛，苦闷

参考例句：

• She experienced a sharp pang of disappointment.她经历了失望的巨大痛苦。
• She was beginning to know the pang of disappointed love.她开始尝到了失恋的痛苦。

87 entanglement   

n.纠缠，牵累

参考例句：

• This entanglement made Carrie anxious for a change of some sort.这种纠葛弄得嘉莉急于改变一下。
• There is some uncertainty about this entanglement with the city treasurer which you say exists.对于你所说的与市财政局长之间的纠葛,大家有些疑惑。

88 unpacked   

v.从（包裹等）中取出（所装的东西），打开行李取出( unpack的过去式和过去分词 )；拆包；解除…的负担；吐露（心事等）

参考例句：

• I unpacked my bags as soon as I arrived. 我一到达就打开行李，整理衣物。
• Our guide unpacked a picnic of ham sandwiches and offered us tea. 我们的导游打开装着火腿三明治的野餐盒，并给我们倒了些茶水。 来自辞典例句

89 ferocious   

adj.凶猛的，残暴的，极度的，十分强烈的

参考例句：

• The ferocious winds seemed about to tear the ship to pieces.狂风仿佛要把船撕成碎片似的。
• The ferocious panther is chasing a rabbit.那只凶猛的豹子正追赶一只兔子。

90 profuse   

adj.很多的，大量的，极其丰富的

参考例句：

• The hostess is profuse in her hospitality.女主人招待得十分周到。
• There was a profuse crop of hair impending over the top of his face.一大绺头发垂在他额头上。

91 torrent   

n.激流，洪流；爆发，(话语等的)连发

参考例句：

• The torrent scoured a channel down the hillside. 急流沿着山坡冲出了一条沟。
• Her pent-up anger was released in a torrent of words.她压抑的愤怒以滔滔不绝的话爆发了出来。

92 frenzy   

n.疯狂，狂热，极度的激动

参考例句：

• He was able to work the young students up into a frenzy.他能激起青年学生的狂热。
• They were singing in a frenzy of joy.他们欣喜若狂地高声歌唱。

93 brilliance   

n.光辉，辉煌，壮丽，（卓越的）才华，才智

参考例句：

• I was totally amazed by the brilliance of her paintings.她的绘画才能令我惊歎不已。
• The gorgeous costume added to the brilliance of the dance.华丽的服装使舞蹈更加光彩夺目。

94 prolixity   

n.冗长，罗嗦

参考例句：

• As we know prolixity is a big shortcoming to write articles. 众所周知，罗嗦是写文章的大忌。 来自辞典例句
• Otherwise,it will probably make misunderstanding,and make the version prolixity. 否则，就可能造成理解错误，或使译文冗长罗嗦。 来自互联网

95 submissions   

n.提交( submission的名词复数 )；屈从；归顺；向法官或陪审团提出的意见或论据

参考例句：

• The deadline for submissions to the competition will be Easter 1994. 递交参赛申请的截止时间为1994年的复活节。 来自辞典例句
• Section 556(d) allows the agency to substitute written submissions for oral direct testimony in rulemaking. 第五百五十六条第（四）款准允行政机关在规则制定中用书面提交材料替代口头的直接证言。 来自英汉非文学 - 行政法

96 groans   

n.呻吟，叹息( groan的名词复数 )；呻吟般的声音v.呻吟( groan的第三人称单数 )；发牢骚；抱怨；受苦

参考例句：

• There were loud groans when he started to sing. 他刚开始歌唱时有人发出了很大的嘘声。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• It was a weird old house, full of creaks and groans. 这是所神秘而可怕的旧宅，到处嘎吱嘎吱作响。 来自《简明英汉词典》

97 groan   

vi./n.呻吟，抱怨；(发出)呻吟般的声音

参考例句：

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

98 notation   

n.记号法，表示法，注释；[计算机]记法

参考例句：

• Music has a special system of notation.音乐有一套特殊的标记法。
• We shall find it convenient to adopt the following notation.采用下面的记号是方便的。

99 eluded   

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

参考例句：

• The sly fox nimbly eluded the dogs. 那只狡猾的狐狸灵活地躲避开那群狗。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• The criminal eluded the police. 那个罪犯甩掉了警察的追捕。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》

100 devoted   

adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的

参考例句：

• He devoted his life to the educational cause of the motherland.他为祖国的教育事业贡献了一生。
• We devoted a lengthy and full discussion to this topic.我们对这个题目进行了长时间的充分讨论。

101 jealousy   

n.妒忌，嫉妒，猜忌

参考例句：

• Some women have a disposition to jealousy.有些女人生性爱妒忌。
• I can't support your jealousy any longer.我再也无法忍受你的嫉妒了。

102 poetic   

adj.富有诗意的，有诗人气质的，善于抒情的

参考例句：

• His poetic idiom is stamped with expressions describing group feeling and thought.他的诗中的措辞往往带有描写群体感情和思想的印记。
• His poetic novels have gone through three different historical stages.他的诗情小说创作经历了三个不同的历史阶段。

103 purely   

adv.纯粹地，完全地

参考例句：

• I helped him purely and simply out of friendship.我帮他纯粹是出于友情。
• This disproves the theory that children are purely imitative.这证明认为儿童只会单纯地模仿的理论是站不住脚的。

104 ironies   

n.反语( irony的名词复数 )；冷嘲；具有讽刺意味的事；嘲弄

参考例句：

• It was one of life's little ironies. 那是生活中的一个小小的嘲弄。
• History has many ironies. 历史有许多具有讽刺意味的事。 来自《简明英汉词典》

105 enigma   

n.谜，谜一样的人或事

参考例句：

• I've known him for many years,but he remains something of an enigma to me.我与他相识多年，他仍然难以捉摸。
• Even after all the testimonies,the murder remained a enigma.即使听完了所有的证词，这件谋杀案仍然是一个谜。

106 mole   

n.胎块；痣；克分子

参考例句：

• She had a tiny mole on her cheek.她的面颊上有一颗小黑痣。
• The young girl felt very self- conscious about the large mole on her chin.那位年轻姑娘对自己下巴上的一颗大痣感到很不自在。

107 graveyard   

n.坟场

参考例句：

• All the town was drifting toward the graveyard.全镇的人都象流水似地向那坟场涌过去。
• Living next to a graveyard would give me the creeps.居住在墓地旁边会使我毛骨悚然。

108 underlies   

v.位于或存在于（某物）之下( underlie的第三人称单数 )；构成…的基础（或起因），引起

参考例句：

• I think a lack of confidence underlies his manner. 我认为他表现出的态度是因为他缺乏信心。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Try to figure out what feeling underlies your anger. 努力找出你的愤怒之下潜藏的情感。 来自辞典例句

109 irony   

n.反语，冷嘲；具有讽刺意味的事，嘲弄

参考例句：

• She said to him with slight irony.她略带嘲讽地对他说。
• In her voice we could sense a certain tinge of irony.从她的声音里我们可以感到某种讥讽的意味。

110 syllogism   

n.演绎法，三段论法

参考例句：

• The ramifications or the mystery of a syllogism can become a weariness and a bore.三段论证法的分歧或者神秘会变成一种无聊、一种麻烦。
• The unexpected bursts forth from the syllogism.三段论里常出岔子。

111 misty   

adj.雾蒙蒙的，有雾的

参考例句：

• He crossed over to the window to see if it was still misty.他走到窗户那儿，看看是不是还有雾霭。
• The misty scene had a dreamy quality about it.雾景给人以梦幻般的感觉。

112 delusive   

adj.欺骗的，妄想的

参考例句：

• Most of the people realized that their scheme was simply a delusive snare.大多数人都认识到他们的诡计不过是一个骗人的圈套。
• Everyone knows that fairy isles are delusive and illusive things,still everyone wishes they were real.明知神山缥缈，却愿其有。

113 solitary   

adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士

参考例句：

• I am rather fond of a solitary stroll in the country.我颇喜欢在乡间独自徜徉。
• The castle rises in solitary splendour on the fringe of the desert.这座城堡巍然耸立在沙漠的边际，显得十分壮美。

114 configuration   

n.结构，布局，形态，(计算机)配置

参考例句：

• Geographers study the configuration of the mountains.地理学家研究山脉的地形轮廓。
• Prices range from $119 to $199,depending on the particular configuration.价格因具体配置而异，从119美元至199美元不等。

115 confided   

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）

参考例句：

• She confided all her secrets to her best friend. 她向她最要好的朋友倾吐了自己所有的秘密。
• He confided to me that he had spent five years in prison. 他私下向我透露，他蹲过五年监狱。 来自《简明英汉词典》

116 mythical   

adj.神话的；虚构的；想像的

参考例句：

• Undeniably,he is a man of mythical status.不可否认，他是一个神话般的人物。
• Their wealth is merely mythical.他们的财富完全是虚构的。

117 nourishment   

n.食物，营养品；营养情况

参考例句：

• Lack of proper nourishment reduces their power to resist disease.营养不良降低了他们抵抗疾病的能力。
• He ventured that plants draw part of their nourishment from the air.他大胆提出植物从空气中吸收部分养分的观点。

118 afflicted   

使受痛苦，折磨( afflict的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• About 40% of the country's population is afflicted with the disease. 全国40%左右的人口患有这种疾病。
• A terrible restlessness that was like to hunger afflicted Martin Eden. 一阵可怕的、跟饥饿差不多的不安情绪折磨着马丁·伊登。

119 artistic   

adj.艺术(家)的，美术(家)的；善于艺术创作的

参考例句：

• The picture on this screen is a good artistic work.这屏风上的画是件很好的艺术品。
• These artistic handicrafts are very popular with foreign friends.外国朋友很喜欢这些美术工艺品。

120 unbearable   

adj.不能容忍的；忍受不住的

参考例句：

• It is unbearable to be always on thorns.老是处于焦虑不安的情况中是受不了的。
• The more he thought of it the more unbearable it became.他越想越觉得无法忍受。

121 realization   

n.实现；认识到，深刻了解

参考例句：

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

122 shred   

v.撕成碎片，变成碎片；n.碎布条，细片，些少

参考例句：

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

123 imperative   

n.命令，需要；规则；祈使语气；adj.强制的；紧急的

参考例句：

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

124 tableau   

n.画面，活人画（舞台上活人扮的静态画面）

参考例句：

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

125 muddled   

adj.混乱的；糊涂的；头脑昏昏然的v.弄乱，弄糟( muddle的过去式)；使糊涂；对付，混日子

参考例句：

• He gets muddled when the teacher starts shouting. 老师一喊叫他就心烦意乱。
• I got muddled up and took the wrong turning. 我稀里糊涂地拐错了弯。 来自《简明英汉词典》

126 interfering   

adj. 妨碍的 动词interfere的现在分词

参考例句：

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

127 transformation   

n.变化；改造；转变

参考例句：

• Going to college brought about a dramatic transformation in her outlook.上大学使她的观念发生了巨大的变化。
• He was struggling to make the transformation from single man to responsible husband.他正在努力使自己由单身汉变为可靠的丈夫。

128 abruptly   

adv.突然地，出其不意地

参考例句：

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

129 lavatory   

n.盥洗室，厕所

参考例句：

• Is there any lavatory in this building?这座楼里有厕所吗？
• The use of the lavatory has been suspended during take-off.在飞机起飞期间，盥洗室暂停使用。

130 apparition   

n.幽灵，神奇的现象

参考例句：

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

131 bleached   

漂白的，晒白的，颜色变浅的

参考例句：

• His hair was bleached by the sun . 他的头发被太阳晒得发白。
• The sun has bleached her yellow skirt. 阳光把她的黄裙子晒得褪色了。

132 ashen   

adj.灰的

参考例句：

• His face was ashen and wet with sweat.他面如土色，汗如雨下。
• Her ashen face showed how much the news had shocked her.她灰白的脸显示出那消息使她多么震惊。

133 sneaked   

v.潜行( sneak的过去式和过去分词 )；偷偷溜走；（儿童向成人）打小报告；告状

参考例句：

• I sneaked up the stairs. 我蹑手蹑脚地上了楼。
• She sneaked a surreptitious glance at her watch. 她偷偷看了一眼手表。

134 presto   

adv.急速地；n.急板乐段；adj.急板的

参考例句：

• With something so important,you can't just wave a wand and presto!在这么重大的问题上，你想挥动一下指挥棒，转眼就变过来,办不到！
• I just turned the piece of wire in the lock and hey presto,the door opened.我把金属丝伸到锁孔里一拧，嘿，那门就开了。

135 bloody   

adj.非常的的；流血的；残忍的；adv.很；vt.血染

参考例句：

• He got a bloody nose in the fight.他在打斗中被打得鼻子流血。
• He is a bloody fool.他是一个十足的笨蛋。

136 revelling   

v.作乐( revel的现在分词 )；狂欢；着迷；陶醉

参考例句：

• I think he's secretly revelling in all the attention. 我觉得他对于能够引起广泛的注意心里感到飘飘然。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• They were drinking and revelling all night. 他们整夜喝酒作乐。 来自《简明英汉词典》

137 smacked   

拍，打，掴( smack的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

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

138 exuberantly   

adv.兴高采烈地，活跃地，愉快地

参考例句：

• Pooch was clumsy as an ox and exuberantly affectionate. 普茨笨拙如一头公牛，可又极富于感情。 来自百科语句
• They exuberantly reclaimed a national indentity. 他们坚持不懈地要求恢复民族尊严。 来自辞典例句

139 soda   

n.苏打水；汽水

参考例句：

• She doesn't enjoy drinking chocolate soda.她不喜欢喝巧克力汽水。
• I will freshen your drink with more soda and ice cubes.我给你的饮料重加一些苏打水和冰块。

140 ecstasy   

n.狂喜，心醉神怡，入迷

参考例句：

• He listened to the music with ecstasy.他听音乐听得入了神。
• Speechless with ecstasy,the little boys gazed at the toys.小孩注视着那些玩具，高兴得说不出话来。

141 tinkle   

vi.叮当作响；n.叮当声

参考例句：

• The wine glass dropped to the floor with a tinkle.酒杯丁零一声掉在地上。
• Give me a tinkle and let me know what time the show starts.给我打个电话，告诉我演出什么时候开始。

142 mischievous   

adj.调皮的，恶作剧的，有害的，伤人的

参考例句：

• He is a mischievous but lovable boy.他是一个淘气但可爱的小孩。
• A mischievous cur must be tied short.恶狗必须拴得短。

143 positively   

adv.明确地，断然，坚决地；实在，确实

参考例句：

• She was positively glowing with happiness.她满脸幸福。
• The weather was positively poisonous.这天气着实讨厌。

144 simultaneously   

adv.同时发生地，同时进行地

参考例句：

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

145 capered   

v.跳跃，雀跃( caper的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• While dressing, he capered and clowned like a schoolboy. 他一边穿，一边象个学生似的蹦蹦跳跳地扮演起小丑来。 来自辞典例句
• The lambs capered in the meadow. 小羊在草地上蹦蹦跳跳。 来自辞典例句

146 illustrate   

v.举例说明，阐明；图解，加插图

参考例句：

• The company's bank statements illustrate its success.这家公司的银行报表说明了它的成功。
• This diagram will illustrate what I mean.这个图表可说明我的意思。

147 apparently   

adv.显然地；表面上，似乎

参考例句：

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

148 amiable   

adj.和蔼可亲的，友善的，亲切的

参考例句：

• She was a very kind and amiable old woman.她是个善良和气的老太太。
• We have a very amiable companionship.我们之间存在一种友好的关系。

149 altercation   

n.争吵，争论

参考例句：

• Throughout the entire altercation,not one sensible word was uttered.争了半天，没有一句话是切合实际的。
• The boys had an altercation over the umpire's decision.男孩子们对裁判的判决颇有争议。

150 naval   

adj.海军的，军舰的，船的

参考例句：

• He took part in a great naval battle.他参加了一次大海战。
• The harbour is an important naval base.该港是一个重要的海军基地。

151 lieutenant   

n.陆军中尉，海军上尉；代理官员，副职官员

参考例句：

• He was promoted to be a lieutenant in the army.他被提升为陆军中尉。
• He prevailed on the lieutenant to send in a short note.他说动那个副官，递上了一张简短的便条进去。

152 champagne   

n.香槟酒；微黄色

参考例句：

• There were two glasses of champagne on the tray.托盘里有两杯香槟酒。
• They sat there swilling champagne.他们坐在那里大喝香槟酒。

153 authoritative   

adj.有权威的，可相信的；命令式的；官方的

参考例句：

• David speaks in an authoritative tone.大卫以命令的口吻说话。
• Her smile was warm but authoritative.她的笑容很和蔼，同时又透着威严。

154 sodden   

adj.浑身湿透的；v.使浸透；使呆头呆脑

参考例句：

• We stripped off our sodden clothes.我们扒下了湿透的衣服。
• The cardboard was sodden and fell apart in his hands.纸板潮得都发酥了，手一捏就碎。

155 smeared   

弄脏； 玷污； 涂抹； 擦上

参考例句：

• The children had smeared mud on the walls. 那几个孩子往墙上抹了泥巴。
• A few words were smeared. 有写字被涂模糊了。

156 bastard   

n.坏蛋，混蛋；私生子

参考例句：

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

157 relatively   

adv.比较...地，相对地

参考例句：

• The rabbit is a relatively recent introduction in Australia.兔子是相对较新引入澳大利亚的物种。
• The operation was relatively painless.手术相对来说不痛。

158 supercilious   

adj.目中无人的，高傲的；adv.高傲地；n.高傲

参考例句：

• The shop assistant was very supercilious towards me when I asked for some help.我要买东西招呼售货员时，那个售货员对我不屑一顾。
• His manner is supercilious and arrogant.他非常傲慢自大。

159 bumper   

n.(汽车上的)保险杠；adj.特大的，丰盛的

参考例句：

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

160 pointed   

adj.尖的，直截了当的

参考例句：

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

161 scrap   

n.碎片；废料；v.废弃，报废

参考例句：

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

162 fixed   

adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的

参考例句：

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

163 tune   

n.调子；和谐，协调；v.调音，调节，调整

参考例句：

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

164 fatigue   

n.疲劳，劳累

参考例句：

• The old lady can't bear the fatigue of a long journey.这位老妇人不能忍受长途旅行的疲劳。
• I have got over my weakness and fatigue.我已从虚弱和疲劳中恢复过来了。

165 rapture   

n.狂喜；全神贯注；着迷；v.使狂喜

参考例句：

• His speech was received with rapture by his supporters.他的演说受到支持者们的热烈欢迎。
• In the midst of his rapture,he was interrupted by his father.他正欢天喜地，被他父亲打断了。

166 repletion   

n.充满，吃饱

参考例句：

• It is better to die of repletion than to endure hunger.饱死胜过挨饿。
• A baby vomits milk from repletion.婴儿吃饱会吐奶。

167 specimens   

n.样品( specimen的名词复数 )；范例；（化验的）抽样；某种类型的人

参考例句：

• Astronauts have brought back specimens of rock from the moon. 宇航员从月球带回了岩石标本。
• The traveler brought back some specimens of the rocks from the mountains. 那位旅行者从山上带回了一些岩石标本。 来自《简明英汉词典》

168 ethics   

n.伦理学；伦理观，道德标准

参考例句：

• The ethics of his profession don't permit him to do that.他的职业道德不允许他那样做。
• Personal ethics and professional ethics sometimes conflict.个人道德和职业道德有时会相互抵触。

169 varnish   

n.清漆；v.上清漆；粉饰

参考例句：

• He tried to varnish over the facts,but it was useless.他想粉饰事实，但那是徒劳的。
• He applied varnish to the table.他给那张桌子涂上清漆。

170 permanently   

adv.永恒地，永久地，固定不变地

参考例句：

• The accident left him permanently scarred.那次事故给他留下了永久的伤疤。
• The ship is now permanently moored on the Thames in London.该船现在永久地停泊在伦敦泰晤士河边。

171 joyful   

adj.欢乐的，令人欢欣的

参考例句：

• She was joyful of her good result of the scientific experiments.她为自己的科学实验取得好成果而高兴。
• They were singing and dancing to celebrate this joyful occasion.他们唱着、跳着庆祝这令人欢乐的时刻。

172 preposterous   

adj.荒谬的，可笑的

参考例句：

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

173 flares   

n.喇叭裤v.（使）闪耀( flare的第三人称单数 )；（使）（船舷）外倾；（使）鼻孔张大；（使）（衣裙、酒杯等）呈喇叭形展开

参考例句：

• The side of a ship flares from the keel to the deck. 船舷从龙骨向甲板外倾。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He's got a fiery temper and flares up at the slightest provocation. 他是火爆性子，一点就着。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

174 distrait   

adj.心不在焉的

参考例句：

• The distrait boy is always losing his books.这个心不在焉的男孩老是丢书。
• The distrait actress fluffed her lines.那位心不在焉的女演员忘了台词。

175 machinery   

n.(总称)机械，机器；机构

参考例句：

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

176 unfamiliar   

adj.陌生的，不熟悉的

参考例句：

• I am unfamiliar with the place and the people here.我在这儿人地生疏。
• The man seemed unfamiliar to me.这人很面生。

177 lodged   

v.存放( lodge的过去式和过去分词 )；暂住；埋入；（权利、权威等）归属

参考例句：

• The certificate will have to be lodged at the registry. 证书必须存放在登记处。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Our neighbours lodged a complaint against us with the police. 我们的邻居向警方控告我们。 来自《简明英汉词典》

178 lodge   

v.临时住宿，寄宿，寄存，容纳；n.传达室，小旅馆

参考例句：

• Is there anywhere that I can lodge in the village tonight?村里有我今晚过夜的地方吗？
• I shall lodge at the inn for two nights.我要在这家小店住两个晚上。

179 precipitate   

adj.突如其来的；vt.使突然发生；n.沉淀物

参考例句：

• I don't think we should make precipitate decisions.我认为我们不应该贸然作出决定。
• The king was too precipitate in declaring war.国王在宣战一事上过于轻率。

180 visualize   

vt.使看得见，使具体化，想象，设想

参考例句：

• I remember meeting the man before but I can't visualize him.我记得以前见过那个人，但他的样子我想不起来了。
• She couldn't visualize flying through space.她无法想像在太空中飞行的景象。

181 joyfully   

adv. 喜悦地, 高兴地

参考例句：

• She tripped along joyfully as if treading on air. 她高兴地走着，脚底下轻飘飘的。
• During these first weeks she slaved joyfully. 在最初的几周里，她干得很高兴。

182 stumping   

僵直地行走，跺步行走( stump的现在分词 )； 把（某人）难住； 使为难； （选举前）在某一地区作政治性巡回演说

参考例句：

• She's tired of stumping up for school fees, books and uniform. 她讨厌为学费、课本和校服掏腰包。
• But Democrats and Republicans are still dumping stumping for the young. 但是民主党和共和党依然向年轻人发表演说以争取他们的支持。

183 primitive   

adj.原始的；简单的；n.原(始)人，原始事物

参考例句：

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

184 ordination   

n.授任圣职

参考例句：

• His ordination gives him the right to conduct a marriage or a funeral.他的晋升圣职使他有权主持婚礼或葬礼。
• The vatican said the ordination places the city's catholics in a "very delicate and difficult decision."教廷说，这个任命使得这个城市的天主教徒不得不做出“非常棘手和困难的决定”。

185 atrophied   

adj.萎缩的，衰退的v.（使）萎缩，（使）虚脱，（使）衰退( atrophy的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• Patients exercised their atrophied limbs in the swimming pool. 病人们在泳池里锻炼萎缩的四肢。 来自辞典例句
• Method: Using microwave tissue thermocoaqulation to make chronic tonsillitis coagulated and atrophied. 方法：采用微波热凝方法使慢性扁桃体炎组织凝固、萎缩。 来自互联网

186 thoroughly   

adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地

参考例句：

• The soil must be thoroughly turned over before planting.一定要先把土地深翻一遍再下种。
• The soldiers have been thoroughly instructed in the care of their weapons.士兵们都系统地接受过保护武器的训练。

187 acceleration   

n.加速，加速度

参考例句：

• All spacemen must be able to bear acceleration.所有太空人都应能承受加速度。
• He has also called for an acceleration of political reforms.他同时呼吁加快政治改革的步伐。

188 everlasting   

adj.永恒的，持久的，无止境的

参考例句：

• These tyres are advertised as being everlasting.广告上说轮胎持久耐用。
• He believes in everlasting life after death.他相信死后有不朽的生命。

189 winked   

v.使眼色( wink的过去式和过去分词 )；递眼色（表示友好或高兴等）；（指光）闪烁；闪亮

参考例句：

• He winked at her and she knew he was thinking the same thing that she was. 他冲她眨了眨眼，她便知道他的想法和她一样。
• He winked his eyes at her and left the classroom. 他向她眨巴一下眼睛走出了教室。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

190 soothing   

adj.慰藉的；使人宽心的；镇静的

参考例句：

• Put on some nice soothing music.播放一些柔和舒缓的音乐。
• His casual, relaxed manner was very soothing.他随意而放松的举动让人很快便平静下来。

191 bifurcated   

a.分为两部分

参考例句：

• Over the past 15 years the marketplace for art books has bifurcated. 过去15年里，卖艺术类书籍的市场逐渐分化。
• This bifurcated view was reflected in how U.S. officials described the trip. 这种一分为二的观点也反映在美国官员自己对访华之行的描述上。

192 precisely   

adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地

参考例句：

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

193 whined   

v.哀号( whine的过去式和过去分词 )；哀诉，诉怨

参考例句：

• The dog whined at the door, asking to be let out. 狗在门前嚎叫着要出去。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
• He whined and pouted when he did not get what he wanted. 他要是没得到想要的东西就会发牢骚、撅嘴。 来自辞典例句

194 beset   

v.镶嵌；困扰，包围

参考例句：

• She wanted to enjoy her retirement without being beset by financial worries.她想享受退休生活而不必为金钱担忧。
• The plan was beset with difficulties from the beginning.这项计划自开始就困难重重。

195 obstinately   

ad.固执地，顽固地

参考例句：

• He obstinately asserted that he had done the right thing. 他硬说他做得对。
• Unemployment figures are remaining obstinately high. 失业数字仍然顽固地居高不下。

196 contemplated   

adj. 预期的 动词contemplate的过去分词形式

参考例句：

• The doctor contemplated the difficult operation he had to perform. 医生仔细地考虑他所要做的棘手的手术。
• The government has contemplated reforming the entire tax system. 政府打算改革整个税收体制。

197 blurred   

v.（使）变模糊( blur的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）难以区分；模模糊糊；迷离

参考例句：

• She suffered from dizziness and blurred vision. 她饱受头晕目眩之苦。
• Their lazy, blurred voices fell pleasantly on his ears. 他们那种慢吞吞、含糊不清的声音在他听起来却很悦耳。 来自《简明英汉词典》

198 hysterical   

adj.情绪异常激动的，歇斯底里般的

参考例句：

• He is hysterical at the sight of the photo.他一看到那张照片就异常激动。
• His hysterical laughter made everybody stunned.他那歇斯底里的笑声使所有的人不知所措。

199 slippers   

n. 拖鞋

参考例句：

• a pair of slippers 一双拖鞋
• He kicked his slippers off and dropped on to the bed. 他踢掉了拖鞋，倒在床上。

200 loathed   

v.憎恨，厌恶( loathe的过去式和过去分词 )；极不喜欢

参考例句：

• Baker loathed going to this red-haired young pup for supplies. 面包师傅不喜欢去这个红头发的自负的傻小子那里拿原料。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Therefore, above all things else, he loathed his miserable self! 因此，他厌恶不幸的自我尤胜其它！ 来自英汉文学 - 红字

201 loathe   

v.厌恶，嫌恶

参考例句：

• I loathe the smell of burning rubber.我厌恶燃着的橡胶散发的气味。
• You loathe the smell of greasy food when you are seasick.当你晕船时，你会厌恶油腻的气味。

202 trove   

n.被发现的东西，收藏的东西

参考例句：

• He assembled a rich trove of Chinese porcelain.他收集了一批中国瓷器。
• The gallery is a treasure trove of medieval art.这个画廊是中世纪艺术的宝库。

203 watchfully   

警惕地，留心地

参考例句：

• Defending his wicket watchfully, the last man is playing out time. 最后一名球员小心地守着他的三柱门，直到比赛结束。

204 intrigue   

vt.激起兴趣，迷住；vi.耍阴谋；n.阴谋，密谋

参考例句：

• Court officials will intrigue against the royal family.法院官员将密谋反对皇室。
• The royal palace was filled with intrigue.皇宫中充满了勾心斗角。

205 whitewashing   

粉饰，美化，掩饰( whitewash的现在分词 )； 喷浆

参考例句：

• Tom went on whitewashing the fence, paying no attention to Ben. 汤姆没有理睬本，继续在粉刷着篱笆。
• When whitewashing the wall, he painted with a roller in his hand. 刷墙的时候，他手里拿个辊子，挥舞着胳膊。

206 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

参考例句：

• She was so tired, her eyelids were beginning to droop. 她太疲倦了，眼睑开始往下垂。
• Her eyelids drooped as if she were on the verge of sleep. 她眼睑低垂好像快要睡着的样子。 来自《简明英汉词典》

207 drooped   

弯曲或下垂，发蔫( droop的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• Her eyelids drooped as if she were on the verge of sleep. 她眼睑低垂好像快要睡着的样子。
• The flowers drooped in the heat of the sun. 花儿晒蔫了。

208 mumbled   

含糊地说某事，叽咕，咕哝( mumble的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• He mumbled something to me which I did not quite catch. 他对我叽咕了几句话，可我没太听清楚。
• George mumbled incoherently to himself. 乔治语无伦次地喃喃自语。

209 exhausted   

adj.极其疲惫的，精疲力尽的

参考例句：

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

210 hitch   

v.免费搭(车旅行)；系住；急提；n.故障；急拉

参考例句：

• They had an eighty-mile journey and decided to hitch hike.他们要走80英里的路程，最后决定搭便车。
• All the candidates are able to answer the questions without any hitch.所有报考者都能对答如流。

211 jolt   

v.（使）摇动，（使）震动，（使）颠簸

参考例句：

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

212 maxims   

n.格言，座右铭( maxim的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Courts also draw freely on traditional maxims of construction. 法院也自由吸收传统的解释准则。 来自英汉非文学 - 行政法
• There are variant formulations of some of the maxims. 有些准则有多种表达方式。 来自辞典例句

213 collapsed   

adj.倒塌的

参考例句：

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

214 untying   

untie的现在分词

参考例句：

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

215 suede   

n.表面粗糙的软皮革

参考例句：

• I'm looking for a suede jacket.我想买一件皮制茄克。
• Her newly bought suede shoes look very fashionable.她新买的翻毛皮鞋看上去非常时尚。

216 wriggling   

v.扭动，蠕动，蜿蜒行进( wriggle的现在分词 )；（使身体某一部位）扭动；耍滑不做，逃避（应做的事等）；蠕蠕

参考例句：

• The baby was wriggling around on my lap. 婴儿在我大腿上扭来扭去。
• Something that looks like a gray snake is wriggling out. 有一种看来象是灰蛇的东西蠕动着出来了。 来自辞典例句

217 chuckle   

vi.／n.轻声笑，咯咯笑

参考例句：

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

218 brink   

n.(悬崖、河流等的)边缘，边沿

参考例句：

• The tree grew on the brink of the cliff.那棵树生长在峭壁的边缘。
• The two countries were poised on the brink of war.这两个国家处于交战的边缘。