Are God and Nature then at strife1,
That Nature lends such evil dreams?
So careful of the type she seems,
So careless of the single life . . .
—Tennyson, In Memoriam (1850)
Finally, she broke the silence and spelled it out to Dr. Burkley. Kneeling, the physician indicated her ghastly skirt with a trembling hand. “Another dress?” he suggested diffidently.
“No,” she whispered fiercely. “Let them see what they’ve done.”
—William Manchester, The Death of a President
She stood obliquely2 in the shadows at the tunnel of ivy3’s other end. She did not look round; she had seen him climbing up through the ash trees. The day was brilliant, steeped in azure4, with a warm southwesterly breeze. It had brought out swarms5 of spring butterflies, those brimstones, orange-tips and green-veined whites we have lately found incompatible6 with high agricultural profit and so poisoned almost to extinction7; they had danced with Charles all along his way past the Dairy and through the woods; and now one, a brilliant fleck8 of sulphur, floated in the luminous9 clearing behind Sarah’s dark figure.
Charles paused before going into the dark-green shade beneath the ivy; and looked round nefariously10 to be sure that no one saw him. But the great ashes reached their still bare branches over deserted11 woodland.
She did not turn until he was close, and even then she would not look at him; instead, she felt in her coat pocket and silently, with downcast eyes, handed him yet another test, as if it were some expiatory12 offering. Charles took it, but her embarrassment13 was contagious14.
“You must allow me to pay for these tests what I should pay at Miss Arming’s shop.”
Her head rose then, and at last their eyes met. He saw that she was offended; again he had that unaccountable sensation of being lanced, of falling short, of failing her. But this time it brought him to his senses, that is, to the attitude he had decided15 to adopt; for this meeting took place two days after the events of the last chapters. Dr. Grogan’s little remark about the comparative priority to be accorded the dead and the living had germinated16, and Charles now saw a scientific as well as a humanitarian17 reason in his adventure. He had been frank enough to admit to himself that it contained, besides the impropriety, an element of pleasure; but now he detected a clear element of duty. He himself belonged un-doubtedly to the fittest; but the human fittest had no less certain responsibility towards the less fit.
He had even recontemplated revealing what had passed between himself and Miss Woodruff to Ernestina; but alas19, he foresaw only too vividly20 that she might put foolish female questions, questions he could not truthfully answer without moving into dangerous waters. He very soon decided that Ernestina had neither the sex nor the experience to under-stand the altruism22 of his motives23; and thus very conveniently sidestepped that other less attractive aspect of duty.
So he parried Sarah’s accusing look. “I am rich by chance, you are poor by chance. I think we are not to stand on such ceremony.”
This indeed was his plan: to be sympathetic to Sarah, but to establish a distance, to remind her of their difference of station . . . though lightly, of course, with an unpretentious irony24.
“They are all I have to give.”
“There is no reason why you should give me anything.”
“You have come.”
He found her meekness25 almost as disconcerting as her pride.
“I have come because I have satisfied myself that you do indeed need help. And although I still don’t understand why you should have honored me by interesting me in your ...” he faltered26 here, for he was about to say “case,” which would have betrayed that he was playing the doctor as well as the gentleman: “...Your predicament, I have come prepared to listen to what you wished me ... did you not? ... to hear.”
She looked up at him again then. He felt flattered. She gestured timidly towards the sunlight.
“I know a secluded27 place nearby. May we go there?”
He indicated willingness, and she moved out into the sun and across the stony28 clearing where Charles had been search-ing when she first came upon him. She walked lightly and surely, her skirt gathered up a few inches by one hand, while the other held the ribbons of her black bonnet29. Following her, far less nimbly, Charles noted30 the darns in the heels of her black stockings, the worndown backs of her shoes; and also the red sheen in her dark hair. He guessed it was beautiful hair when fully21 loose; rich and luxuriant; and though it was drawn31 tightly back inside the collar of her coat, he wondered whether it was not a vanity that made her so often carry her bonnet in her hand.
She led the way into yet another green tunnel; but at the far end of that they came on a green slope where long ago the vertical32 face of the bluff33 had collapsed34. Tussocks of grass provided foothold; and she picked her way carefully, in zigzag35 fashion, to the top. Laboring36 behind her, he glimpsed the white-ribboned bottoms of her pantalettes, which came down to just above her ankles; a lady would have mounted behind, not ahead of him.
Sarah waited above for Charles to catch up. He walked after her then along the top of the bluff. The ground sloped sharply up to yet another bluff some hundred yards above them; for these were the huge subsident “steps” that could be glimpsed from the Cobb two miles away. Their traverse brought them to a steeper shoulder. It seemed to Charles dangerously angled; a slip, and within a few feet one would have slithered helplessly over the edge of the bluff below. By himself he might have hesitated. But Sarah passed quietly on and over, as if unaware37 of the danger. On the far side of this shoulder the land flattened38 for a few yards, and there was her “secluded place.”
It was a little south-facing dell, surrounded by dense39 thickets40 of brambles and dogwood; a kind of minute green amphitheater. A stunted41 thorn grew towards the back of its arena42, if one can use that term of a space not fifteen feet across, and someone—plainly not Sarah—had once heaved a great flat-topped block of flint against the tree’s stem, making a rustic43 throne that commanded a magnificent view of the treetops below and the sea beyond them. Charles, panting slightly in his flannel44 suit and more than slightly perspiring45, looked round him. The banks of the dell were carpeted with primroses46 and violets, and the white stars of wild strawberry. Poised47 in the sky, cradled to the afternoon sun, it was charming, in all ways protected.
“I must congratulate you. You have a genius for finding eyries.”
She offered the flint seat beneath the little thorn tree.
“I am sure that is your chair.”
But she turned and sat quickly and gracefully49 sideways on a hummock50 several feet in front of the tree, so that she faced the sea; and so, as Charles found when he took the better seat, that her face was half hidden from him—and yet again, by some ingenuous51 coquetry, so that he must take note of her hair. She sat very upright, yet with head bowed, occupied in an implausible adjustment to her bonnet. Charles watched her, with a smile in his mind, if not on his lips. He could see that she was at a loss how to begin; and yet the situation was too al fresco53, too informally youthful, as if they were a boy and his sister, for the shy formality she betrayed.
She put the bonnet aside, and loosened her coat, and sat with her hands folded; but still she did not speak. Something about the coat’s high collar and cut, especially from the back, was masculine—it gave her a touch of the air of a girl coachman, a female soldier—a touch only, and which the hair effortlessly contradicted. With a kind of surprise Charles realized how shabby clothes did not detract from her; in some way even suited her, and more than finer clothes might have done. The last five years had seen a great emancipation54 in women’s fashions, at least in London. The first artificial aids to a well-shaped bosom55 had begun to be commonly worn; eyelashes and eyebrows56 were painted, lips salved, hair “dusted” and tinted57 ... and by most fashionable women, not just those of the demi-monde. Now with Sarah there was none of all this. She seemed totally indifferent to fashion; and survived in spite of it, just as the simple primroses at Charles’s feet survived all the competition of exotic conserva-tory plants.
So Charles sat silent, a little regal with this strange suppli-cant at his feet; and not overmuch inclined to help her. But she would not speak. Perhaps it was out of a timid modesty58, yet he began very distinctly to sense that he was being challenged to coax59 the mystery out of her; and finally he surrendered.
“Miss Woodruff, I detest60 immorality61. But morality without mercy I detest rather more. I promise not to be too severe a judge.”
She made a little movement of her head. But still she hesitated. Then, with something of the abruptness62 of a disin-clined bather who hovers63 at the brink64, she plunged65 into her confession66. “His name was Varguennes. He was brought to Captain Talbot’s after the wreck67 of his ship. All but two of the others were drowned. But you have been told this?”
“The mere69 circumstance. Not what he was like.”
“The first thing I admired in him was his courage. I did not then know that men can be both very brave and very
false.” She stared out to sea, as if that was the listener, not Charles behind her. “His wound was most dreadful. His flesh was torn from his hip68 to his knee. If gangrene had inter-vened, he would have lost his leg. He was in great pain, those first days. Yet he never cried. Not the smallest groan70. When the doctor dressed his wound he would clench71 my hand. So hard that one day I nearly fainted.”
“A few words. Mrs. Talbot knew French no better than he did English. And Captain Talbot was called away on duty soon after he first came. He told us he came from Bordeau. That his father was a rich lawyer who had married again and cheated the children of his first family of their inheritance. Varguennes had gone to sea in the wine commerce. At the time of his wreck he said he was first officer. But all he said was false. I don’t know who he really was. He seemed a gentleman. That is all.”
She spoke as one unaccustomed to sustained expression, with odd small pauses between each clipped, tentative sen-tence; whether to allow herself to think ahead or to allow him to interrupt, Charles could not tell.
He murmured, “I understand.”
“Sometimes I think he had nothing to do with the ship-wreck. He was the devil in the guise73 of a sailor.” She looked down at her hands. “He was very handsome. No man had ever paid me the kind of attentions that he did—I speak of when he was mending. He had no time for books. He was worse than a child. He must have conversation, people about him, people to listen to him. He told me foolish things about myself. That he could not understand why I was not married. Such things. I foolishly believed him.”
“He made advances, in short?”
“You must understand we talked always in French. Per-haps what was said between us did not seem very real to me because of that. I have never been to France, my knowledge of the spoken tongue is not good. Very often I did not comprehend perfectly74 what he was saying. The blame is not all his. Perhaps I heard what he did not mean. He would mock me. But it seemed without offense75.” She hesitated a moment. “I ... I took pleasure in it. He called me cruel when I would not let him kiss my hand. A day came when I thought myself cruel as well.”
“And you were no longer cruel.”
“Yes.”
A crow floated close overhead, its black feathers gleaming, splintering hesitantly in the breeze before it slipped away in sudden alarm.
“I understand.”
He meant it merely as encouragement to continue; but she took him literally76.
“You cannot, Mr. Smithson. Because you are not a wom-an. Because you are not a woman who was born to be a farmer’s wife but educated to be something ... better. My hand has been several times asked in marriage. When I was in Dorchester, a rich grazier—but that is nothing. You were not born a woman with a natural respect, a love of intelli-gence, beauty, learning ... I don’t know how to say it, I have no right to desire these things, but my heart craves77 them and I cannot believe it is all vanity ...” She was silent a moment. “And you were not ever a governess, Mr. Smithson, a young woman without children paid to look after children. You cannot know that the sweeter they are the more intolerable the pain is. You must not think I speak of mere envy. I loved little Paul and Virginia, I feel for Mrs. Talbot nothing but gratitude78 and affection—I would die for her or her children. But to live each day in scenes of domestic happiness, the closest spectator of a happy marriage, home, adorable chil-dren.” She paused. “Mrs. Talbot is my own age exactly.” She paused again. “It came to seem to me as if I were allowed to live in paradise, but forbidden to enjoy it.”
“But is not the deprivation79 you describe one we all share in our different ways?” She shook her head with a surprising vehemence80. He realized he had touched some deep emotion in her.
“I meant only to suggest that social privilege does not necessarily bring happiness.”
“There is no likeness81 between a situation where happiness is at least possible and one where ...” again she shook her head.
“But you surely can’t pretend that all governesses are unhappy—or remain unmarried?”
“All like myself.”
He left a silence, then said, “I interrupted your story. Forgive me.”
“And you will believe I speak not from envy?”
She turned then, her eyes intense, and he nodded. Plucking a little spray of milkwort from the bank beside her, blue flowers like microscopic82 cherubs’ genitals, she went on.
“Varguennes recovered. It came to within a week of the time when he should take his leave. By then he had declared his attachment83 to me.”
“He asked you to marry him?”
She found difficulty in answering. “There was talk of marriage. He told me he was to be promoted captain of a
wine ship when he returned to France. That he had expecta-tions of recovering the patrimony84 he and his brother had lost.” She hesitated, then came out with it. “He wished me to go with him back to France.”
“Mrs. Talbot was aware of this?”
“She is the kindest of women. And the most innocent. If Captain Talbot had been there ... but he was not. I was ashamed to tell her in the beginning. And afraid, at the end.” She added, “Afraid of the advice I knew she must give me.” She began to defoliate the milkwort. “Varguennes became insistent85. He made me believe that his whole happiness de-pended on my accompanying him when he left—more than that, that my happiness depended on it as well. He had found out much about me. How my father had died in a lunatic asylum86. How I was without means, without close relatives. How for many years I had felt myself in some mysterious way condemned—and I knew not why—to solitude.” She laid the milkwort aside, and clenched87 her fingers on her lap. “My life has been steeped in loneliness, Mr. Smithson. As if it has been ordained88 that I shall never form a friendship with an equal, never inhabit my own home, never see the world except as the generality to which I must be the exception. Four years ago my father was declared bankrupt. All our possessions were sold. Ever since then I have suffered from the illusion that even things—mere chairs, tables, mirrors— conspire89 to increase my solitude. You will never own us, they say, we shall never be yours. But always someone else’s. I know this is madness, I know in the manufacturing cities poverties and solitude exist in comparison to which I live in comfort and luxury. But when I read of the Unionists’ wild acts of revenge, part of me understands. Almost envies them, for they know where and how to wreak90 their revenge. And I am powerless.” Something new had crept into her voice, an intensity91 of feeling that in part denied her last sentence. She added, more quietly, “I fear I don’t explain myself well.”
“I’m not sure that I can condone92 your feelings. But I understand them perfectly.”
“Varguennes left, to take the Weymouth packet. Mrs. Talbot supposed, of course, that he would take it as soon as he arrived there. But he told me he should wait until I joined him. I did not promise him. On the contrary—I swore to him that. .. but I was in tears. He said finally he should wait one week. I said I would never follow him. But as one day passed, and then another, and he was no longer there to talk to, the sense of solitude I spoke of just now swept back over me. I felt I would drown in it, far worse, that I had let a spar that might have saved me drift out of reach. I was overcome
by despair. A despair whose pains were made doubly worse by the other pains I had to take to conceal93 it. When the fifth day came, I could endure it no longer.”
“But I gather all this was concealed94 from Mrs. Talbot— were not your suspicions aroused by that? It is hardly the conduct of a man with honorable intentions.”
“Mr. Smithson, I know my folly95, my blindness to his real character, must seem to a stranger to my nature and circum-stances at that time so great that it cannot be but criminal. I can’t hide that. Perhaps I always knew. Certainly some deep flaw in my soul wished my better self to be blinded. And then we had begun by deceiving. Such a path is difficult to reascend, once engaged upon.”
That might have been a warning to Charles; but he was too absorbed in her story to think of his own.
“You went to Weymouth?”
“I deceived Mrs. Talbot with a tale of a school friend who had fallen gravely ill. She believed me to be going to Sher-borne. Both journeys require one to go to Dorchester. Once there, I took the omnibus to Weymouth.”
But Sarah fell silent then and her head bowed, as if she could not bring herself to continue.
“Spare yourself, Miss Woodruff. I can guess—“
She shook her head. “I come to the event I must tell. But I do not know how to tell it.” Charles too looked at the ground. In one of the great ash trees below a hidden missel thrush was singing, wild-voiced beneath the air’s blue peace. At last she went on. “I found a lodging96 house by the harbor. Then I went to the inn where he had said he would take a room. He was not there. But a message awaited me, giving the name of another inn. I went there. It was not ... a respectable place. I knew that by the way my inquiry97 for him was answered. I was told where his room was and expected to go up to it. I insisted he be sent for. He came down. He seemed overjoyed to see me, he was all that a lover should be. He apologized for the humbleness98 of the place. He said it was less expensive than the other, and used often by French seamen99 and merchants. I was frightened and he was very kind. I had not eaten that day and he had food prepared...”
She hesitated, then went on, “It was noisy in the common rooms, so we went to a sitting room. I cannot tell you how, but I knew he was changed. Though he was so attentive100, so full of smiles and caresses101, I knew that if I hadn’t come he would have been neither surprised nor long saddened. I knew then I had been for him no more than an amusement during his convalescence102. The veil before my eyes dropped. I saw he was insincere ... a liar103. I saw marriage with him would have been marriage to a worthless adventurer. I saw all this within five minutes of that meeting.” As if she heard a self-recriminatory bitterness creep into her voice again, she stopped; then continued in a lower tone. “You may wonder how I had not seen it before. I believe I had. But to see something is not the same as to acknowledge it. I think he was a little like the lizard104 that changes color with its surround-ings. He appeared far more a gentleman in a gentleman’s house. In that inn, I saw him for what he was. And I knew his color there was far more natural than the other.”
She stared out to sea for a moment. Charles fancied a deeper pink now suffused105 her cheeks, but her head was turned away.
“In such circumstances I know a ... a respectable woman would have left at once. I have searched my soul a thousand times since that evening. All I have found is that no one explanation of my conduct is sufficient. I was first of all as if frozen with horror at the realization106 of my mistake—and yet so horrible was it ... I tried to see worth in him, respectabili-ty, honor. And then I was filled with a kind of rage at being deceived. I told myself that if I had not suffered such unendurable loneliness in the past I shouldn’t have been so blind. Thus I blamed circumstances for my situation. I had never been in such a situation before. Never in such an inn, where propriety18 seemed unknown and the worship of sin as normal as the worship of virtue107 is in a nobler building. I cannot explain. My mind was confused. Perhaps I believed I owed it to myself to appear mistress of my destiny. I had run away to this man. Too much modesty must seem absurd ... almost a vanity.” She paused. “I stayed. I ate the supper that was served. I drank the wine he pressed on me. It did not intoxicate108 me. I think it made me see more clearly ... is that possible?”
She turned imperceptibly for his answer; almost as if he might have disappeared, and she wanted to be sure, though she could not look, that he had not vanished into thin air.
“No doubt.”
“It seemed to me that it gave me strength and courage ... as well as understanding. It was not the devil’s instrument. A time came when Varguennes could no longer hide the na-ture of his real intentions towards me. Nor could I pretend to surprise. My innocence109 was false from the moment I chose to stay. Mr. Smithson, I am not seeking to defend myself. ] know very well that I could still, even after the door closed on the maid who cleared away our supper, I could still have left. I could pretend to you that he overpowered me, that he had drugged me ... what you will. But it is not so. He was a man without scruples110, a man of caprice, of a passionate111 selfishness. But he would never violate a woman against her will.”
And then, at the least expected moment, she turned fully to look at Charles. Her color was high, but it seemed to him less embarrassment than a kind of ardor112, an anger, a defiance113; as if she were naked before him, yet proud to be so.
“I gave myself to him.”
He could not bear her eyes then, and glanced down with the faintest nod of the head.
“I see.”
“So I am a doubly dishonored woman. By circumstances. And by choice.”
There was silence. Again she faced the sea.
He murmured, “I did not ask you to tell me these things.”
“Mr. Smithson, what I beg you to understand is not that I did this shameful114 thing, but why I did it. Why I sacrificed a woman’s most precious possession for the transient gratifica-tion of a man I did not love.” She raised her hands to her cheeks. “I did it so that I should never be the same again. I did it so that people should point at me, should say, there walks the French Lieutenant’s Whore—oh yes, let the word be said. So that they should know I have suffered, and suffer, as others suffer in every town and village in this land. I could not marry that man. So I married shame. I do not mean that I knew what I did, that it was in cold blood that I let Varguennes have his will of me. It seemed to me then as if I threw myself off a precipice115 or plunged a knife into my heart. It was a kind of suicide. An act of despair, Mr. Smithson. I know it was wicked ... blasphemous116, but I knew no other way to break out of what I was. If I had left that room, and returned to Mrs. Talbot’s, and resumed my former existence, I know that by now I should be truly dead ... and by my own hand. What has kept me alive is my shame, my knowing that I am truly not like other women. I shall never have children, a husband, and those innocent happinesses they have. And they will never understand the reason for my crime.” She paused, as if she was seeing what she said clearly herself for the first time. “Sometimes I almost pity them. I think I have a freedom they cannot understand. No insult, no blame, can touch me. Because I have set myself beyond the pale. I am nothing, I am hardly human any more. I am the French Lieutenant’s Whore.”
Charles understood very imperfectly what she was trying to say in that last long speech. Until she had come to her strange decision at Weymouth, he had felt much more sym-pathy for her behavior than he had shown; he could imagine the slow, tantalizing117 agonies of her life as a governess; how easily she might have fallen into the clutches of such a plausible52 villain118 as Varguennes; but this talk of freedom beyond the pale, of marrying shame, he found incomprehen-sible. And yet in a way he understood, for Sarah had begun to weep towards the end of her justification119. Her weeping she hid, or tried to hide; that is, she did not sink her face in her hands or reach for a handkerchief, but sat with her face turned away. The real reason for her silence did not dawn on Charles at first.
But then some instinct made him stand and take a silent two steps over the turf, so that he could see the profile of that face. He saw the cheeks were wet, and he felt unbeara-bly touched; disturbed; beset120 by a maze121 of crosscurrents and swept hopelessly away from his safe anchorage of judicial122, and judicious123, sympathy. He saw the scene she had not detailed124: her giving herself. He was at one and the same time Varguennes enjoying her and the man who sprang forward and struck him down; just as Sarah was to him both an innocent victim and a wild, abandoned woman. Deep in himself he forgave her her unchastity; and glimpsed the dark shadows where he might have enjoyed it himself.
Such a sudden shift of sexual key is impossible today. A man and a woman are no sooner in any but the most casual contact than they consider the possibility of a physical rela-tionship. We consider such frankness about the real drives of human behavior healthy, but in “Charles’s time private minds did not admit the desires banned by the public mind; and when the consciousness was sprung on by these lurking125 tigers it was ludicrously unprepared.
And then too there was that strangely Egyptian quality among the Victorians; that claustrophilia we see so clearly evidenced in their enveloping126, mummifying clothes, their nar-row-windowed and -corridored architecture, their fear of the open and of the naked. Hide reality, shut out nature. The revolutionary art movement of Charles’s day was of course the Pre-Raphaelite: they at least were making an attempt to admit nature and sexuality, but we have only to compare the pastoral background of a Millais or a Ford127 Madox Brown with that in a Constable128 or a Palmer to see how idealized, how decor-conscious the former were in their approach to external reality. Thus to Charles the openness of Sarah’s confession—both so open in itself and in the open sunlight— seemed less to present a sharper reality than to offer a glimpse of an ideal world. It was not strange because it was more real, but because it was less real; a mythical129 world where naked beauty mattered far more than naked truth.
Charles stared down at her for a few hurtling moments, then turned and resumed his seat, his heart beating, as if he had just stepped back from the brink of the bluff. Far out to sea, above the southernmost horizon, there had risen gently into view an armada of distant cloud. Cream, amber130, snowy, like the gorgeous crests131 of some mountain range, the towers and ramparts stretched as far as the eye could see ... and yet so remote—as remote as some abbey of Theleme, some land of sinless, swooning idyll, in which Charles and Sarah and Ernestina could have wandered . . .
I do not mean to say Charles’s thoughts were so specific, so disgracefully Mohammedan. But the far clouds reminded him of his own dissatisfaction; of how he would have liked to be sailing once again through the Tyrrhenian; or riding, arid132 scents133 in his nostrils134, towards the distant walls of Avila; or approaching some Greek temple in the blazing Aegean sun-shine. But even then a figure, a dark shadow, his dead sister, moved ahead of him, lightly, luringly, up the ashlar steps and into the broken columns’ mystery.
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strife
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| n.争吵，冲突，倾轧，竞争 | |
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obliquely
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| adv.斜； 倾斜； 间接； 不光明正大 | |
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ivy
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| n.常青藤，常春藤 | |
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azure
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| adj.天蓝色的，蔚蓝色的 | |
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swarms
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| 蜂群，一大群( swarm的名词复数 ) | |
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incompatible
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| adj.不相容的，不协调的，不相配的 | |
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extinction
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| n.熄灭，消亡，消灭，灭绝，绝种 | |
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fleck
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| n.斑点，微粒 vt.使有斑点，使成斑驳 | |
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luminous
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| adj.发光的，发亮的；光明的；明白易懂的；有启发的 | |
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nefariously
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deserted
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expiatory
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| adj.赎罪的，补偿的 | |
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embarrassment
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| n.尴尬；使人为难的人(事物)；障碍；窘迫 | |
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contagious
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| adj.传染性的，有感染力的 | |
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decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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germinated
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| v.（使）发芽( germinate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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humanitarian
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| n.人道主义者，博爱者，基督凡人论者 | |
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propriety
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alas
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| int.唉(表示悲伤、忧愁、恐惧等) | |
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vividly
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21
fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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22
altruism
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| n.利他主义，不自私 | |
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23
motives
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| n.动机，目的( motive的名词复数 ) | |
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24
irony
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| n.反语，冷嘲；具有讽刺意味的事，嘲弄 | |
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25
meekness
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| n.温顺，柔和 | |
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26
faltered
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| （嗓音）颤抖( falter的过去式和过去分词 )； 支吾其词； 蹒跚； 摇晃 | |
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27
secluded
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| adj.与世隔绝的；隐退的；偏僻的v.使隔开，使隐退( seclude的过去式和过去分词) | |
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28
stony
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| adj.石头的，多石头的，冷酷的，无情的 | |
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29
bonnet
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| n.无边女帽；童帽 | |
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30
noted
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| adj.著名的，知名的 | |
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31
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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32
vertical
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| adj.垂直的，顶点的，纵向的；n.垂直物，垂直的位置 | |
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33
bluff
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| v.虚张声势，用假象骗人；n.虚张声势，欺骗 | |
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34
collapsed
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| adj.倒塌的 | |
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35
zigzag
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| n.曲折，之字形；adj.曲折的，锯齿形的；adv.曲折地，成锯齿形地；vt.使曲折；vi.曲折前行 | |
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36
laboring
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| n.劳动，操劳v.努力争取(for)( labor的现在分词 )；苦干；详细分析；（指引擎）缓慢而困难地运转 | |
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37
unaware
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| a.不知道的，未意识到的 | |
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38
flattened
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| [医]（水）平扁的，弄平的 | |
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39
dense
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| a.密集的，稠密的，浓密的；密度大的 | |
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40
thickets
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| n.灌木丛( thicket的名词复数 )；丛状物 | |
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41
stunted
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| adj.矮小的；发育迟缓的 | |
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42
arena
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| n.竞技场，运动场所；竞争场所，舞台 | |
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43
rustic
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| adj.乡村的，有乡村特色的；n.乡下人，乡巴佬 | |
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44
flannel
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| n.法兰绒；法兰绒衣服 | |
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45
perspiring
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| v.出汗，流汗( perspire的现在分词 ) | |
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46
primroses
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| n.报春花( primrose的名词复数 )；淡黄色；追求享乐（招至恶果） | |
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47
poised
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| a.摆好姿势不动的 | |
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48
solitude
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| n. 孤独; 独居,荒僻之地,幽静的地方 | |
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49
gracefully
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| ad.大大方方地；优美地 | |
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50
hummock
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| n.小丘 | |
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51
ingenuous
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| adj.纯朴的，单纯的；天真的；坦率的 | |
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52
plausible
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| adj.似真实的，似乎有理的，似乎可信的 | |
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53
fresco
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| n.壁画；vt.作壁画于 | |
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54
emancipation
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| n.（从束缚、支配下）解放 | |
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55
bosom
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| n.胸，胸部；胸怀；内心；adj.亲密的 | |
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56
eyebrows
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| 眉毛( eyebrow的名词复数 ) | |
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57
tinted
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| adj. 带色彩的 动词tint的过去式和过去分词 | |
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58
modesty
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| n.谦逊，虚心，端庄，稳重，羞怯，朴素 | |
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59
coax
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| v.哄诱，劝诱，用诱哄得到，诱取 | |
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60
detest
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| vt.痛恨，憎恶 | |
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61
immorality
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| n. 不道德, 无道义 | |
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62
abruptness
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| n. 突然，唐突 | |
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63
hovers
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| 鸟( hover的第三人称单数 )； 靠近（某事物）； （人）徘徊； 犹豫 | |
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64
brink
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| n.(悬崖、河流等的)边缘，边沿 | |
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65
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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66
confession
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| n.自白，供认，承认 | |
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67
wreck
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| n.失事，遇难；沉船；vt.(船等)失事，遇难 | |
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68
hip
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| n.臀部，髋；屋脊 | |
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69
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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70
groan
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| vi./n.呻吟，抱怨；(发出)呻吟般的声音 | |
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71
clench
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| vt.捏紧（拳头等），咬紧（牙齿等），紧紧握住 | |
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72
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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73
guise
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| n.外表，伪装的姿态 | |
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74
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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75
offense
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| n.犯规，违法行为；冒犯，得罪 | |
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76
literally
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| adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实 | |
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77
craves
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| 渴望，热望( crave的第三人称单数 )； 恳求，请求 | |
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78
gratitude
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| adj.感激，感谢 | |
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79
deprivation
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| n.匮乏；丧失；夺去，贫困 | |
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80
vehemence
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| n.热切；激烈；愤怒 | |
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81
likeness
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| n.相像，相似（之处） | |
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82
microscopic
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| adj.微小的，细微的，极小的，显微的 | |
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83
attachment
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| n.附属物，附件；依恋；依附 | |
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84
patrimony
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| n.世袭财产，继承物 | |
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85
insistent
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| adj.迫切的，坚持的 | |
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86
asylum
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| n.避难所，庇护所，避难 | |
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87
clenched
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| v.紧握，抓紧，咬紧( clench的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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88
ordained
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| v.任命（某人）为牧师( ordain的过去式和过去分词 )；授予（某人）圣职；（上帝、法律等）命令；判定 | |
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89
conspire
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| v.密谋，（事件等）巧合，共同导致 | |
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90
wreak
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| v.发泄；报复 | |
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91
intensity
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| n.强烈，剧烈；强度；烈度 | |
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92
condone
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| v.宽恕；原谅 | |
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93
conceal
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| v.隐藏，隐瞒，隐蔽 | |
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94
concealed
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| a.隐藏的，隐蔽的 | |
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95
folly
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| n.愚笨，愚蠢，蠢事，蠢行，傻话 | |
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96
lodging
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| n.寄宿，住所；(大学生的)校外宿舍 | |
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97
inquiry
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| n.打听，询问，调查，查问 | |
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98
humbleness
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| n.谦卑，谦逊；恭顺 | |
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99
seamen
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| n.海员 | |
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100
attentive
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| adj.注意的，专心的；关心(别人)的，殷勤的 | |
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101
caresses
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| 爱抚，抚摸( caress的名词复数 ) | |
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102
convalescence
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| n.病后康复期 | |
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103
liar
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| n.说谎的人 | |
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104
lizard
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| n.蜥蜴，壁虎 | |
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105
suffused
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| v.（指颜色、水气等）弥漫于，布满( suffuse的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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106
realization
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| n.实现；认识到，深刻了解 | |
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107
virtue
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| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
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108
intoxicate
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| vt.使喝醉，使陶醉，使欣喜若狂 | |
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109
innocence
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| n.无罪；天真；无害 | |
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110
scruples
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| n.良心上的不安( scruple的名词复数 )；顾虑，顾忌v.感到于心不安，有顾忌( scruple的第三人称单数 ) | |
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111
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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112
ardor
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| n.热情，狂热 | |
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113
defiance
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| n.挑战，挑衅，蔑视，违抗 | |
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114
shameful
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| adj.可耻的，不道德的 | |
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115
precipice
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| n.悬崖，危急的处境 | |
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116
blasphemous
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| adj.亵渎神明的，不敬神的 | |
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117
tantalizing
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| adj.逗人的；惹弄人的；撩人的；煽情的v.逗弄，引诱，折磨( tantalize的现在分词 ) | |
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118
villain
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| n.反派演员，反面人物；恶棍；问题的起因 | |
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119
justification
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| n.正当的理由；辩解的理由 | |
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120
beset
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| v.镶嵌；困扰，包围 | |
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121
maze
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| n.迷宫，八阵图，混乱，迷惑 | |
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122
judicial
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| adj.司法的，法庭的，审判的，明断的，公正的 | |
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123
judicious
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| adj.明智的，明断的，能作出明智决定的 | |
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124
detailed
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| adj.详细的，详尽的，极注意细节的，完全的 | |
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125
lurking
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| 潜在 | |
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126
enveloping
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| v.包围，笼罩，包住( envelop的现在分词 ) | |
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127
Ford
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| n.浅滩，水浅可涉处；v.涉水，涉过 | |
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128
constable
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| n.(英国)警察，警官 | |
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129
mythical
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| adj.神话的；虚构的；想像的 | |
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130
amber
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| n.琥珀；琥珀色；adj.琥珀制的 | |
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131
crests
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| v.到达山顶（或浪峰）( crest的第三人称单数 )；到达洪峰，达到顶点 | |
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132
arid
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| adj.干旱的；(土地)贫瘠的 | |
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133
scents
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| n.香水( scent的名词复数 )；气味；（动物的）臭迹；（尤指狗的）嗅觉 | |
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134
nostrils
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| 鼻孔( nostril的名词复数 ) | |
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