Obeying this instinct common to cats and men, Martin and Corinna, as soon as they had finished breakfast the next morning, wandered forth5 and explored Brant?me. They visited the grey remains6 of the old abbey begun by Charlemagne. But Villon writing in the 15th Century and asking “Mais où est le preux Charlemaigne?” might have asked with equal sense of the transitory nature of human things: “Where is the Abbey which the knightly7 Charlemagne did piously9 build in Brant?me?” For the Normans came and destroyed it and one eleventh-century tower protecting a Romanesque Gothic church alone tells where the abbey stood. Strolling down to the river level along the dusty, shady road, they came to the terraced hill-side, past which the river once infinitely10 furious must have torn its way. In the sheer rock were doors of human dwellings11, numbered sedately12 like the houses of a smug row. Above them, at the height of a cottage roof, stretched a grassy13 plain, from which, corresponding with each homestead, emerged the short stump14 of a chimney emitting thin smoke from the hearth15 beneath. Before one of the open doors they halted. Children were playing in the one room which made up the entire habitation. They had the impression of a vague bed in the gloom, a table, a chair or two, cooking utensils16 by the rude chimney-piece, bunks17 fitted into the living rock at the sides. The children might have been Peter Pan and Wendy and Michael and John and the rest of the delectable18 company, and the chimney-stump above them might have been replaced by Michael’s silk hat, and on the green sward around it pirates and Red Indians might have fought undetected by the happy denizens19 below.
Thus announced Corinna with lighter20 fancy. But Martin, serious exponent21 of truth, explained that the monks22, in the desolate23 times when their Abbey was rebuilding had hewn out these abodes24 for cells and had dwelt in them many many years; and to prove it, having conferred, before her descent to breakfast, with the excellent Monsieur Bigourdin, he led her to a neighbouring cave, called in the district, Les Grottes—Hence the name of Bigourdin’s hotel—which the good monks, their pious8 aspiration25 far exceeding their powers of artistic26 execution, had adorned27 with grotesque28 and primitive29 carvings30 in bas-relief, representing the Last Judgment31 and the Crucifixion.
They paused to admire the Renaissance32 Fontaine Médicis, set in startling contrast against the rugged33 background of rock, with its graceful34 balustrade and its medallion enclosing the bust35 of the worthy36 Pierre de Bourdeille, Abbé de Brant?me, the immortal37 chronicler of horrific scandals; and they crossed the Pont des Barris, and wandered by the quays38 where men angled patiently for deriding39 fish, and women below at the water’s edge beat their laundry with lusty arms; and so past the row of dwellings old and new huddled40 together, a decaying thirteenth-century house with its heavy corbellings and a bit of rounded turret41 lost in the masonry42 jostling a perky modern café decked with iron balconies painted green, until they came to the end of the bridge that commands the main entrance to the tiny water-girt town. They plunged43 into it with childlike curiosity. In the Rue44 de Périgueux they stood entranced before the shop fronts of that wondrous45 thoroughfare alive with the traffic of an occasional ox-cart, a rusty46 one-horse omnibus labelled “Service de Ville” and some prehistoric47 automobile48 wheezing49 by, a clattering50 impertinence. For there were shops in Brant?me of fair pretension—is it not the chef lieu du Canton?—and you could buy articles de Paris at most three years old. And there was a Pharmacie Internationale, so called because there you could obtain Pear’s soap and Eno’s Fruit salt; and a draper’s where were exposed for sale frilleries which struck Martin as marvellous, but at which Corinna curved a supercilious51 lip; and a shop ambitiously blazoned52 behind whose plate-glass windows could be seen a porcelain53 bath-tub and other adjuncts of the luxurious54 bathroom, on one of which, sole occupant of the establishment, a little pig-tailed girl was seated eating from a porringer on her knees; and there were all kinds of other shops including one which sold cabbages and salsifies and charcoal55 and petrol and picture postcards and rusty iron and vintage eggs and guano and all manner of fantastic dirt. And there was the Librairie de la Dordogne which smiled at you when you asked for devotional pictures or tin-tacks, but gasped56 when you demanded books. Martin and Corinna, however, demanded them with British insensibility and marched away with an armful of cheap reprints of French classics disinterred from a tomb beneath the counter. But before they went, Martin asked:
“But have you nothing new? Nothing from Paris that has just appeared?”
“Voici, monsieur,” replied the elderly proprietress of the Library of the Dordogne, plucking a volume from a speckled shelf at the back of the shop. “On trouve ?a très joli.” And she handed him Le Ma?tre de Forges, by Georges Ohnet.
“But this, madam,” said Martin, examining the venerable unsold copy, “was published in 1882.”
“I regret, monsieur,” said the lady, “we have nothing more recent.”
“I’ll buy it if it breaks me—as a curiosity,” cried Corinna, and she counted out two francs, seventy-five centimes.
“Ninety-five,” said the bookseller—she was speckled and dusty and colourless like the back of her library——”
“But in Paris——”
“In Paris it is different, mademoiselle. We are here en province.”
Corinna added the extra twopence and went out with Martin, grasping her prize.
“This is the deliciousest place in the world,” she laughed. “Eighteen eighty-two! Why, that’s years before I was born!”
“But what on earth are we going to do for books here?” Martin asked anxiously.
“There is always the railway station,” said Corinna. “And if you kiss the old lady at the bookstall nicely, she will get you anything you want.”
“The ways of provincial57 France,” said Martin, “take a good deal of finding out!”
Thus began their first day in Brant?me. It ended peacefully. Another day passed and yet another and many more, and they lived in lotus land. Soon after their arrival came their luggage from Paris, and they were enabled to change the aspect of the road-worn vagabond for that of neat suburban58 English folk and as such gained the approbation59 of the small community. They had little else to do but continue to repeat their exploration. In their unadventurous wanderings Félise sometimes accompanied them and shyly spoke60 her halting English. To Corinna alone she could chatter61 with quaint1 ungrammatical fluency62; but in Martin’s presence she blushed confusedly at every broken sentence. All her young life she had lived in her mother’s land and spoken her mother’s tongue. She had a vague notion that legally she was English, and she took mighty63 pride in it, but by training and mental habit she was the little French bourgeoise, through and through. With Martin alone, however, she abandoned all attempts at English, and gradually her shyness disappeared. She gave the first signs of confidence by speaking of her mother in Paris as of a dream woman of wonderful excellencies.
“You see her often, mademoiselle?” Martin asked politely.
“Alas! no, Monsieur Martin.” She shook her head sadly and gazed into the distance. They were idling on one of the bridges while Corinna a few feet away made a rapid sketch64.
“But your father?”
“Ah, yes. He comes four times a year. It is not that I do not love him. J’adore papa. Every one does. You cannot help it. But it is not the same thing. A mother——”
“I know, mademoiselle,” said Martin. “My mother died a few months ago.”
She looked at him with quick tenderness. “That must have caused you much pain.”
“Yes, mademoiselle,” said Martin simply, and he smiled for the first time into her eyes, realising quite suddenly that beneath them lay deep wells of sympathy and understanding. “Perhaps one of these days you will let me talk to you about her,” he added.
She flushed. “Why, yes. Talking relieves the heart.” She used the French word “soulager”—that word of deep-mouthed comfort.
“It does. And your mother, Mademoiselle Félise?”
“She cannot walk,” she sighed. “All these years she has lain on her bed—ever since I left her when I was quite little. So you see, she cannot come to see me.”
“But you might go to Paris.”
“We do not travel much in Brant?me,” replied Félise.
“Then you have not seen her——”
“No. But I remember her. She was so beautiful and so tender—she had chestnut65 hair. My father says she has not changed at all. And she writes to me every week, Monsieur Martin. And there she lies day after day, always suffering, but always sweet and patient and never complaining. She is an angel.” After a little pause, she raised her face to him—“But here am I talking of my mother, when you asked me to let you talk of yours.”
So Martin then and on many occasions afterwards spoke to her of one that was dead more intimately than he could speak to Corinna, who seemed impatient of the expression of simple emotions. Corinna he would never have allowed to see tears come into his eyes; but with Félise it did not matter. Her own eyes filled too in sympathy. And this was the beginning of a quiet understanding between them. Perhaps it might have been the beginning of something deeper on Martin’s side had not Bigourdin taken an early opportunity of expounding66 certain matrimonial schemes of his own with regard to Félise. It had all been arranged, said he, many years ago. His good neighbour, Monsieur Viriot, marchand de vins en gros—oh, a man everything there was of the most solid, had an only son; and he, Bigourdin, had an only niece for whom he had set apart a substantial dowry. A hundred thousand francs. There were not many girls in Brant?me who could hide as much as that in their bridal veils. It was the most natural thing in the world that Lucien should marry Félise—nay, more, an ordinance67 of the bon Dieu. Lucien had been absent some time doing his military service. That would soon be over. He would enter his father’s business. The formal demand in marriage would be made and they would celebrate the fian?ailles before the end of the year.
“Does Mademoiselle Félise care for Lucien?” asked Martin.
“He does not displease69 her. What more do we want? She is a good little girl, and knows that she can entrust70 her happiness to my hands. And Lucien is a capital fellow. They will be very happy.”
Thus he warned a sensitive Martin off philandering71 paths, and, with his French adroitness72, separated youth and maiden73 as much as possible. And this was not difficult. You see Félise acted as manageress in the H?tel des Grottes, and her activities were innumerable. There was the kitchen to be ruled, an eye to be kept on the handle of the basket—if it danced too much, according to the French phrase, the cook was exceeding her commission of a sou in the franc; there were the bedrooms and clean dry linen74 to be seen to, and the doings of Polydore, the unclean, and of Baptiste, the haphazard75, to be watched; there were daily bills to be made out, accounts to be balanced, impatient bagmen to be cajoled or rebuked76; orders for paté de foie gras and truffles to be despatched—the H?tel des Grottes had a famous manufactory of these delights and during autumn and winter supported a hive of workers and the shelves in the cool store-house were filled with appetising jars; and then the laundry and the mending and the polishing of the famous bathroom—ma foi, there was enough to keep one small manageress busy. Like a bon h?telier, Bigourdin himself supervised all these important matters, ordering and controlling, as an administrator77, but Félise was the executive. And like an obedient and happy little executive Félise did not notice a subtle increase in her duties. Nor did Martin, honest soul, in whose eyes a betrothed78 maiden was as sacred as a married woman, remark any change in facilities of intercourse79. For him she flashed, a gracious figure, across the half real tapestry80 of his present life. A kindly81 word, a smiling glance, on passing, sufficed for the maintenance of his pleasant understanding with Félise. For feminine companionship of a stimulating82 kind, there was always Corinna. For masculine society he had Bigourdin and his cronies of the Café de l’Univers, to whom he was introduced in his professorial dignity.
It was there, at the café table, in the midst of the notables of the little town, that he learned many things either undreamed of or uncared for during his narrow life at Margett’s Universal College. It startled him to find himself in the company of men passionately83 patriotic84. Hitherto, as an Englishman living remote from Continental85 thought, he had taken patriotism86 for granted; his interest in politics had been mild and parochial; he had adopted a vague conservative outlook due, most likely, to antipathy87 to his democratic Swiss relatives, who sent eight pounds to the relief of his impoverished88 mother, and to a nervous shrinking from democracy in general as represented by his pupils. But in this backwater of the world he encountered a political spirit intensely alive. Vital principles formed the subject of easy, yet stern discussion. Beneath the calm of peaceful commerce and agriculture he felt the pulse of France throbbing89 in fierce determination to maintain her national existence. Every man had been a soldier; some of the elders had fought in 1870, and those who had grown up sons were the fathers of soldiers. Martin realised that whereas in England, in time of peace, the private soldier was tolerated as a picturesque90, good-natured, harum-scarum sort of fellow, the picu-piou in France was an object of universal affection. The army was woven into the whole web of French life; it permeated91 the whole of French thought; it coloured the whole of French sentiment. It was not a machine of blood and iron, as in Germany, but the soul sacrifice of a nation. “Vive la France!” meant “Vive l’armée!” And that mere92 expression “Vive la France!”—how often had he heard it during his short sojourn93 in the country. He cudgelled his brains to remember when he had heard a corresponding cry in England. It seemed to him that there was none. There was no need for one. England would live as long as the sea girded her shores and Britannia ruled the waves. We need not trouble our English heads any further. But in France conditions are different. From the Vosges to the Bay of Biscay, from Calais to the Mediterranean94, every stroke on a Krupp anvil95 reverberated96 through France.
“?a vient—when no one knows,” said the comfortable citizens, “but it is coming sooner or later, and then we shed the last drop of our blood. We are prepared. We have learned our lesson. There will never be another Sedan.”
They said it soberly, like men whose eyes were set on an implacable foe97. And Martin knew that through the length and breadth of the land comfortable citizens held the same sober and stern discourse98. Every inch of French soil was dear to these men, and to guard it they would shed the last drop of their blood.
Corinna informed of these conversations said lightly:
“You haven’t lived among them as long as I have. It’s just their Gallic way of talking.”
But Martin knew better. His horizons were expanding. He began, too, to conceive a curious love for a country so earnest, whose speech was the first that he had spoken. He had a vague impression that he was learning to live a corporate99, instead of an individual life. When he tried to interpret these feelings to Corinna she cried out upon him:
“To hear you talk one would think you hadn’t any English blood. Isn’t England good enough for you?”
“It’s because I’m beginning to understand France that I’m beginning to understand England,” he replied in his grave way.
“Like practising on the maid before you dare make love to the mistress.”
“Very possibly,” said he, digging the blunt end of his fork into the coarse salt—they were at lunch. “To put it another way—if you learn Latin you learn the structure of all languages.”
“What a regular schoolmaster’s simile,” she remarked, scornfully.
He flushed. “I’m no longer a schoolmaster,” said he.
“Since when?”
“Since I came here.”
“Do you mean to say you’re not going back to it?”
He paused before replying to the sudden question which accident had occasioned. To himself he had put it many times of late, but hitherto had evaded100 a definite answer. Now, with a thrill, he looked at her.
“Never,” said he.
She laid down her knife and fork and stared at him. Was he, after all, taking this fool journey seriously? To her it had been a reckless adventure, a stolen trip into lotus-land, with the knowledge of an inevitable101 return to common earth eating into her heart. Even now she dreaded102 to ask how much of her twenty pounds had been spent. But she knew that the day of doom103 was approaching. She could not live without money. Neither could he.
“What do you propose to do for a living?”
“God knows,” said he. “I don’t. Anyhow, the squirrel has escaped from his cage, and he’s not going back to it.”
“What’s he going to do? Sit on a tree and eat nuts? Oh, my dear Martin!”
“There are worse fates,” he replied, answering her laughter with a smile. “At any rate, he has God’s free universe all around him.”
“That’s all very well; but analogies are futile104. You aren’t a squirrel and you can’t live on acorns105 and east wind. You must live on bread and beef. How are you going to get them?”
“I’ll get them somehow,” said he. “I’m waiting for Fortinbras.”
To this determination had he come after three weeks residence in Brant?me. The poor-spirited drudge106 had drunk of the waters of life and was a drudge no more. He had passed into another world. Far remote, as down the clouded vista107 of long memory, he saw the bare, hopeless class room and the pale, pinched faces of the students. All that belonged to a vague past. It had no concern with the present or the future. How he had arrived at this state of being he could not tell. The change had been wrought108 little by little, day by day. The ten years of his servitude had been blocked out. He had the thrilling sense of starting life afresh at thirty, as he had started it, a boy of twenty. There was so much more in the open world than he had dreamed of. If the worst came to the worst he could go forth into it, knapsack on shoulders and seek his fortune; and every step he took would carry him further from Margett’s Universal College.
“When is that fraud of a marchand de bonheur coming?” Corinna cried impatiently.
She put the question to Bigourdin the next time she met him alone—which was after the meal, on the terrasse. He could not tell. Perhaps to-night, to-morrow, the week after next. Fortinbras came and went like the wind, without warning. Did Mademoiselle Corinne desire his arrival so much?
“I should like to see him here before I go.”
“Before you go? You are leaving us, Mademoiselle?”
She laughed at his look of dismay. “I can’t stay idling here for ever.”
“But you have been here no time at all,” said he. “Just a little bird that comes and perches109 on this balustrade, looks this side and that side out of its bright eyes and then flies away.”
“Oui, c’est comme ?a,” said Corinna.
“Voilà!” He sighed and turned to throw his broad-brimmed hat on a neighbouring table. “That’s the worst of our infamous110 trade of hotel keeping. You meet sincere and candid111 souls whose friendship you crave112, but before you have time to win it, away they go like the little bird, for ever and ever out of your life.”
“But you have won my friendship, Monsieur Bigourdin,” said Corinna, with rising colour.
“You are very gracious, Mademoiselle Corinne. But why take it from me as soon as it is given?”
“I don’t,” she retorted. “I shall always remember you and your kindness.”
“A?e, a?e! You know our saying: Tout113 passe, tout casse, tout lasse. It is the way of the world, the way of humanity. We say that we will remember—but other things come to dim memory, to blunt sentiment—enfin, we forget, not because we want to, but because we must.”
“If we must,” laughed Corinna, “you’ll forget our friendship too. So we’ll be quits.”
“Never, mademoiselle,” he cried illogically. “Your friendship will always be precious to me. You came into this dull house with your youth, your freshness, your wit and your charm—different from the ordinary hotel guest you have joined my little intimate family life—Félise, for example adores you—were it not for her mother, you would be her ideal. And I——”
“And you, Monsieur Bigourdin?”
Her voice had the flat sound of a wooden mallet114 striking a peg115. The huge man bowed with considerable dignity.
“I shall miss terribly all that you have brought into this house, Mademoiselle.”
Corinna relaxed into a mocking smile.
“Fortinbras warned us that you were a poet, Monsieur Bigourdin.”
“Every honest man whose eyes can see the beautiful things of life must be a poet of a kind. It is not necessary to scribble116 verses.”
“But do you? Do you write verse?”
“Jamais de la vie” he declared stoutly117. “An h?telier like me count syllables118 on his fingers? Ah, non! I can make excellent paté de foie gras—no one better in Périgord—but I should make execrable verses. Ah, voyons donc!”
He laughed lustily and Corinna laughed too; and Martin, appearing on the verandah, asked and learned the reason of their mirth. After a word or two their host left them fanning himself with his great hat.
“What on earth brought you here?” said Corinna. “I was having the flirtation119 of my life.”
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quaint
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| adj.古雅的，离奇有趣的，奇怪的 | |
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serene
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| adj. 安详的，宁静的，平静的 | |
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enjoyment
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| n.乐趣；享有；享用 | |
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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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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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knightly
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| adj. 骑士般的 adv. 骑士般地 | |
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pious
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| adj.虔诚的；道貌岸然的 | |
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piously
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| adv.虔诚地 | |
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infinitely
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| adv.无限地，无穷地 | |
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dwellings
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| n.住处，处所( dwelling的名词复数 ) | |
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sedately
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| adv.镇静地，安详地 | |
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grassy
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| adj.盖满草的；长满草的 | |
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stump
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| n.残株，烟蒂，讲演台；v.砍断，蹒跚而走 | |
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hearth
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| n.壁炉炉床，壁炉地面 | |
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utensils
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| 器具，用具，器皿( utensil的名词复数 )； 器物 | |
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bunks
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| n.（车、船等倚壁而设的）铺位( bunk的名词复数 )；空话，废话v.（车、船等倚壁而设的）铺位( bunk的第三人称单数 )；空话，废话 | |
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delectable
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denizens
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lighter
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| n.打火机，点火器；驳船；v.用驳船运送；light的比较级 | |
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exponent
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| n.倡导者，拥护者；代表人物；指数，幂 | |
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monks
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| n.修道士，僧侣( monk的名词复数 ) | |
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desolate
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| adj.荒凉的，荒芜的；孤独的，凄凉的；v.使荒芜，使孤寂 | |
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abodes
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| 住所( abode的名词复数 )； 公寓； （在某地的）暂住； 逗留 | |
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aspiration
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artistic
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adorned
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grotesque
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primitive
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carvings
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judgment
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renaissance
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rugged
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graceful
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bust
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| vt.打破；vi.爆裂；n.半身像；胸部 | |
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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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immortal
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quays
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deriding
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| v.取笑，嘲笑( deride的现在分词 ) | |
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huddled
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| 挤在一起（huddle的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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turret
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| n.塔楼，角塔 | |
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masonry
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| n.砖土建筑；砖石 | |
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plunged
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| v.颠簸( plunge的过去式和过去分词 )；暴跌；骤降；突降 | |
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44
rue
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| n.懊悔，芸香，后悔；v.后悔，悲伤，懊悔 | |
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45
wondrous
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| adj.令人惊奇的，奇妙的；adv.惊人地；异乎寻常地；令人惊叹地 | |
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46
rusty
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| adj.生锈的；锈色的；荒废了的 | |
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47
prehistoric
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| adj.（有记载的）历史以前的，史前的，古老的 | |
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48
automobile
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| n.汽车，机动车 | |
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49
wheezing
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| v.喘息，发出呼哧呼哧的喘息声( wheeze的现在分词 )；哮鸣 | |
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50
clattering
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| 发出咔哒声（clatter的现在分词形式） | |
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51
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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52
blazoned
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| v.广布( blazon的过去式和过去分词 )；宣布；夸示；装饰 | |
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53
porcelain
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| n.瓷；adj.瓷的，瓷制的 | |
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54
luxurious
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| adj.精美而昂贵的；豪华的 | |
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55
charcoal
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| n.炭，木炭，生物炭 | |
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56
gasped
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| v.喘气( gasp的过去式和过去分词 )；喘息；倒抽气；很想要 | |
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57
provincial
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| adj.省的，地方的；n．外省人，乡下人 | |
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58
suburban
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| adj.城郊的，在郊区的 | |
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59
approbation
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| n.称赞；认可 | |
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60
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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61
chatter
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| vi.／n.喋喋不休；短促尖叫；(牙齿)打战 | |
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62
fluency
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| n.流畅，雄辩，善辩 | |
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63
mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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64
sketch
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| n.草图；梗概；素描；v.素描；概述 | |
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65
chestnut
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| n.栗树，栗子 | |
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66
expounding
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| 论述，详细讲解( expound的现在分词 ) | |
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67
ordinance
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| n.法令；条令；条例 | |
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68
shrugged
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| vt.耸肩（shrug的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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69
displease
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| vt.使不高兴，惹怒；n.不悦，不满，生气 | |
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70
entrust
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| v.信赖，信托，交托 | |
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71
philandering
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| v.调戏，玩弄女性( philander的现在分词 ) | |
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72
adroitness
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73
maiden
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| n.少女，处女；adj.未婚的，纯洁的，无经验的 | |
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74
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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75
haphazard
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| adj.无计划的，随意的，杂乱无章的 | |
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76
rebuked
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| 责难或指责( rebuke的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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77
administrator
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| n.经营管理者，行政官员 | |
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78
betrothed
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| n. 已订婚者 动词betroth的过去式和过去分词 | |
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79
intercourse
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| n.性交；交流，交往，交际 | |
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80
tapestry
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| n.挂毯，丰富多采的画面 | |
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81
kindly
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| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
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82
stimulating
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| adj.有启发性的，能激发人思考的 | |
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83
passionately
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| ad.热烈地，激烈地 | |
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84
patriotic
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| adj.爱国的，有爱国心的 | |
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85
continental
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| adj.大陆的，大陆性的，欧洲大陆的 | |
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86
patriotism
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| n.爱国精神，爱国心，爱国主义 | |
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87
antipathy
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| n.憎恶；反感，引起反感的人或事物 | |
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88
impoverished
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| adj.穷困的，无力的，用尽了的v.使（某人）贫穷( impoverish的过去式和过去分词 )；使（某物）贫瘠或恶化 | |
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89
throbbing
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| a. 跳动的,悸动的 | |
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90
picturesque
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| adj.美丽如画的，（语言）生动的，绘声绘色的 | |
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permeated
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| 弥漫( permeate的过去式和过去分词 )； 遍布； 渗入； 渗透 | |
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92
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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93
sojourn
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| v./n.旅居，寄居；逗留 | |
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94
Mediterranean
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| adj.地中海的；地中海沿岸的 | |
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95
anvil
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| n.铁钻 | |
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96
reverberated
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| 回响，回荡( reverberate的过去式和过去分词 )； 使反响，使回荡，使反射 | |
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97
foe
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| n.敌人，仇敌 | |
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98
discourse
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| n.论文，演说；谈话；话语；vi.讲述，著述 | |
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99
corporate
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| adj.共同的，全体的；公司的，企业的 | |
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100
evaded
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| 逃避( evade的过去式和过去分词 )； 避开； 回避； 想不出 | |
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101
inevitable
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| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
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102
dreaded
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| adj.令人畏惧的；害怕的v.害怕，恐惧，担心( dread的过去式和过去分词) | |
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103
doom
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| n.厄运，劫数；v.注定，命定 | |
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104
futile
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| adj.无效的，无用的，无希望的 | |
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105
acorns
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| n.橡子，栎实( acorn的名词复数 ) | |
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106
drudge
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| n.劳碌的人；v.做苦工，操劳 | |
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107
vista
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| n.远景，深景，展望，回想 | |
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108
wrought
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| v.引起；以…原料制作；运转；adj.制造的 | |
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109
perches
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| 栖息处( perch的名词复数 )； 栖枝； 高处； 鲈鱼 | |
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110
infamous
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| adj.声名狼藉的，臭名昭著的，邪恶的 | |
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111
candid
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| adj.公正的，正直的；坦率的 | |
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112
crave
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| vt.渴望得到，迫切需要，恳求，请求 | |
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113
tout
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| v.推销，招徕；兜售；吹捧，劝诱 | |
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114
mallet
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| n.槌棒 | |
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115
peg
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| n.木栓，木钉；vt.用木钉钉，用短桩固定 | |
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116
scribble
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| v.潦草地书写，乱写，滥写；n.潦草的写法，潦草写成的东西，杂文 | |
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117
stoutly
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| adv.牢固地，粗壮的 | |
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118
syllables
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| n.音节( syllable的名词复数 ) | |
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119
flirtation
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| n.调情，调戏，挑逗 | |
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