In 1913, when Anthony Patch was twenty-five, two years were already gone since irony1, the Holy Ghost of this later day, had, theoretically at least, descended2 upon him. Irony was the final polish of the shoe, the ultimate dab3 of the clothes-brush, a sort of intellectual "There!"--yet at the brink4 of this story he has as yet gone no further than the conscious stage. As you first see him he wonders frequently whether he is not without honor and slightly mad, a shameful5 and obscene thinness glistening6 on the surface of the world like oil on a clean pond, these occasions being varied7, of course, with those in which he thinks himself rather an exceptional young man, thoroughly8 sophisticated, well adjusted to his environment, and somewhat more significant than any one else he knows.
This was his healthy state and it made him cheerful, pleasant, and very attractive to intelligent men and to all women. In this state he considered that he would one day accomplish some quiet subtle thing that the elect would deem worthy9 and, passing on, would join the dimmer stars in a nebulous, indeterminate heaven half-way between death and immortality10. Until the time came for this effort he would be Anthony Patch--not a portrait of a man but a distinct and dynamic personality, opinionated, contemptuous, functioning from within outward--a man who was aware that there could be no honor and yet had honor, who knew the sophistry11 of courage and yet was brave.
A WORTHY MAN AND HIS GIFTED SON
Anthony drew as much consciousness of social security from being the grandson of Adam J. Patch as he would have had from tracing his line over the sea to the crusaders. This is inevitable13; Virginians and Bostonians to the contrary notwithstanding, an aristocracy founded sheerly on money postulates15 wealth in the particular.
Now Adam J. Patch, more familiarly known as "Cross Patch," left his father's farm in Tarrytown early in sixty-one to join a New York cavalry16 regiment17. He came home from the war a major, charged into Wall Street, and amid much fuss, fume18, applause, and ill will he gathered to himself some seventy-five million dollars.
This occupied his energies until he was fifty-seven years old. It was then that he determined19, after a severe attack of sclerosis, to consecrate20 the remainder of his life to the moral regeneration of the world. He became a reformer among reformers. Emulating21 the magnificent efforts of Anthony Comstock, after whom his grandson was named, he levelled a varied assortment22 of uppercuts and body-blows at liquor, literature, vice23, art, patent medicines, and Sunday theatres. His mind, under the influence of that insidious24 mildew25 which eventually forms on all but the few, gave itself up furiously to every indignation of the age. From an armchair in the office of his Tarrytown estate he directed against the enormous hypothetical enemy, unrighteousness, a campaign which went on through fifteen years, during which he displayed himself a rabid monomaniac, an unqualified nuisance, and an intolerable bore. The year in which this story opens found him wearying; his campaign had grown desultory27; 1861 was creeping up slowly on 1895; his thoughts ran a great deal on the Civil War, somewhat on his dead wife and son, almost infinitesimally on his grandson Anthony.
Early in his career Adam Patch had married an anemic lady of thirty, Alicia Withers28, who brought him one hundred thousand dollars and an impeccable entré into the banking29 circles of New York. Immediately and rather spunkily she had borne him a son and, as if completely devitalized by the magnificence of this performance, she had thenceforth effaced31 herself within the shadowy dimensions of the nursery. The boy, Adam Ulysses Patch, became an inveterate33 joiner of clubs, connoisseur34 of good form, and driver of tandems--at the astonishing age of twenty-six he began his memoirs35 under the title "New York Society as I Have Seen It." On the rumor36 of its conception this work was eagerly bid for among publishers, but as it proved after his death to be immoderately verbose37 and overpoweringly dull, it never obtained even a private printing.
This Fifth Avenue Chesterfield married at twenty-two. His wife was Henrietta Lebrune, the Boston "Society Contralto," and the single child of the union was, at the request of his grandfather, christened Anthony Comstock Patch. When he went to Harvard, the Comstock dropped out of his name to a nether38 hell of oblivion and was never heard of thereafter.
Young Anthony had one picture of his father and mother together--so often had it faced his eyes in childhood that it had acquired the impersonality39 of furniture, but every one who came into his bedroom regarded it with interest. It showed a dandy of the nineties, spare and handsome, standing14 beside a tall dark lady with a muff and the suggestion of a bustle40. Between them was a little boy with long brown curls, dressed in a velvet41 Lord Fauntleroy suit. This was Anthony at five, the year of his mother's death.
His memories of the Boston Society Contralto were nebulous and musical. She was a lady who sang, sang, sang, in the music room of their house on Washington Square--sometimes with guests scattered42 all about her, the men with their arms folded, balanced breathlessly on the edges of sofas, the women with their hands in their laps, occasionally making little whispers to the men and always clapping very briskly and uttering cooing cries after each song--and often she sang to Anthony alone, in Italian or French or in a strange and terrible dialect which she imagined to be the speech of the Southern negro.
His recollections of the gallant44 Ulysses, the first man in America to roll the lapels of his coat, were much more vivid. After Henrietta Lebrune Patch had "joined another choir," as her widower45 huskily remarked from time to time, father and son lived up at grampa's in Tarrytown, and Ulysses came daily to Anthony's nursery and expelled pleasant, thick-smelling words for sometimes as much as an hour. He was continually promising46 Anthony hunting trips and fishing trips and excursions to Atlantic City, "oh, some time soon now"; but none of them ever materialized. One trip they did take; when Anthony was eleven they went abroad, to England and Switzerland, and there in the best hotel in Lucerne his father died with much sweating and grunting48 and crying aloud for air. In a panic of despair and terror Anthony was brought back to America, wedded49 to a vague melancholy50 that was to stay beside him through the rest of his life.
PAST AND PERSON OF THE HERO
At eleven he had a horror of death. Within six impressionable years his parents had died and his grandmother had faded off almost imperceptibly, until, for the first time since her marriage, her person held for one day an unquestioned supremacy51 over her own drawing room. So to Anthony life was a struggle against death, that waited at every corner. It was as a concession52 to his hypochondriacal imagination that he formed the habit of reading in bed--it soothed53 him. He read until he was tired and often fell asleep with the lights still on.
His favorite diversion until he was fourteen was his stamp collection; enormous, as nearly exhaustive as a boy's could be--his grandfather considered fatuously54 that it was teaching him geography. So Anthony kept up a correspondence with a half dozen "Stamp and Coin" companies and it was rare that the mail failed to bring him new stamp-books or packages of glittering approval sheets--there was a mysterious fascination56 in transferring his acquisitions interminably from one book to another. His stamps were his greatest happiness and he bestowed57 impatient frowns on any one who interrupted him at play with them; they devoured58 his allowance every month, and he lay awake at night musing59 untiringly on their variety and many-colored splendor60.
At sixteen he had lived almost entirely61 within himself, an inarticulate boy, thoroughly un-American, and politely bewildered by his contemporaries. The two preceding years had been spent in Europe with a private tutor, who persuaded him that Harvard was the thing; it would "open doors," it would be a tremendous tonic63, it would give him innumerable self-sacrificing and devoted64 friends. So he went to Harvard--there was no other logical thing to be done with him.
Oblivious66 to the social system, he lived for a while alone and unsought in a high room in Beck Hall--a slim dark boy of medium height with a shy sensitive mouth. His allowance was more than liberal. He laid the foundations for a library by purchasing from a wandering bibliophile67 first editions of Swinburne, Meredith, and Hardy68, and a yellowed illegible69 autograph letter of Keats's, finding later that he had been amazingly overcharged. He became an exquisite71 dandy, amassed72 a rather pathetic collection of silk pajamas73, brocaded dressing74-gowns, and neckties too flamboyant75 to wear; in this secret finery he would parade before a mirror in his room or lie stretched in satin along his window-seat looking down on the yard and realizing dimly this clamor, breathless and immediate30, in which it seemed he was never to have a part.
Curiously76 enough he found in senior year that he had acquired a position in his class. He learned that he was looked upon as a rather romantic figure, a scholar, a recluse77, a tower of erudition. This amused him but secretly pleased him--he began going out, at first a little and then a great deal. He made the Pudding. He drank--quietly and in the proper tradition. It was said of him that had he not come to college so young he might have "done extremely well." In 1909, when he graduated, he was only twenty years old.
Then abroad again--to Rome this time, where he dallied79 with architecture and painting in turn, took up the violin, and wrote some ghastly Italian sonnets80, supposedly the ruminations of a thirteenth-century monk81 on the joys of the contemplative life. It became established among his Harvard intimates that he was in Rome, and those of them who were abroad that year looked him up and discovered with him, on many moonlight excursions, much in the city that was older than the Renaissance82 or indeed than the republic. Maury Noble, from Philadelphia, for instance, remained two months, and together they realized the peculiar83 charm of Latin women and had a delightful84 sense of being very young and free in a civilization that was very old and free. Not a few acquaintances of his grandfather's called on him, and had he so desired he might have been _persona grata_ with the diplomatic set--indeed, he found that his inclinations85 tended more and more toward conviviality86, but that long adolescent aloofness88 and consequent shyness still dictated89 to his conduct.
He returned to America in 1912 because of one of his grandfather's sudden illnesses, and after an excessively tiresome90 talk with the perpetually convalescent old man he decided91 to put off until his grandfather's death the idea of living permanently92 abroad. After a prolonged search he took an apartment on Fifty-second Street and to all appearances settled down.
In 1913 Anthony Patch's adjustment of himself to the universe was in process of consummation. Physically93, he had improved since his undergraduate days--he was still too thin but his shoulders had widened and his brunette face had lost the frightened look of his freshman94 year. He was secretly orderly and in person spick and span--his friends declared that they had never seen his hair rumpled95. His nose was too sharp; his mouth was one of those unfortunate mirrors of mood inclined to droop96 perceptibly in moments of unhappiness, but his blue eyes were charming, whether alert with intelligence or half closed in an expression of melancholy humor.
One of those men devoid97 of the symmetry of feature essential to the Aryan ideal, he was yet, here and there, considered handsome--moreover, he was very clean, in appearance and in reality, with that especial cleanness borrowed from beauty.
THE REPROACHLESS APARTMENT
Fifth and Sixth Avenues, it seemed to Anthony, were the uprights of a gigantic ladder stretching from Washington Square to Central Park. Coming up-town on top of a bus toward Fifty-second Street invariably gave him the sensation of hoisting98 himself hand by hand on a series of treacherous99 rungs, and when the bus jolted100 to a stop at his own rung he found something akin43 to relief as he descended the reckless metal steps to the sidewalk.
After that, he had but to walk down Fifty-second Street half a block, pass a stodgy101 family of brownstone houses--and then in a jiffy he was under the high ceilings of his great front room. This was entirely satisfactory. Here, after all, life began. Here he slept, breakfasted, read, and entertained.
The house itself was of murky102 material, built in the late nineties; in response to the steadily103 growing need of small apartments each floor had been thoroughly remodelled104 and rented individually. Of the four apartments Anthony's, on the second floor, was the most desirable.
The front room had fine high ceilings and three large windows that loomed105 down pleasantly upon Fifty-second Street. In its appointments it escaped by a safe margin106 being of any particular period; it escaped stiffness, stuffiness107, bareness, and decadence108. It smelt109 neither of smoke nor of incense--it was tall and faintly blue. There was a deep lounge of the softest brown leather with somnolence110 drifting about it like a haze111. There was a high screen of Chinese lacquer chiefly concerned with geometrical fishermen and huntsmen in black and gold; this made a corner alcove112 for a voluminous chair guarded by an orange-colored standing lamp. Deep in the fireplace a quartered shield was burned to a murky black.
Passing through the dining-room, which, as Anthony took only breakfast at home, was merely a magnificent potentiality, and down a comparatively long hall, one came to the heart and core of the apartment--Anthony's bedroom and bath.
Both of them were immense. Under the ceilings of the former even the great canopied113 bed seemed of only average size. On the floor an exotic rug of crimson114 velvet was soft as fleece on his bare feet. His bathroom, in contrast to the rather portentous116 character of his bedroom, was gay, bright, extremely habitable and even faintly facetious117. Framed around the walls were photographs of four celebrated118 thespian119 beauties of the day: Julia Sanderson as "The Sunshine Girl," Ina Claire as "The Quaker Girl," Billie Burke as "The Mind-the-Paint Girl," and Hazel Dawn as "The Pink Lady." Between Billie Burke and Hazel Dawn hung a print representing a great stretch of snow presided over by a cold and formidable sun--this, claimed Anthony, symbolized120 the cold shower.
The bathtub, equipped with an ingenious bookholder, was low and large. Beside it a wall wardrobe bulged121 with sufficient linen123 for three men and with a generation of neckties. There was no skimpy glorified124 towel of a carpet--instead, a rich rug, like the one in his bedroom a miracle of softness, that seemed almost to massage125 the wet foot emerging from the tub....
All in all a room to conjure126 with--it was easy to see that Anthony dressed there, arranged his immaculate hair there, in fact did everything but sleep and eat there. It was his pride, this bathroom. He felt that if he had a love he would have hung her picture just facing the tub so that, lost in the soothing127 steamings of the hot water, he might lie and look up at her and muse78 warmly and sensuously128 on her beauty.
NOR DOES HE SPIN
The apartment was kept clean by an English servant with the singularly, almost theatrically129, appropriate name of Bounds, whose technic was marred130 only by the fact that he wore a soft collar. Had he been entirely Anthony's Bounds this defect would have been summarily remedied, but he was also the Bounds of two other gentlemen in the neighborhood. From eight until eleven in the morning he was entirely Anthony's. He arrived with the mail and cooked breakfast. At nine-thirty he pulled the edge of Anthony's blanket and spoke131 a few terse132 words--Anthony never remembered clearly what they were and rather suspected they were deprecative; then he served breakfast on a card-table in the front room, made the bed and, after asking with some hostility133 if there was anything else, withdrew.
In the mornings, at least once a week, Anthony went to see his broker134. His income was slightly under seven thousand a year, the interest on money inherited from his mother. His grandfather, who had never allowed his own son to graduate from a very liberal allowance, judged that this sum was sufficient for young Anthony's needs. Every Christmas he sent him a five-hundred-dollar bond, which Anthony usually sold, if possible, as he was always a little, not very, hard up.
The visits to his broker varied from semi-social chats to discussions of the safety of eight per cent investments, and Anthony always enjoyed them. The big trust company building seemed to link him definitely to the great fortunes whose solidarity135 he respected and to assure him that he was adequately chaperoned by the hierarchy136 of finance. From these hurried men he derived137 the same sense of safety that he had in contemplating138 his grandfather's money--even more, for the latter appeared, vaguely139, a demand loan made by the world to Adam Patch's own moral righteousness, while this money down-town seemed rather to have been grasped and held by sheer indomitable strengths and tremendous feats140 of will; in addition, it seemed more definitely and explicitly--money.
Closely as Anthony trod on the heels of his income, he considered it to be enough. Some golden day, of course, he would have many millions; meanwhile he possessed141 a _raison d'etre_ in the theoretical creation of essays on the popes of the Renaissance. This flashes back to the conversation with his grandfather immediately upon his return from Rome.
He had hoped to find his grandfather dead, but had learned by telephoning from the pier142 that Adam Patch was comparatively well again--the next day he had concealed143 his disappointment and gone out to Tarrytown. Five miles from the station his taxicab entered an elaborately groomed144 drive that threaded a veritable maze145 of walls and wire fences guarding the estate--this, said the public, was because it was definitely known that if the Socialists146 had their way, one of the first men they'd assassinate147 would be old Cross Patch.
Anthony was late and the venerable philanthropist was awaiting him in a glass-walled sun parlor148, where he was glancing through the morning papers for the second time. His secretary, Edward Shuttleworth--who before his regeneration had been gambler, saloon-keeper, and general reprobate--ushered Anthony into the room, exhibiting his redeemer and benefactor149 as though he were displaying a treasure of immense value.
They shook hands gravely. "I'm awfully150 glad to hear you're better," Anthony said.
The senior Patch, with an air of having seen his grandson only last week, pulled out his watch.
"Train late?" he asked mildly.
It had irritated him to wait for Anthony. He was under the delusion151 not only that in his youth he had handled his practical affairs with the utmost scrupulousness152, even to keeping every engagement on the dot, but also that this was the direct and primary cause of his success.
"It's been late a good deal this month," he remarked with a shade of meek153 accusation154 in his voice--and then after a long sigh, "Sit down."
Anthony surveyed his grandfather with that tacit amazement155 which always attended the sight. That this feeble, unintelligent old man was possessed of such power that, yellow journals to the contrary, the men in the republic whose souls he could not have bought directly or indirectly156 would scarcely have populated White Plains, seemed as impossible to believe as that he had once been a pink-and-white baby.
The span of his seventy-five years had acted as a magic bellows--the first quarter-century had blown him full with life, and the last had sucked it all back. It had sucked in the cheeks and the chest and the girth of arm and leg. It had tyrannously demanded his teeth, one by one, suspended his small eyes in dark-bluish sacks, tweeked out his hairs, changed him from gray to white in some places, from pink to yellow in others--callously transposing his colors like a child trying over a paintbox. Then through his body and his soul it had attacked his brain. It had sent him night-sweats and tears and unfounded dreads157. It had split his intense normality into credulity and suspicion. Out of the coarse material of his enthusiasm it had cut dozens of meek but petulant158 obsessions159; his energy was shrunk to the bad temper of a spoiled child, and for his will to power was substituted a fatuous55 puerile160 desire for a land of harps161 and canticles on earth.
The amenities162 having been gingerly touched upon, Anthony felt that he was expected to outline his intentions--and simultaneously163 a glimmer164 in the old man's eye warned him against broaching165, for the present, his desire to live abroad. He wished that Shuttleworth would have tact166 enough to leave the room--he detested167 Shuttleworth--but the secretary had settled blandly168 in a rocker and was dividing between the two Patches the glances of his faded eyes.
"Now that you're here you ought to _do_ something," said his grandfather softly, "accomplish something."
Anthony waited for him to speak of "leaving something done when you pass on." Then he made a suggestion:
"I thought--it seemed to me that perhaps I'm best qualified26 to write--"
Adam Patch winced170, visualizing171 a family poet with a long hair and three mistresses.
"--history," finished Anthony.
"History? History of what? The Civil War? The Revolution?"
"Why--no, sir. A history of the Middle Ages." Simultaneously an idea was born for a history of the Renaissance popes, written from some novel angle. Still, he was glad he had said "Middle Ages."
"Middle Ages? Why not your own country? Something you know about?"
"Well, you see I've lived so much abroad--"
"Why you should write about the Middle Ages, I don't know. Dark Ages, we used to call 'em. Nobody knows what happened, and nobody cares, except that they're over now." He continued for some minutes on the uselessness of such information, touching172, naturally, on the Spanish Inquisition and the "corruption173 of the monasteries174." Then:
"Do you think you'll be able to do any work in New York--or do you really intend to work at all?" This last with soft, almost imperceptible, cynicism.
"Why, yes, I do, sir."
"When'll you be done?"
"Well, there'll be an outline, you see--and a lot of preliminary reading."
"I should think you'd have done enough of that already."
The conversation worked itself jerkily toward a rather abrupt175 conclusion, when Anthony rose, looked at his watch, and remarked that he had an engagement with his broker that afternoon. He had intended to stay a few days with his grandfather, but he was tired and irritated from a rough crossing, and quite unwilling176 to stand a subtle and sanctimonious177 browbeating178. He would come out again in a few days, he said.
Nevertheless, it was due to this encounter that work had come into his life as a permanent idea. During the year that had passed since then, he had made several lists of authorities, he had even experimented with chapter titles and the division of his work into periods, but not one line of actual writing existed at present, or seemed likely ever to exist. He did nothing--and contrary to the most accredited179 copy-book logic65, he managed to divert himself with more than average content.
AFTERNOON
It was October in 1913, midway in a week of pleasant days, with the sunshine loitering in the cross-streets and the atmosphere so languid as to seem weighted with ghostly falling leaves. It was pleasant to sit lazily by the open window finishing a chapter of "Erewhon." It was pleasant to yawn about five, toss the book on a table, and saunter humming along the hall to his bath.
"To ... you ... beaut-if-ul lady,"
he was singing as he turned on the tap.
"I raise ... my ... eyes; To ... you ... beaut-if-ul la-a-dy My ... heart ... cries--"
He raised his voice to compete with the flood of water pouring into the tub, and as he looked at the picture of Hazel Dawn upon the wall he put an imaginary violin to his shoulder and softly caressed180 it with a phantom181 bow. Through his closed lips he made a humming noise, which he vaguely imagined resembled the sound of a violin. After a moment his hands ceased their gyrations and wandered to his shirt, which he began to unfasten. Stripped, and adopting an athletic182 posture183 like the tiger-skin man in the advertisement, he regarded himself with some satisfaction in the mirror, breaking off to dabble184 a tentative foot in the tub. Readjusting a faucet185 and indulging in a few preliminary grunts186, he slid in.
Once accustomed to the temperature of the water he relaxed into a state of drowsy187 content. When he finished his bath he would dress leisurely188 and walk down Fifth Avenue to the Ritz, where he had an appointment for dinner with his two most frequent companions, Dick Caramel and Maury Noble. Afterward189 he and Maury were going to the theatre--Caramel would probably trot190 home and work on his book, which ought to be finished pretty soon.
Anthony was glad _he_ wasn't going to work on _his_ book. The notion of sitting down and conjuring191 up, not only words in which to clothe thoughts but thoughts worthy of being clothed--the whole thing was absurdly beyond his desires.
Emerging from his bath he polished himself with the meticulous192 attention of a bootblack. Then he wandered into the bedroom, and whistling the while a weird193, uncertain melody, strolled here and there buttoning, adjusting, and enjoying the warmth of the thick carpet on his feet.
He lit a cigarette, tossed the match out the open top of the window, then paused in his tracks with the cigarette two inches from his mouth--which fell faintly ajar. His eyes were focussed upon a spot of brilliant color on the roof of a house farther down the alley194.
It was a girl in a red negligé, silk surely, drying her hair by the still hot sun of late afternoon. His whistle died upon the stiff air of the room; he walked cautiously another step nearer the window with a sudden impression that she was beautiful. Sitting on the stone parapet beside her was a cushion the same color as her garment and she was leaning both arms upon it as she looked down into the sunny areaway, where Anthony could hear children playing.
He watched her for several minutes. Something was stirred in him, something not accounted for by the warm smell of the afternoon or the triumphant195 vividness of red. He felt persistently196 that the girl was beautiful--then of a sudden he understood: it was her distance, not a rare and precious distance of soul but still distance, if only in terrestrial yards. The autumn air was between them, and the roofs and the blurred197 voices. Yet for a not altogether explained second, posing perversely199 in time, his emotion had been nearer to adoration200 than in the deepest kiss he had ever known.
He finished his dressing, found a black bow tie and adjusted it carefully by the three-sided mirror in the bathroom. Then yielding to an impulse he walked quickly into the bedroom and again looked out the window. The woman was standing up now; she had tossed her hair back and he had a full view of her. She was fat, full thirty-five, utterly201 undistinguished. Making a clicking noise with his mouth he returned to the bathroom and reparted his hair.
"To ... you ... beaut-if-ul lady,"
he sang lightly,
"I raise ... my ... eyes--"
Then with a last soothing brush that left an iridescent202 surface of sheer gloss203 he left his bathroom and his apartment and walked down Fifth Avenue to the Ritz-Carlton.
THREE MEN
At seven Anthony and his friend Maury Noble are sitting at a corner table on the cool roof. Maury Noble is like nothing so much as a large slender and imposing204 cat. His eyes are narrow and full of incessant205, protracted206 blinks. His hair is smooth and flat, as though it has been licked by a possible--and, if so, Herculean--mother-cat. During Anthony's time at Harvard he had been considered the most unique figure in his class, the most brilliant, the most original--smart, quiet and among the saved.
This is the man whom Anthony considers his best friend. This is the only man of all his acquaintance whom he admires and, to a bigger extent than he likes to admit to himself, envies.
They are glad to see each other now--their eyes are full of kindness as each feels the full effect of novelty after a short separation. They are drawing a relaxation207 from each other's presence, a new serenity208; Maury Noble behind that fine and absurdly catlike face is all but purring. And Anthony, nervous as a will-o'-the-wisp, restless--he is at rest now.
They are engaged in one of those easy short-speech conversations that only men under thirty or men under great stress indulge in.
ANTHONY: Seven o'clock. Where's the Caramel? _(Impatiently.)_ I wish he'd finish that interminable novel. I've spent more time hungry----
MAURY: He's got a new name for it. "The Demon209 Lover "--not bad, eh?
ANTHONY: _(interested)_ "The Demon Lover"? Oh "woman wailing"--No--not a bit bad! Not bad at all--d'you think?
MAURY: Rather good. What time did you say?
ANTHONY: Seven.
MAURY:_(His eyes narrowing--not unpleasantly, but to express a faint disapproval)_ Drove me crazy the other day.
ANTHONY: How?
MAURY: That habit of taking notes.
ANTHONY: Me, too. Seems I'd said something night before that he considered material but he'd forgotten it--so he had at me. He'd say "Can't you try to concentrate?" And I'd say "You bore me to tears. How do I remember?"
_(MAURY laughs noiselessly, by a sort of bland169 and appreciative210 widening of his features.)_
MAURY: Dick doesn't necessarily see more than any one else. He merely can put down a larger proportion of what he sees.
ANTHONY: That rather impressive talent----
MAURY: Oh, yes. Impressive!
ANTHONY: And energy--ambitious, well-directed energy. He's so entertaining--he's so tremendously stimulating211 and exciting. Often there's something breathless in being with him.
MAURY: Oh, yes. _(Silence, and then:)_
ANTHONY: _(With his thin, somewhat uncertain face at its most convinced) _But not indomitable energy. Some day, bit by bit, it'll blow away, and his rather impressive talent with it, and leave only a wisp of a man, fretful and egotistic and garrulous212.
MAURY: _(With laughter)_ Here we sit vowing213 to each other that little Dick sees less deeply into things than we do. And I'll bet he feels a measure of superiority on his side--creative mind over merely critical mind and all that.
ANTHONY: Oh, yes. But he's wrong. He's inclined to fall for a million silly enthusiasms. If it wasn't that he's absorbed in realism and therefore has to adopt the garments of the cynic he'd be--he'd be credulous214 as a college religious leader. He's an idealist. Oh, yes. He thinks he's not, because he's rejected Christianity. Remember him in college? just swallow every writer whole, one after another, ideas, technic, and characters, Chesterton, Shaw, Wells, each one as easily as the last.
MAURY:_(Still considering his own last observation)_ I remember.
ANTHONY: It's true. Natural born fetich-worshipper. Take art--
MAURY: Let's order. He'll be--
ANTHONY: Sure. Let's order. I told him--
MAURY: Here he comes. Look--he's going to bump that waiter. _(He lifts his finger as a signal--lifts it as though it were a soft and friendly claw.)_ Here y'are, Caramel.
A NEW VOICE: _(Fiercely)_ Hello, Maury. Hello, Anthony Comstock Patch. How is old Adam's grandson? Débutantes still after you, eh?
_In person_ RICHARD CARAMEL _is short and fair--he is to be bald at thirty-five. He has yellowish eyes--one of them startlingly clear, the other opaque215 as a muddy pool--and a bulging216 brow like a funny-paper baby. He bulges217 in other places--his paunch bulges, prophetically, his words have an air of bulging from his mouth, even his dinner coat pockets bulge122, as though from contamination, with a dog-eared collection of time-tables, programmes, and miscellaneous scraps--on these he takes his notes with great screwings up of his unmatched yellow eyes and motions of silence with his disengaged left hand._
_When he reaches the table he shakes hands with ANTHONY and MAURY. He is one of those men who invariably shake hands, even with people whom they have seen an hour before._
ANTHONY: Hello, Caramel. Glad you're here. We needed a comic relief.
MAURY: You're late. Been racing12 the postman down the block? We've been clawing over your character.
DICK: (_Fixing_ ANTHONY _eagerly with the bright eye_) What'd you say? Tell me and I'll write it down. Cut three thousand words out of Part One this afternoon.
MAURY: Noble aesthete218. And I poured alcohol into my stomach.
DICK: I don't doubt it. I bet you two have been sitting here for an hour talking about liquor.
ANTHONY: We never pass out, my beardless boy.
MAURY: We never go home with ladies we meet when we're lit.
ANTHONY: All in our parties are characterized by a certain haughty219 distinction.
DICK: The particularly silly sort who boast about being "tanks"! Trouble is you're both in the eighteenth century. School of the Old English Squire220. Drink quietly until you roll under the table. Never have a good time. Oh, no, that isn't done at all.
ANTHONY: This from Chapter Six, I'll bet.
DICK: Going to the theatre?
MAURY: Yes. We intend to spend the evening doing some deep thinking over of life's problems. The thing is tersely221 called "The Woman." I presume that she will "pay."
ANTHONY: My God! Is that what it is? Let's go to the Follies222 again.
MAURY: I'm tired of it. I've seen it three times. (_To DICK:_) The first time, we went out after Act One and found a most amazing bar. When we came back we entered the wrong theatre.
ANTHONY: Had a protracted dispute with a scared young couple we thought were in our seats.
DICK: (_As though talking to himself_) I think--that when I've done another novel and a play, and maybe a book of short stories, I'll do a musical comedy.
MAURY: I know--with intellectual lyrics223 that no one will listen to. And all the critics will groan224 and grunt47 about "Dear old Pinafore." And I shall go on shining as a brilliantly meaningless figure in a meaningless world.
DICK: (_Pompously_) Art isn't meaningless.
MAURY: It is in itself. It isn't in that it tries to make life less so.
ANTHONY: In other words, Dick, you're playing before a grand stand peopled with ghosts.
MAURY: Give a good show anyhow.
ANTHONY:(To MAURY) On the contrary, I'd feel that it being a meaningless world, why write? The very attempt to give it purpose is purposeless.
DICK: Well, even admitting all that, be a decent pragmatist and grant a poor man the instinct to live. Would you want every one to accept that sophistic rot?
ANTHONY: Yeah, I suppose so.
MAURY: No, sir! I believe that every one in America but a selected thousand should be compelled to accept a very rigid225 system of morals--Roman Catholicism, for instance. I don't complain of conventional morality. I complain rather of the mediocre226 heretics who seize upon the findings of sophistication and adopt the pose of a moral freedom to which they are by no means entitled by their intelligences.
(_Here the soup arrives and what MAURY might have gone on to say is lost for all time._)
NIGHT
Afterward they visited a ticket speculator and, at a price, obtained seats for a new musical comedy called "High Jinks." In the foyer of the theatre they waited a few moments to see the first-night crowd come in. There were opera cloaks stitched of myriad227, many-colored silks and furs; there were jewels dripping from arms and throats and ear-tips of white and rose; there were innumerable broad shimmers228 down the middles of innumerable silk hats; there were shoes of gold and bronze and red and shining black; there were the high-piled, tight-packed coiffures of many women and the slick, watered hair of well-kept men--most of all there was the ebbing229, flowing, chattering230, chuckling231, foaming232, slow-rolling wave effect of this cheerful sea of people as to-night it poured its glittering torrent233 into the artificial lake of laughter....
After the play they parted--Maury was going to a dance at Sherry's, Anthony homeward and to bed.
He found his way slowly over the jostled evening mass of Times Square, which the chariot race and its thousand satellites made rarely beautiful and bright and intimate with carnival234. Faces swirled235 about him, a kaleidoscope of girls, ugly, ugly as sin--too fat, too lean, yet floating upon this autumn air as upon their own warm and passionate236 breaths poured out into the night. Here, for all their vulgarity, he thought, they were faintly and subtly mysterious. He inhaled237 carefully, swallowing into his lungs perfume and the not unpleasant scent87 of many cigarettes. He caught the glance of a dark young beauty sitting alone in a closed taxicab. Her eyes in the half-light suggested night and violets, and for a moment he stirred again to that half-forgotten remoteness of the afternoon.
Two young Jewish men passed him, talking in loud voices and craning their necks here and there in fatuous supercilious238 glances. They were dressed in suits of the exaggerated tightness then semi-fashionable; their turned over collars were notched239 at the Adam's apple; they wore gray spats240 and carried gray gloves on their cane241 handles.
Passed a bewildered old lady borne along like a basket of eggs between two men who exclaimed to her of the wonders of Times Square--explained them so quickly that the old lady, trying to be impartially242 interested, waved her head here and there like a piece of wind-worried old orange-peel. Anthony heard a snatch of their conversation:
"There's the Astor, mama!"
"Look! See the chariot race sign----"
"There's where we were to-day. No, _there!_"
"Good gracious! ..."
"You should worry and grow thin like a dime32." He recognized the current witticism243 of the year as it issued stridently from one of the pairs at his elbow.
"And I says to him, I says----"
The soft rush of taxis by him, and laughter, laughter hoarse244 as a crow's, incessant and loud, with the rumble245 of the subways underneath--and over all, the revolutions of light, the growings and recedings of light--light dividing like pearls--forming and reforming in glittering bars and circles and monstrous246 grotesque247 figures cut amazingly on the sky.
He turned thankfully down the hush248 that blew like a dark wind out of a cross-street, passed a bakery-restaurant in whose windows a dozen roast chickens turned over and over on an automatic spit. From the door came a smell that was hot, doughy249, and pink. A drug-store next, exhaling250 medicines, spilt soda251 water and a pleasant undertone from the cosmetic252 counter; then a Chinese laundry, still open, steamy and stifling253, smelling folded and vaguely yellow. All these depressed254 him; reaching Sixth Avenue he stopped at a corner cigar store and emerged feeling better--the cigar store was cheerful, humanity in a navy blue mist, buying a luxury ....
Once in his apartment he smoked a last cigarette, sitting in the dark by his open front window. For the first time in over a year he found himself thoroughly enjoying New York. There was a rare pungency255 in it certainly, a quality almost Southern. A lonesome town, though. He who had grown up alone had lately learned to avoid solitude256. During the past several months he had been careful, when he had no engagement for the evening, to hurry to one of his clubs and find some one. Oh, there was a loneliness here----
His cigarette, its smoke bordering the thin folds of curtain with rims115 of faint white spray, glowed on until the clock in St. Anne's down the street struck one with a querulous fashionable beauty. The elevated, half a quiet block away, sounded a rumble of drums--and should he lean from his window he would see the train, like an angry eagle, breasting the dark curve at the corner. He was reminded of a fantastic romance he had lately read in which cities had been bombed from aerial trains, and for a moment he fancied that Washington Square had declared war on Central Park and that this was a north-bound menace loaded with battle and sudden death. But as it passed the illusion faded; it diminished to the faintest of drums--then to a far-away droning eagle.
There were the bells and the continued low blur198 of auto70 horns from Fifth Avenue, but his own street was silent and he was safe in here from all the threat of life, for there was his door and the long hall and his guardian257 bedroom--safe, safe! The arc-light shining into his window seemed for this hour like the moon, only brighter and more beautiful than the moon.
A FLASH-BACK IN PARADISE
_Beauty, who was born anew every hundred years, sat in a sort of outdoor waiting room through which blew gusts258 of white wind and occasionally a breathless hurried star. The stars winked259 at her intimately as they went by and the winds made a soft incessant flurry in her hair. She was incomprehensible, for, in her, soul and spirit were one--the beauty of her body was the essence of her soul. She was that unity260 sought for by philosophers through many centuries. In this outdoor waiting room of winds and stars she had been sitting for a hundred years, at peace in the contemplation of herself._
_It became known to her, at length, that she was to be born again. Sighing, she began a long conversation with a voice that was in the white wind, a conversation that took many hours and of which I can give only a fragment here._
BEAUTY: (_Her lips scarcely stirring, her eyes turned, as always, inward upon herself_) Whither shall I journey now?
THE VOICE: To a new country--a land you have never seen before.
BEAUTY: (_Petulantly_) I loathe261 breaking into these new civilizations. How long a stay this time?
THE VOICE: Fifteen years.
BEAUTY: And what's the name of the place?
THE VOICE: It is the most opulent, most gorgeous land on earth--a land whose wisest are but little wiser than its dullest; a land where the rulers have minds like little children and the law-givers believe in Santa Claus; where ugly women control strong men----
BEAUTY: (_In astonishment_) What?
THE VOICE: (_Very much depressed_) Yes, it is truly a melancholy spectacle. Women with receding62 chins and shapeless noses go about in broad daylight saying "Do this!" and "Do that!" and all the men, even those of great wealth, obey implicitly262 their women to whom they refer sonorously263 either as "Mrs. So-and-so" or as "the wife."
BEAUTY: But this can't be true! I can understand, of course, their obedience264 to women of charm--but to fat women? to bony women? to women with scrawny cheeks?
THE VOICE: Even so.
BEAUTY: What of me? What chance shall I have?
THE VOICE: It will be "harder going," if I may borrow a phrase.
BEAUTY: (_After a dissatisfied pause_) Why not the old lands, the land of grapes and soft-tongued men or the land of ships and seas?
THE VOICE: It's expected that they'll be very busy shortly.
BEAUTY: Oh!
THE VOICE: Your life on earth will be, as always, the interval265 between two significant glances in a mundane266 mirror.
BEAUTY: What will I be? Tell me?
THE VOICE: At first it was thought that you would go this time as an actress in the motion pictures but, after all, it's not advisable. You will be disguised during your fifteen years as what is called a "susciety gurl."
BEAUTY: What's that?
(_There is a new sound in the wind which must for our purposes be interpreted as_ THE VOICE _scratching its head._)
THE VOICE: (_At length_) It's a sort of bogus aristocrat267.
BEAUTY: Bogus? What is bogus?
THE VOICE: That, too, you will discover in this land. You will find much that is bogus. Also, you will do much that is bogus.
BEAUTY: (_Placidly_) It all sounds so vulgar.
THE VOICE: Not half as vulgar as it is. You will be known during your fifteen years as a ragtime268 kid, a flapper, a jazz-baby, and a baby vamp. You will dance new dances neither more nor less gracefully269 than you danced the old ones.
BEAUTY: (_In a whisper_) Will I be paid?
THE VOICE: Yes, as usual--in love.
BEAUTY: (_With a faint laugh which disturbs only momentarily the immobility of her lips_) And will I like being called a jazz-baby?
THE VOICE: (_Soberly_) You will love it....
(_The dialogue ends here, with_ BEAUTY _still sitting quietly, the stars pausing in an ecstasy270 of appreciation271, the wind, white and gusty272, blowing through her hair._
_All this took place seven years before_ ANTHONY _sat by the front windows of his apartment and listened to the chimes of St. Anne's_.)
收听单词发音 |
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irony
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| n.反语，冷嘲；具有讽刺意味的事，嘲弄 | |
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descended
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| a.为...后裔的，出身于...的 | |
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dab
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| v.轻触，轻拍，轻涂；n.(颜料等的)轻涂 | |
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brink
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| n.(悬崖、河流等的)边缘，边沿 | |
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shameful
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| adj.可耻的，不道德的 | |
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glistening
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| adj.闪耀的，反光的v.湿物闪耀，闪亮( glisten的现在分词 ) | |
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varied
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| adj.多样的，多变化的 | |
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thoroughly
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| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
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worthy
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| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
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immortality
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| n.不死，不朽 | |
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sophistry
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| n.诡辩 | |
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racing
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| n.竞赛，赛马；adj.竞赛用的，赛马用的 | |
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inevitable
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| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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postulates
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| v.假定，假设( postulate的第三人称单数 ) | |
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cavalry
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| n.骑兵；轻装甲部队 | |
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regiment
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| n.团，多数，管理；v.组织，编成团，统制 | |
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fume
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| n.(usu pl.)(浓烈或难闻的)烟，气，汽 | |
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determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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consecrate
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| v.使圣化，奉…为神圣；尊崇；奉献 | |
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emulating
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| v.与…竞争( emulate的现在分词 )；努力赶上；计算机程序等仿真；模仿 | |
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assortment
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| n.分类，各色俱备之物，聚集 | |
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vice
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| n.坏事；恶习；[pl.]台钳，老虎钳；adj.副的 | |
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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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mildew
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| n.发霉；v.（使）发霉 | |
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qualified
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| adj.合格的，有资格的，胜任的，有限制的 | |
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desultory
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| adj.散漫的，无方法的 | |
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withers
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| 马肩隆 | |
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banking
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| n.银行业，银行学，金融业 | |
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30
immediate
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| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
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effaced
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| v.擦掉( efface的过去式和过去分词 )；抹去；超越；使黯然失色 | |
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dime
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| n.（指美国、加拿大的钱币）一角 | |
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inveterate
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| adj.积习已深的，根深蒂固的 | |
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connoisseur
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| n.鉴赏家，行家，内行 | |
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memoirs
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| n.回忆录；回忆录传( mem,自oir的名词复数) | |
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rumor
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| n.谣言，谣传，传说 | |
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verbose
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| adj.用字多的；冗长的；累赘的 | |
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nether
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| adj.下部的，下面的；n.阴间；下层社会 | |
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impersonality
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| n.无人情味 | |
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bustle
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| v.喧扰地忙乱，匆忙，奔忙；n.忙碌；喧闹 | |
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velvet
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| n.丝绒，天鹅绒；adj.丝绒制的，柔软的 | |
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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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akin
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| adj.同族的，类似的 | |
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gallant
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| adj.英勇的，豪侠的；(向女人)献殷勤的 | |
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widower
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| n.鳏夫 | |
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promising
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| adj.有希望的，有前途的 | |
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47
grunt
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| v.嘟哝；作呼噜声；n.呼噜声，嘟哝 | |
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grunting
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| 咕哝的，呼噜的 | |
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wedded
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| adj.正式结婚的；渴望…的，执著于…的v.嫁，娶，（与…）结婚( wed的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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50
melancholy
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| n.忧郁，愁思；adj.令人感伤（沮丧）的，忧郁的 | |
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supremacy
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| n.至上；至高权力 | |
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52
concession
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| n.让步，妥协；特许(权) | |
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53
soothed
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| v.安慰( soothe的过去式和过去分词 )；抚慰；使舒服；减轻痛苦 | |
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fatuously
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| adv.愚昧地，昏庸地，蠢地 | |
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55
fatuous
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| adj.愚昧的；昏庸的 | |
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fascination
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| n.令人着迷的事物，魅力，迷恋 | |
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bestowed
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| 赠给，授予( bestow的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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devoured
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| 吞没( devour的过去式和过去分词 )； 耗尽； 津津有味地看； 狼吞虎咽地吃光 | |
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musing
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| n. 沉思，冥想 adj. 沉思的, 冥想的 动词muse的现在分词形式 | |
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splendor
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| n.光彩；壮丽，华丽；显赫，辉煌 | |
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entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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62
receding
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| v.逐渐远离( recede的现在分词 )；向后倾斜；自原处后退或避开别人的注视；尤指问题 | |
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tonic
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| n./adj.滋补品，补药，强身的，健体的 | |
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devoted
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| adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的 | |
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logic
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| n.逻辑(学)；逻辑性 | |
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oblivious
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| adj.易忘的，遗忘的，忘却的，健忘的 | |
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bibliophile
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| n.爱书者；藏书家 | |
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hardy
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| adj.勇敢的，果断的，吃苦的；耐寒的 | |
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illegible
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| adj.难以辨认的，字迹模糊的 | |
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auto
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| n.(=automobile)(口语)汽车 | |
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exquisite
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| adj.精美的；敏锐的；剧烈的，感觉强烈的 | |
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amassed
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| v.积累，积聚( amass的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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pajamas
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| n.睡衣裤 | |
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dressing
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| n.(食物)调料；包扎伤口的用品，敷料 | |
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flamboyant
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| adj.火焰般的，华丽的，炫耀的 | |
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curiously
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| adv.有求知欲地；好问地；奇特地 | |
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recluse
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| n.隐居者 | |
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muse
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| n.缪斯（希腊神话中的女神），创作灵感 | |
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dallied
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| v.随随便便地对待( dally的过去式和过去分词 )；不很认真地考虑；浪费时间；调情 | |
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sonnets
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| n.十四行诗( sonnet的名词复数 ) | |
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monk
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| n.和尚，僧侣，修道士 | |
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renaissance
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| n.复活，复兴，文艺复兴 | |
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peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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delightful
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| adj.令人高兴的，使人快乐的 | |
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inclinations
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| 倾向( inclination的名词复数 )； 倾斜； 爱好； 斜坡 | |
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86
conviviality
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| n.欢宴，高兴，欢乐 | |
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87
scent
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| n.气味，香味，香水，线索，嗅觉；v.嗅，发觉 | |
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88
aloofness
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| 超然态度 | |
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89
dictated
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| v.大声讲或读( dictate的过去式和过去分词 )；口授；支配；摆布 | |
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90
tiresome
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| adj.令人疲劳的，令人厌倦的 | |
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91
decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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92
permanently
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| adv.永恒地，永久地，固定不变地 | |
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93
physically
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| adj.物质上，体格上，身体上，按自然规律 | |
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94
freshman
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| n.大学一年级学生(可兼指男女) | |
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95
rumpled
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| v.弄皱，使凌乱( rumple的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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96
droop
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| v.低垂，下垂；凋萎，萎靡 | |
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97
devoid
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| adj.全无的，缺乏的 | |
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98
hoisting
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| 起重，提升 | |
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99
treacherous
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| adj.不可靠的，有暗藏的危险的；adj.背叛的，背信弃义的 | |
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100
jolted
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| （使）摇动， （使）震惊( jolt的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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101
stodgy
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| adj.易饱的；笨重的；滞涩的；古板的 | |
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102
murky
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| adj.黑暗的，朦胧的；adv.阴暗地，混浊地；n.阴暗；昏暗 | |
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103
steadily
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| adv.稳定地；不变地；持续地 | |
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104
remodelled
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| v.改变…的结构[形状]( remodel的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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105
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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106
margin
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| n.页边空白；差额；余地，余裕；边，边缘 | |
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107
stuffiness
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| n.不通风，闷热；不通气 | |
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108
decadence
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| n.衰落，颓废 | |
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109
smelt
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| v.熔解，熔炼；n.银白鱼，胡瓜鱼 | |
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110
somnolence
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| n.想睡，梦幻；欲寐；嗜睡；嗜眠 | |
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111
haze
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| n.霾，烟雾；懵懂，迷糊；vi.(over)变模糊 | |
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112
alcove
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| n.凹室 | |
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113
canopied
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| adj. 遮有天篷的 | |
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114
crimson
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| n./adj.深(绯)红色(的)；vi.脸变绯红色 | |
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115
rims
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| n.（圆形物体的）边( rim的名词复数 )；缘；轮辋；轮圈 | |
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116
portentous
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| adj.不祥的，可怕的，装腔作势的 | |
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117
facetious
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| adj.轻浮的，好开玩笑的 | |
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118
celebrated
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| adj.有名的，声誉卓著的 | |
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119
thespian
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| adj.戏曲的；n.演员；悲剧演员 | |
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120
symbolized
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| v.象征，作为…的象征( symbolize的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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121
bulged
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| 凸出( bulge的过去式和过去分词 )； 充满； 塞满（某物） | |
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122
bulge
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| n.突出，膨胀，激增；vt.突出，膨胀 | |
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123
linen
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| n.亚麻布，亚麻线，亚麻制品；adj.亚麻布制的，亚麻的 | |
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124
glorified
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| 美其名的，变荣耀的 | |
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125
massage
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|
| n.按摩，揉；vt.按摩，揉，美化，奉承，篡改数据 | |
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126
conjure
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| v.恳求，祈求；变魔术，变戏法 | |
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127
soothing
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| adj.慰藉的；使人宽心的；镇静的 | |
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128
sensuously
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| adv.感觉上 | |
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129
theatrically
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| adv.戏剧化地 | |
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130
marred
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| adj. 被损毁, 污损的 | |
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131
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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132
terse
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| adj.(说话，文笔)精炼的，简明的 | |
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133
hostility
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| n.敌对，敌意；抵制［pl.］交战，战争 | |
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134
broker
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| n.中间人，经纪人；v.作为中间人来安排 | |
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135
solidarity
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| n.团结；休戚相关 | |
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136
hierarchy
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|
| n.等级制度；统治集团，领导层 | |
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137
derived
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|
| vi.起源；由来；衍生；导出v.得到( derive的过去式和过去分词 )；（从…中）得到获得；源于；（从…中）提取 | |
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138
contemplating
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| 深思，细想，仔细考虑( contemplate的现在分词 )； 注视，凝视； 考虑接受（发生某事的可能性）； 深思熟虑，沉思，苦思冥想 | |
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139
vaguely
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| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
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140
feats
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| 功绩，伟业，技艺( feat的名词复数 ) | |
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141
possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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142
pier
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| n.码头；桥墩，桥柱；[建]窗间壁，支柱 | |
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143
concealed
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| a.隐藏的，隐蔽的 | |
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144
groomed
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|
| v.照料或梳洗（马等）( groom的过去式和过去分词 )；使做好准备；训练；（给动物）擦洗 | |
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145
maze
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|
| n.迷宫，八阵图，混乱，迷惑 | |
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146
socialists
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| 社会主义者( socialist的名词复数 ) | |
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147
assassinate
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| vt.暗杀，行刺，中伤 | |
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148
parlor
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| n.店铺，营业室；会客室，客厅 | |
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149
benefactor
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| n. 恩人，行善的人，捐助人 | |
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150
awfully
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| adv.可怕地，非常地，极端地 | |
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151
delusion
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| n.谬见，欺骗，幻觉，迷惑 | |
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152
scrupulousness
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| n.一丝不苟；小心翼翼 | |
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153
meek
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| adj.温顺的，逆来顺受的 | |
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154
accusation
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| n.控告，指责，谴责 | |
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155
amazement
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| n.惊奇，惊讶 | |
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156
indirectly
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| adv.间接地，不直接了当地 | |
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157
dreads
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| n.恐惧，畏惧( dread的名词复数 )；令人恐惧的事物v.害怕，恐惧，担心( dread的第三人称单数 ) | |
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158
petulant
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|
| adj.性急的，暴躁的 | |
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159
obsessions
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| n.使人痴迷的人（或物）( obsession的名词复数 )；着魔；困扰 | |
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160
puerile
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|
| adj.幼稚的，儿童的 | |
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161
harps
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| abbr.harpsichord 拨弦古钢琴n.竖琴( harp的名词复数 ) | |
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162
amenities
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| n.令人愉快的事物；礼仪；礼节；便利设施；礼仪( amenity的名词复数 )；便利设施；（环境等的）舒适；（性情等的）愉快 | |
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163
simultaneously
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| adv.同时发生地，同时进行地 | |
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164
glimmer
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| v.发出闪烁的微光；n.微光，微弱的闪光 | |
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165
broaching
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| n.拉削；推削；铰孔；扩孔v.谈起( broach的现在分词 )；打开并开始用；用凿子扩大（或修光）；（在桶上）钻孔取液体 | |
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166
tact
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| n.机敏，圆滑，得体 | |
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167
detested
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| v.憎恶，嫌恶，痛恨( detest的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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168
blandly
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| adv.温和地，殷勤地 | |
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169
bland
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| adj.淡而无味的，温和的，无刺激性的 | |
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170
winced
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| 赶紧避开，畏缩( wince的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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171
visualizing
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| 肉眼观察 | |
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172
touching
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| adj.动人的，使人感伤的 | |
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173
corruption
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| n.腐败，堕落，贪污 | |
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174
monasteries
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| 修道院( monastery的名词复数 ) | |
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175
abrupt
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| adj.突然的，意外的；唐突的，鲁莽的 | |
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176
unwilling
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| adj.不情愿的 | |
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177
sanctimonious
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| adj.假装神圣的，假装虔诚的，假装诚实的 | |
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178
browbeating
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| v.（以言辞或表情）威逼，恫吓( browbeat的现在分词 ) | |
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179
accredited
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| adj.可接受的；可信任的；公认的；质量合格的v.相信( accredit的过去式和过去分词 )；委托；委任；把…归结于 | |
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180
caressed
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| 爱抚或抚摸…( caress的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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181
phantom
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| n.幻影，虚位，幽灵；adj.错觉的，幻影的，幽灵的 | |
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182
athletic
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| adj.擅长运动的，强健的；活跃的，体格健壮的 | |
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183
posture
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| n.姿势，姿态，心态，态度；v.作出某种姿势 | |
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184
dabble
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| v.涉足，浅赏 | |
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185
faucet
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| n.水龙头 | |
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186
grunts
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| （猪等）作呼噜声( grunt的第三人称单数 )； （指人）发出类似的哼声； 咕哝着说； 石鲈 | |
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187
drowsy
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| adj.昏昏欲睡的，令人发困的 | |
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188
leisurely
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| adj.悠闲的；从容的，慢慢的 | |
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189
afterward
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| adv.后来；以后 | |
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190
trot
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| n.疾走，慢跑；n.老太婆；现成译本；(复数）trots:腹泻（与the 连用）；v.小跑，快步走，赶紧 | |
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191
conjuring
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| n.魔术 | |
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192
meticulous
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| adj.极其仔细的，一丝不苟的 | |
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193
weird
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| adj.古怪的，离奇的；怪诞的，神秘而可怕的 | |
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194
alley
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| n.小巷，胡同；小径，小路 | |
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195
triumphant
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| adj.胜利的，成功的；狂欢的，喜悦的 | |
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196
persistently
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| ad.坚持地；固执地 | |
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197
blurred
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| 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 | |
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198
blur
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| n.模糊不清的事物；vt.使模糊，使看不清楚 | |
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199
perversely
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| adv. 倔强地 | |
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200
adoration
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| n.爱慕，崇拜 | |
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201
utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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202
iridescent
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| adj.彩虹色的，闪色的 | |
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203
gloss
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| n.光泽，光滑；虚饰；注释；vt.加光泽于；掩饰 | |
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204
imposing
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| adj.使人难忘的，壮丽的，堂皇的，雄伟的 | |
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205
incessant
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| adj.不停的，连续的 | |
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206
protracted
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| adj.拖延的；延长的v.拖延“protract”的过去式和过去分词 | |
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207
relaxation
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| n.松弛，放松；休息；消遣；娱乐 | |
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208
serenity
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| n.宁静，沉着，晴朗 | |
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209
demon
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| n.魔鬼，恶魔 | |
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210
appreciative
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| adj.有鉴赏力的，有眼力的；感激的 | |
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211
stimulating
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| adj.有启发性的，能激发人思考的 | |
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garrulous
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| adj.唠叨的，多话的 | |
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vowing
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| 起誓，发誓（vow的现在分词形式） | |
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credulous
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| adj.轻信的，易信的 | |
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opaque
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| adj.不透光的；不反光的，不传导的；晦涩的 | |
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bulging
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| 膨胀； 凸出（部）； 打气； 折皱 | |
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bulges
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| 膨胀( bulge的名词复数 )； 鼓起； （身体的）肥胖部位； 暂时的激增 | |
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218
aesthete
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| n.审美家 | |
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219
haughty
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| adj.傲慢的，高傲的 | |
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220
squire
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| n.护卫, 侍从, 乡绅 | |
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221
tersely
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| adv. 简捷地, 简要地 | |
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222
follies
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| 罪恶，时事讽刺剧； 愚蠢，蠢笨，愚蠢的行为、思想或做法( folly的名词复数 ) | |
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223
lyrics
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| n.歌词 | |
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224
groan
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| vi./n.呻吟，抱怨；(发出)呻吟般的声音 | |
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225
rigid
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| adj.严格的，死板的；刚硬的，僵硬的 | |
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226
mediocre
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| adj.平常的，普通的 | |
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227
myriad
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| adj.无数的；n.无数，极大数量 | |
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228
shimmers
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| n.闪闪发光，发微光( shimmer的名词复数 )v.闪闪发光，发微光( shimmer的第三人称单数 ) | |
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229
ebbing
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| （指潮水）退( ebb的现在分词 )； 落； 减少； 衰落 | |
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230
chattering
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| n. （机器振动发出的）咔嗒声，(鸟等)鸣，啁啾 adj. 喋喋不休的，啾啾声的 动词chatter的现在分词形式 | |
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231
chuckling
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| 轻声地笑( chuckle的现在分词 ) | |
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foaming
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| adj.布满泡沫的；发泡 | |
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233
torrent
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| n.激流，洪流；爆发，(话语等的)连发 | |
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234
carnival
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| n.嘉年华会，狂欢，狂欢节，巡回表演 | |
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swirled
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| v.旋转，打旋( swirl的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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236
passionate
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| adj.热情的，热烈的，激昂的，易动情的，易怒的，性情暴躁的 | |
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237
inhaled
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| v.吸入( inhale的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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238
supercilious
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| adj.目中无人的，高傲的；adv.高傲地；n.高傲 | |
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notched
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| a.有凹口的，有缺口的 | |
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240
spats
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| n.口角( spat的名词复数 )；小争吵；鞋罩；鞋套v.spit的过去式和过去分词( spat的第三人称单数 )；口角；小争吵；鞋罩 | |
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241
cane
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| n.手杖，细长的茎，藤条；v.以杖击，以藤编制的 | |
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242
impartially
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| adv.公平地，无私地 | |
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243
witticism
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| n.谐语，妙语 | |
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244
hoarse
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| adj.嘶哑的，沙哑的 | |
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245
rumble
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| n.隆隆声；吵嚷；v.隆隆响；低沉地说 | |
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246
monstrous
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| adj.巨大的；恐怖的；可耻的，丢脸的 | |
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247
grotesque
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| adj.怪诞的，丑陋的；n.怪诞的图案，怪人（物） | |
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248
hush
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| int.嘘，别出声；n.沉默，静寂；v.使安静 | |
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249
doughy
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| adj.面团的，苍白的，半熟的；软弱无力 | |
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exhaling
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| v.呼出，发散出( exhale的现在分词 )；吐出（肺中的空气、烟等），呼气 | |
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251
soda
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| n.苏打水；汽水 | |
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252
cosmetic
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| n.化妆品；adj.化妆用的；装门面的；装饰性的 | |
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253
stifling
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| a.令人窒息的 | |
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254
depressed
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| adj.沮丧的，抑郁的，不景气的，萧条的 | |
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pungency
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| n.（气味等的）刺激性；辣；（言语等的）辛辣；尖刻 | |
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solitude
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| n. 孤独; 独居,荒僻之地,幽静的地方 | |
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257
guardian
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| n.监护人；守卫者，保护者 | |
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258
gusts
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| 一阵强风( gust的名词复数 )； （怒、笑等的）爆发； （感情的）迸发； 发作 | |
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259
winked
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| 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 | |
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260
unity
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| n.团结，联合，统一；和睦，协调 | |
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261
loathe
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| v.厌恶，嫌恶 | |
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262
implicitly
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| adv. 含蓄地, 暗中地, 毫不保留地 | |
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263
sonorously
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| adv.圆润低沉地；感人地；堂皇地；朗朗地 | |
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264
obedience
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| n.服从，顺从 | |
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265
interval
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| n.间隔，间距；幕间休息，中场休息 | |
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266
mundane
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| adj.平凡的；尘世的；宇宙的 | |
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267
aristocrat
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| n.贵族，有贵族气派的人，上层人物 | |
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268
ragtime
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| n.拉格泰姆音乐 | |
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269
gracefully
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| ad.大大方方地；优美地 | |
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270
ecstasy
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| n.狂喜，心醉神怡，入迷 | |
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271
appreciation
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| n.评价；欣赏；感谢；领会，理解；价格上涨 | |
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272
gusty
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| adj.起大风的 | |
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