Chapter 5

YET MA SPRINGER wasn't so totally thrown by events that she didn't have the wit to call up Charlie Stavros and have him come back to the lot. His own mother took a turn for the worse in December ? her whole left side feels numb³, so even with a cane⁴ it frightens her to walk ? and as Charlie predicted his cousin Gloria went back to Norristown and her husband, though Charlie wouldn't give it a year; so he has been pretty well tied down. This time it's Harry⁵ who's come back with a tan. He gives Charlie a two?handed handclasp, he's so happy to see him at Springer Motors again. The Greek sales rep doesn't look that hot, however: those trips to Florida were like a paint job. He looks pale. He looks as if you pricked⁶ his skin he'd bleed gray. He stand hunched⁸ over protecting his chest like he'd smoked three packs a day all his life, though Charlie like most Mediterranean¹⁰ types has never really had the self?destructive habits you see in northern Europeans and Negroes. Harry wouldn't have given him such an all?out handshake this way a week ago, but since fucking Thelma up the ass¹¹ he's felt freer, more in love with the world again.

 

"The old mastoras. You look great," he exuberantly¹² lies to Charlie.

 

"I've felt better," Charlie tells him. "Thank God it hasn't been any kind of a winter so far." Harry can see, through the plate?glass window, a snowless, leafless landscape, the dust of all seasons swirling¹³ and drifting, intermixed with the paper refuse from the Chuck Wagon¹⁴ that has blown across Route 111. A new banner is up: THE ERA OF COROLLA. Toyota = Total Economy. Charlie volunteers, "It's pretty damn depressing, watching Manna mou head straight downhill. She gets out of bed just to go to the bathroom and keeps telling me I ought to get married."

 

"Good advice, maybe."

 

"Well, I made a little move on Gloria in that direction, and it may be what scared her back to her husband. That guy, what a shit. She'll be back."

 

"Wasn't she a cousin?"

 

"All the better. Peppy type. About four eleven, little heavy in the rumble¹⁶ seat, not quite classy enough for you, champ. But cute. You should see her dance. I hadn't been to those Hellenic Society Saturday nights for years, she talked me into it. I loved to watch her sweat."

 

"You say she'll be back."

 

"Yeah but not for me. I've missed that boat." He adds, "I've missed a lot of boats."

 

"Who hasn't?"

 

Charlie rolls a toothpick in the center of his lower lip. Harry doesn't like to look at him closely; he's become one of those old Brewer¹⁷ geezers who go into cigar stores to put ten dollars on the numbers and hang around the magazine racks waiting for a conversation. "You've caught a few," he ventures to tell Harry.

 

"No, listen. Charlie. I'm in rotten shape. A kid who's disappeared and a new house with no furniture in it." Yet these facts, species of emptiness and new possibility, excite and please him more than not.

 

"The kid'll turn up," Charlie says. "He's just letting off steam."

 

"That's what Pru says. You never saw anybody so calm, considering. We went up to the hospital last night after getting in from the islands and, Jesus, is she happy about that baby. You'd think she was the first woman in the history of the world to pull this off. I guess she was worried about the kid being normal, after that fall she took a while ago."

 

"Worried about herself, more likely. Girl like that who's been knocked around a lot by life, having a baby's the one way they can prove to themselves they're human. What're they thinking of calling it?"

 

"She doesn't want to call it after her mother, she wants to name it after Ma. Rebecca. But she wants to wait to hear from Nelson, because, you know, that was his sister's name. The infant that, you know, didn't make it."

 

"Yeah." Charlie understands. Inviting¹⁸ bad luck. The sound of Mildred Kroust's typewriter bridges their silence. In the shop one of Manny's men is pounding an uncooperative piece of metal. Charlie asks, "What're you going to do about the house?"

 

"Move in, Janice says. She surprised me, the way she talked to her mother. Right in the car driving home. She told her she was welcome to move in with us but she didn't see why she couldn't have a house of her own like other women her age and since Pru and the baby were obviously going to have to stay she doesn't want her to feel crowded in her own home. Bessie, that is."

 

"Huh. About time Jan stood on her own two feet. Wonder who she's been talking to?"

 

Webb Murkett, it occurs to Harry, through a tropical night of love; but things always work best between him and Charlie when they don't go too deep into Janice. He says, "The trouble with having the house is we have no furniture of our own. And everything costs a fucking fortune. A simple mattress²⁰ and box spring and steel frame to set it on for six hundred dollars; if you add a headboard that's another six hundred. Carpets! Three, four thousand for a little Oriental, and they all come out of Iran and Afghanistan. The salesman was telling me they're a better investment than gold."

 

"Gold's doing pretty well," Charlie says.

 

"Better than we are, huh? Have you had a chance to look at the books?"

 

"They've looked better," Charlie admits. "But nothing a little more inflation won't cure. Young couple came in here Tuesday, the first day I got the call from Bessie, and bought a Corvette convertible²¹ Nelson had laid in. Said they wanted a convertible and thought the dead of winter would be a good time to buy one. No trade?in, weren't interested in financing, paid for it with a check, a regular checking account. Where do they get the money? Neither one of 'em could have been more than twenty?five. Next day, yesterday, kid came in here in a GMC pick?up and said he'd heard we had a snowmobile for sale. It took us a while to find it out back but when we did he got that light in his eyes so I began by asking twelve hundred and we settled at nine seventy?five. I said to him, There isn't any snow, and he said, That's all right, he was moving up to Vermont, to wait out the nuclear holocaust²². Said Three?Mile Island really blew his mind. D'y'ever notice how Carter can't say `nuclear'? He says `nookier.' "

 

"You really got rid of that snowmobile? I can't believe it."

 

"People don't care about economizing²³ anymore. Big Oil has sold capitalism²⁴ down the river. What the czar did for the Russians, Big Oil is doing for us."

 

Harry can't take the time to talk economics today. He apologizes, "Charlie, I'm still on vacation in theory, to the end of the week, and Janice is meeting me downtown, we got a thousand things to do in connection with this damn house of hers."

 

Charlie nods. "Amscray. I got some sorting out to do myself. One thing nobody could accuse Nelson of is being a neatness 'freak." He shouts after Harry as he goes into the corridor for his hat and coat, "Say hello to Grandma for me!"

 

Meaning Janice, Harry slowly realizes.

 

He ducks into his office, where the new 1980 company calendar with its photo of Fujiyama hangs on the wall. He makes a mental note to himself, not for the first time, to do something about those old clippings that hang outside on the pressed-board partition, they're getting too yellow, there's a process he's heard about where they photograph old halftones so they look white as new, and can be blown up to any size. Might as well blow them up big, it's a business expense. He takes from old man Springer's heavy oak coat?rack with its four little bow legs the sheepskin overcoat Janice got him for Christmas and the little narrow?brim suede²⁶ hat that goes with it. At his age you wear a hat. He went all through last winter without a cold, because he had taken to wearing a hat. And vitamin C helps. Next it'll be Geritol. He hopes he didn't cut Charlie short but he found talking to him today a little depressing, the guy is at a dead end and turning cranky. Big Oil doesn't know any more what's up than Little Oil. But then from Harry's altitude at this moment anyone might look small and cranky. He has taken off, he is flying high, on his way to an island in his life. He takes a tube of Life Savers (Butter Rum) from his top lefthand desk drawer, to sweeten his breath in case he's kissed, and lets himself out through the back of the shop. He is careful with the crash bar: a touch of grease on this sheepskin and there's no getting it off.

 

*   *   *

 

Nelson having stolen his Corona²⁷, Harry has allocated²⁸ to himself a grape?blue Celica Supra, the "ultimate Toyota," with padded dash, electric tachometer, state?of?the?art four?speaker solid?state AM/FM/MPX stereo, quartz²⁹?accurate digital clock, automatic overdrive transmission, cruise control, computer?tuned³⁰ suspension, ten?inch disc brakes on all four wheels, and quartz halogen hi?beam headlights. He loves this smooth machine. The Corona for all its dependable qualities was a stodgy³¹ little bug³², whereas this blue buzzard has charisma³³. The blacks along lower Weiser really stared yesterday afternoon when he drove it home. After Janice and he had brought Ma back to 89 Joseph in the Chrysler (which in fact even Harry found not so easy to steer³⁴, after a week of being driven in taxis on the wrong side of the road), they put her to bed and came into town in the Mustang, Janice all hyper after her standing³⁵ up for herself about the house, to Schaechner Furniture, where they looked at beds and ugly easy chairs and Parsons tables like the Murketts had, only not so nice as theirs, the wood grain not checkerboarded. They couldn't make any decisions; when the store was about to close she drove him over to the lot so he could have a car too. He picked this model priced in five digits³⁶. Blacks stared out from under the neon Signs, JIMBO's Friendly LOUNGE and LIVE ENTERTAINMENT and ADULT ADULT ADULT, as he slid by in virgin³⁷ blue grapeskin; he was afraid some of them lounging in the cold might come running out at a stoplight and scratch his hood³⁸ with a screwdriver³⁹ or smash his windshield with a hammer, taking vengeance⁴⁰ for their lives. On a number of walls now in this part of town you can see spray?painted SKEETER LIVES, but they don't say where.

 

He has lied to Charlie. He doesn't have to meet Janice until one?thirty and it is now only 11:17 by the Supra's quartz clock. He is driving to Galilee. He turns on the radio and its sound is even punkier, richer, more many?leaved and many?layered, than that of the radio in the old Corona. Though he moves the dial from left to right and back again he can't find Donna Summer, she went out with the Seventies. Instead there is a guy singing hymns⁴¹, squeezing the word "Jesus" until it drips. And that kind of mellow⁴² mixed?voice backup he remembers from the records when he was in high school: the jukeboxes where you could see the record fall and that waxy⁴³ rustling⁴⁴ cloth, organdy or whatever, the girls went to dances in, wearing the corsage you gave them. The corsage would get crushed as the dancing got closer and the girls' perfumes would be released from between their powdery breasts as their bodies were warmed and pressed by partner after partner, in the violet light of the darkened gym, crépe?paper streamers drooping⁴⁵ overhead and the basketball hoops⁴⁶ wreathed with paper flowers, all those warm bodies softly bumping in anticipation⁴⁷ of the cold air stored in cars outside, the little glowing dashboard ?lights, the body heat misting the inside of the windshield, the organdy tugged⁴⁹ and mussed, chilly⁵⁰ fingers fumbling⁵¹ through coats and pants and underpants, clothes become a series of tunnels, Mary Ann's body nestling toward his hands, the space between her legs so different and mild and fragrant⁵² and safe, a world apart. And now, the news, on the half hour. That wise?voiced young woman is long gone from this local station, Harry wonders where she is by now, doing go?go or assistant vice¹⁵?president at Sunflower Beer. The new announcer sounds like Billy Fosnacht, fat?upped. President Carter has revealed that he personally favors a boycott⁵⁵ of the 1980 Moscow Olympics. Reaction from athletes is mixed. Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi has backed off from yesterday's apparently⁵⁶ pro⁹?Soviet⁵⁷ stance on Afghanistan. On the crowded campaign trail, U.S. Representative Philip Crane of Illinois has labelled as "foolish" Massachusetts Senator Edward Kennedy's proposal that the Seabrook, New Hampshire, proposed nuclear plant be converted to coal. In Japan, former Beatle Paul McCartney was jailed on charges of possessing eight ounces of marijuana. In Switzerland, scientists have succeeded in programming bacteria to manufacture the scarce human protein interferon, an anti?viral agent whose artificial production may usher⁵⁸ in an era as beneficial to mankind as the discovery of penicillin⁵⁹. Meanwhile, if the fillings in your teeth cost more, it's because the price of gold hit eight hundred dollars an ounce in New York City today. Fuck. He sold too soon. Eight hundred times thirty equals twenty?four thousand, that's up nearly ten grand from fourteen six, if he'd just held on, damn that Webb Murkett and his silver. And the 76ers continue their winning ways, 121 to 110 over the Portland Trail Blazers at the Spectrum⁶⁰ last night. Poor old Eagles out of their misery⁶¹, Jaworski went down flinging. And now, to continue our program of Nice Music for Nice Folks, the traditional melody "Savior, Keep a Watch Over Me." Harry turns it off, driving to the purr of the Supra.

 

He knows the way now. Past the giant Amishman pointing to the natural cave, through the narrow town with its Purina feedstore sign and old inn and new bank and hitching⁶² posts and tractor agency. The corn stubble of the fields sticks up pale, all the gold bleached⁶³ from it. The duck pond has frozen edges but a wide center of black water, so mild has the winter been. He slows past the Blankenbiller and Muth mailboxes, and turns down the driveway where the box says BYER. His nerves are stretched so nothing escapes his vision, the jutting⁶⁴ stones of the two beaten reddish tracks that make the old road, the fringe of dried weeds each still bearing the form its green life assumed in the vanished summer, the peeling pumpkin⁶⁵?colored school bus husk, a rusting⁶⁶ harrow, a small springhouse whitewashed⁶⁷ years ago, and then the shabby farm buildings, corn crib and barn and stone house, approached from a new angle, for the first time from the front. He drives the Celica into the space of packed dirt where he once saw the Corolla pull in; in turning off the engine and stepping from the car he sees the ridge¹⁹ from which he spied, a far scratchy line of black cherry and gum trees scarcely visible through the apple trees of the orchard⁶⁸, farther away than it had felt, the odds⁶⁹ were no one had ever seen him. This is crazy. Run.

 

But, as with dying, there is a moment that must be pushed through, a slice of time more transparent⁷⁰ than plate glass; it is in front of him and he takes the step, drawing heart from that loving void Thelma had confided⁷¹ to him. In his sheepskin coat and silly small elf hat and three?piece suit of pinstriped wool bought just this November at that tailor of Webb's on Pine Street, he walks across the earth where silted⁷³?over flat sandstones once formed a walk. It is cold, a day that might bring snow, a day that feels hollow. Though it is near noon no sun shows through, not even a silver patch betrays its place in the sky, one long ribbed underbelly of low gray clouds. A drab tall thatch⁷⁴ of winter woods rears up on his right. In the other direction, beyond the horizon, a chain saw sounds stuck. Even before, removing one glove, he raps with a bare hand on the door, where paint a poisonous green is coming loose in long curving flakes⁷⁵, the dog inside the house hears his footsteps scrape stone and sets up a commotion⁷⁶ of barking.

 

Harry hopes the dog is alone, its owner out. There is no car or pick?up truck in the open, but one might be parked in the barn or the newish garage of cement blocks with a roof of corrugated⁷⁷ overlapped⁷⁸ Fiberglas. Inside the house no light burns that he can see, but then it is near noon, though the day is dull and growing darker. He peers in the door and sees himself reflected with his pale hat in another door, much like this one, with two tall panes⁷⁹ of glass, the thickness of a stone wall away. Beyond the old panes a hallway with a tattered⁸⁰ striped runner recedes⁸¹ into unlit depths. As his eyes strain to see deeper his nose and ungloved hand sting with the cold. He is about to turn away and return to the warm car when a shape materializes within the house and rushes, puffed⁸² up with rage, toward him. The black?haired collie leaps and leaps again against the inner door, frantic⁸³, trying to bite the glass, those ugly little front teeth a dog has, inhuman⁸⁴, and the split black lip and lavender gums, unclean. Harry is paralyzed with fascination⁸⁵; he does not see the great shape materialize behind Fritzie until a hand clatters⁸⁶ on the inner door latch⁸⁷.

 

The fat woman's other hand holds the dog by the collar; Harry helps by opening the green outer door himself. Fritzie recognizes his scent⁸⁸ and stops barking. And Rabbit recognizes, buried under the wrinkles and fat but with those known eyes blazing out alive, Ruth. So amid a tumult⁸⁹ of wagging and the whimpers of that desperate doggy need to reclaim⁹⁰ a friend, the two old lovers confront one another. Twenty years ago he had lived with this woman, March to June. He saw her for a minute in Kroll's eight years later, and she had spared him a few bitter words, and now a dozen years have poured across them both, doing their damage. Her hair that used to be a kind of dirty fiery⁹¹ gingery⁹² color is flattened⁹³ now to an, iron gray and pulled back in a bun like the Mennonites wear. She wears wide denim⁹⁴ dungarees and a man's red lumberjack shirt beneath a black sweater with unravelled⁹⁵ elbows and dog hairs and wood chips caught in the greasy⁹⁷ weave. Yet this is Ruth. Her upper lip still pushes out a little, as if with an incipient⁹⁸ blister⁹⁹, and her flat blue eyes in their square sockets¹⁰⁰ still gaze at him with a hostility¹⁰¹ that tickles¹⁰² him. "What do you want?" she asks. Her voice sounds thickened, as by a cold.

 

"I'm Harry Angstrom."

 

"I can see that. What do you want here?"

 

"I was wondering, could we talk a little? There's something I need to ask you."

 

"No, we can't talk a little. Go away."

 

But she has released the dog's collar, and Fritzie sniffs¹⁰³ at his ankles and his crotch and writhes¹⁰⁴ in her urge to jump up, to impart the scarcely bearable joy locked in her narrow skull¹⁰⁵, behind her bulging¹⁰⁶ eyes. Her bad eye still looks sore. "Good Fritzie," Harry says. "Down. Down."

 

Ruth has to laugh, that quick ringing laugh of hers, like change tossed onto a counter. "Rabbit, you're cute. Where'd you learn her name?"

 

"I heard you all calling her once. A couple times I've been here, up behind those trees, but I couldn't get up my nerve to come any closer. Stupid, huh?"

 

She laughs again, a touch less ringingly, as if she is truly amused. Though her voice has roughened and her bulk has doubled and there is a down including a few dark hairs along her cheeks and above the comers of her mouth, this is really Ruth, a cloud his life had passed through, solid again. She is still tall, compared to Janice, compared to any of the women of his life but Mim and his mother. She always had a weight about her; she joked the first night when he lifted her that this would put him out of action, a weight that pushed him off, along with something that held him fast, an air of being willing to play, in the little space they had, and though the time they had was short. "So you were scared of us," she says. She bends slightly, to address the dog. "Fritzie, shall we let him in for a minute?" The dog's liking¹⁰⁷ him, a dim spark of dog memory setting her tail wagging, has tipped the balance.

 

The hall inside smells decidedly of the past, the way these old farm houses do. Apples in the cellar, cinnamon in the cooking, a melding of the old plaster and wallpaper paste, he doesn't know. Muddy boots stand in a corner of the hall, on newspapers spread there, and he notices that Ruth is in stocking feet ? thick gray men's work socks, but sexy nonetheless, the silence of her steps, though she is huge. She leads him to the right, into a small front parlor¹⁰⁸ with an oval rug of braided rags on the floor and a folding wooden lawn chair mixed in with the other furniture. The only modem¹⁰⁹ piece is the television set, its overbearing rectangular eye dead for the moment. A small wood fire smolders¹¹⁰ in a sandstone fireplace. Harry checks his shoes before stepping onto the rag rug, to make sure he is not tracking in dirt. He removes his fancy tittle sheepskin hat.

 

As if regretting this already, Ruth sits on the very edge of her chair, a cane?bottomed rocker, tipping it forward so her knees nearly touch the floor and her arm can reach down easily to scratch Fritzie's neck and keep her calm. Harry guesses he is supposed to sit opposite, on a cracked black leather settee beneath two depressing sepia studio portraits, a century old at least they must be, in matching carved frames, of a bearded type and his buttoned?up wife, both long turned to dust in their coffins¹¹¹. But before sitting down he sees across the room, by the light of a window whose deep sill teems¹¹³ with potted African violets and those broad?leafed plants people give for Mother's Days, a more contemporary set of photographs, color snapshots that line one shelf of a bookcase holding rows of the paperback¹¹⁴ mysteries and romances Ruth used to read and apparently still does. That used to hurt him about her in those months, how she would withdraw into one of those trashy thrillers¹¹⁵ set in England or Los Angeles though he was right there, in the flesh, a living lover. He crosses to the bookcase and sees her, younger but already stout¹¹⁶, standing before a comer of this house within the arm of a man older, taller, and stouter¹¹⁷ than she: this must have been Byer. A big sheepish farmer in awkward Sunday clothes, squinting¹¹⁸ against the sunlight with an expression like that of the large old portraits, his mouth wistful in its attempt to satisfy the camera. Ruth looks amused, her hair up in a bouffant¹¹⁹ do and still gingery, amused that for this sheltering man she is a prize. Rabbit feels, for an instant as short and bright as the click of a shutter¹²⁰, jealous of these lives that others led: this stout plain country couple posing by a chipped corner of brown stucco, on earth that from the greening state of the grass suggests March or April. Nature's old tricks. There are other photographs, color prints of combed and smiling adolescents, in those cardboard frames high?school pictures come in. Before he can examine them, Ruth says sharply, "Who said you could look at those? Stop it."

 

"It's your family."

 

"You bet it is. Mine and not yours."

 

But he cannot tear himself away from the images in flashlit color of these children. They gaze not at him but past his right ear, each posed identically by the photographer as he worked his school circuit May after May. A boy and the girl at about the same age ? the senior photo ? and then in smaller format¹²¹ a younger boy with darker hair, cut longer and parted on the other side of his head from his brother. All have blue eyes. "Two boys and a girl," Harry says. "Who's the oldest?"

 

"What the hell do you care? God, I'd forgotten what a pushy¹²² obnoxious¹²³ bastard¹²⁴ you are. Stuck on yourself from cradle to grave."

 

"My guess is, the girl is the oldest. When did you have her, and when did you marry this old guy? How can you stand it, by the way, out here in the boondocks?"

 

"I stand it fine. It's more than anybody else ever offered me."

 

"I didn't have much to offer anybody in those days."

 

"But you've done fine since. You're dressed up like a pansy."

 

"And you're dressed up like a ditchdigger."

 

"I've been cutting wood."

 

"You operate one of those chain saws? Jesus, aren't you afraid you'll cut off a finger?"

 

"No, I'm not. The car you sold Jamie works fine, if that's what you came to ask."

 

"How long have you known I've been at Springer Motors?"

 

"Oh, always. And then it was in the papers when Springer died."

 

"Was that you drove past in the old station wagon the day Nelson got married?"

 

"It might have been," Ruth says, sitting back in her rocking chair, so it tips the other way. Fritzie has stretched out to sleep. The wood fire spits. "We pass through Mt. Judge from time to time. It's a free country still, isn't it?"

 

"Why would you do a crazy thing like that?" She loves him.

 

"I'm not saying I did anything. How would I know Nelson was getting married at that moment?"

 

"You saw it in the papers." He sees she means to torment¹²⁵ him. "Ruth, the girl. She's mine. She's the baby you said you couldn't stand to have the abortion¹²⁶ for. So you had it and then found this old chump of a farmer who was glad to get a piece of young ass and had these other two kids by him before he kicked the bucket."

 

"Don't talk so rude. You're not proving anything to me except what a sad case I must have been ever to take you in. You are Mr. 'Bad News, honest to God. You're nothing but me, me and gimme, gimme. When I had something to give you I gave it even though I knew I'd never get anything back. Now thank God I have nothing to give." She limply gestures to indicate the raggedly¹²⁷ furnished little room. Her voice in these years has gained that country slowness, that stubborn calm with which the country withholds¹²⁹ what the city wants.

 

"Tell me the truth," he begs.

 

"I just did."

 

"About the girl."

 

"She's younger than the older boy. Scott, Annabelle, and then Morris in '66. He was the afterthought. June 6, 1966. Four sixes."

 

"Don't stall, Ruth, I got to get back to Brewer. And don't lie. Your eyes get all watery¹³⁰ when you lie."

 

"My eyes are watery because they can't stand looking at you. A regular Brewer sharpie. A dealer¹³¹. The kind of person you used to hate, remember? And fat. At least when I knew you you had a body."

 

He laughs, enjoying the push of this; his night with Thelma has made his body harder to insult. "You," he says, "are calling me fat?"

 

"I am. And how did you get so red in the face?"

 

"That's my tan. We just got back from the islands."

 

"Oh Christ, the islands. I thought you were about to have a stroke."

 

"When did your old guy pack it in? Whajja do, screw him to death?"

 

She stares at him a time. "You better go."

 

"Soon," he promises.

 

"Frank passed away in August of '76, of cancer. Of the colon¹³². He hadn't even reached retirement¹³³ age. When I met him he was younger than we are now."

 

"O.K., sorry. Listen, stop making me be such a prick⁷. Tell me about our girl."

 

"She's not our girl, Harry. I did have the abortion. My parents arranged it with a doctor in Pottsville. He did it right in his office and about a year later a girl died afterwards of complications and they put him in jail. Now the girls just walk into the hospital."

 

"And expect the taxpayer¹³⁴ to pay," Harry says.

 

"Then I got a job as the day cook in a restaurant over toward Stogey's Quarry¹³⁵ to the east of here and Frank's cousin was the hostess for that time and one thing led to another pretty fast. We had Scott in late 1960, he just turned nineteen last month, one of these Christmas babies that always get cheated on presents."

 

"Then the girl when? Annabelle."

 

"The next year. He was in a hurry for a family. His mother had never let him marry while she was alive, or anyway he blamed her."

 

"You're lying. I've seen the girl; she's older than you say."

 

"She's eighteen. Do you want to see birth certificates?"

 

This must be a bluff¹³⁶. But he says, "No."

 

Her voice softens¹³⁷. "Why're you so hepped on the girl anyway? Why don't you pretend the boy's yours?"

 

"I have one boy. He's enough" ? the phrase just comes ? "bad news." He asks, brusquely, "And where are they? Your boys."

 

"What's it to you?"

 

"Nothing much. I was just wondering how come they're not around, helping¹³⁸ you with this place."

 

"Morris is at school, he gets home on the bus after three. Scott has a job in Maryland, working in a plant nursery. I told both him and Annie, Get out. This was a good place for me to come to and hide, but there's nothing here for young people. When she and Jamie Nunemacher got this scheme of going and living together in Brewer, I couldn't say No, though his people were dead set against it. We had a big conference, I told them that's how young people do now, they live together, and aren't they smart? They know I'm an old whore anyway, I don't give a fuck what they think. The neighbors always let us alone and we let them alone. Frank and old Blankenbiller hadn't talked for fifteen years, since he began to take me out." She sees she has wandered, and says, "Annabelle won't be with the boy forever. He's nice enough, but..."

 

"I agree," Rabbit says, as if consulted. Ruth is lonely, he sees, and willing to talk, and this makes him uneasy. He shifts his weight on the old black sofa. Its springs creak. A shift in the air outside has created a downdraft that sends smoke from the damp fire curling into the room.

 

She glances to the dead couple in their frames like carved coffins above his head and confides¹³⁹, "Even when Frank was healthy, he had to have the buses to make ends meet. Now I rent the big fields and just try to keep the bushes down. The bushes and the oil bills." And it is true, this room is so cold he has not thought of taking his heavy coat off.

 

"Yes well," he sighs. "It's hard." Fritzie, wakened by some turn in the dream that had been twitching¹⁴⁰ the ends of her paws, stands and skulks¹⁴¹ over to him as if to bark, and instead drops down to the rug again, coiling herself trustfully at his feet. With his long arm Harry reaches to the bookcase and lifts out the photograph of the daughter. Ruth does not protest. He studies the pale illumined face in its frame of maroon¹⁴² cardboard: backed by a strange background of streaked¹⁴³ blue like an imitation sky, the girl gazes beyond him. Round and polished like a fruit by the slick silk finish of the print, the head, instead of revealing its secret, becomes more enigmatic, a shape as strange as those forms of sea life spotlit beneath the casino boardwalk. The mouth is Ruth's, that upper lip he noticed at the lot. And around the eyes, that squared?off look, though her brow is rounder than Ruth's and her hair, brushed to a photogenic gloss¹⁴⁴, less stubborn. He looks at the ear, for a nick in the edge like Nelson has; her hair would have to be lifted. Her nose is so delicate and small, the nostrils¹⁴⁵ displayed by a slight upturn¹⁴⁶ of the tip, that the lower half of her face seems heavy, still babyish. There is a candor¹⁴⁷ to her skin and a frosty light to the eyes that could go back to those Swedes in their world of snow; he glimpsed it in the Murketts' bathroom mirror. His blood. Harry finds himself reliving with Annabelle that moment when her turn came in the unruly school line to enter the curtained corner of the gym and, suddenly blinded, to pose for posterity¹⁴⁸, for the yearbook, for boyfriend and mother, for time itself as it wheels on unheeding by: the opportunity come to press your face up against blankness and, by thinking right thoughts, to become a star. "She looks like me."

 

Ruth laughs now. "You're seeing things."

 

"No kidding. When she came to the lot that first time, something hit me ?her legs, maybe, I don't know. Those aren't your legs." Which had been thick, twisting like white flame as she moved naked about their room.

 

"Well, Frank had legs too. Until he let himself get out of shape, he was on the lanky¹⁴⁹ side. Over six foot, when he straightened up, I'm a ?sucker for the big ones I guess. Then neither of the boys inherited his height."

 

"Yeah, Nelson didn't get mine, either. A shrimp¹⁵⁰ just like his mother."

 

"You're still with Janice. You used to call her a mutt," Ruth reminds him. She has settled into this situation comfortably now, leaning back in the rocker and rocking, her stocking feet going up on tiptoe, then down on the heels, then back on tiptoe. "Why am I telling you all about my life when you don't say a thing about yours?"

 

"It's pretty standard," he says. "Don't be sore at me because I stayed with Janice. "

 

"Oh Christ no. I just feel sorry for her."

 

"A sister," he says, smiling. Women are all sisters, they tell us now.

 

Fat has been added to Ruth's face not in smooth scoops¹⁵¹ but in lumps, so when she lifts her head her eye sockets seem built of bony welts. A certain forgiving mischief¹⁵² has lifted her armored glance. "Annie was fascinated by you," she volunteers. "She several times asked me if I'd ever heard of you, this basketball hero. I said we went to different high schools. She was disappointed when you weren't there when she and Jamie went back to pick up the car finally. Jamie had been leaning to a Fiesta."

 

"So you don't think Jamie is the answer for her?"

 

"For now. But you've seen him. He's common."

 

"I hope she doesn't -"

 

"Go my way? No, it'll be all right. There aren't whores anymore, just healthy young women. I've raised her very innocent. I always felt 1 was very innocent, actually."

 

"We all are, Ruth."

 

She likes his saying her name, he should be careful about saying it. He puts the photograph back and studies it in place, Annabelle between her brothers. "How about money?" he asks, trying to keep it light. "Would some help her? I could give it to you so it, you know, wouldn't come out of the blue or anything. If she wants an education, for instance." He is blushing, and Ruth's silence doesn't help. The rocker has stopped rocking.

 

At last she says, "I guess this is what they call deferred¹⁵³ payments."

 

"It's not for you, it would be for her. I can't give a lot. I mean, I'm not that rich. But if a couple thousand would make a difference -"

 

He lets the sentence hang, expecting to be interrupted. He can't look at her, that strange expanded face. Her voice when it comes has the contemptuous confident huskiness he heard from her ages ago, in bed. "Relax. You don't have to worry, I'm not going to take you up on it. If I ever get really hard up here I can sell off apiece of road frontage, five thousand an acre is what they've been getting locally. Anyway, Rabbit. Believe me. She's not yours."

 

"O.K., Ruth. If you say so." In his surge of relief he stands.

 

She stands too, and having risen together their ghosts feel their inflated¹⁵⁴ flesh fall away; the young man and woman who lived illicitly¹⁵⁵ together one flight up on Summer Street, across from a big limestone¹⁵⁶ church, stand close again, sequestered¹⁵⁷ from the world, and as before the room is hers. "Listen," she hisses¹⁵⁸ up at him, radiantly is his impression, her distorted face gleaming. "I wouldn't give you the satisfaction of that girl being yours if there was a million dollars at stake. I raised her. She and I put in a lot of time together here and where the fuck were you? You saw me in Kroll's that time and there was no follow?up, I've known where you were all these years and you didn't give a simple shit what had happened to me, or my kid, or anything."

 

"You were married," he says mildly. My kid: something odd here.

 

"You bet I was," she rushes on. "To a better man than you'll ever be, sneer¹⁵⁹ all you want. The kids have had a wonderful father and they know it. When he died we just carried on as if he was still around, he was that strong. Now I don't know what the hell is going on with you in your little life up there in Mt. Judge -"

 

"We're moving," he tells her. "To Penn Park."

 

"Swell¹⁶⁰. That's just where you belong, with those phonies. You should have left that mutt of yours twenty years ago for her good as well as your own, but you didn't and now you can stew¹⁶¹ in it; stew in it but leave my Annie alone. It's creepy, Harry. When I think of you thinking she's your daughter it's like rubbing her all over with shit."

 

He sighs through his nose. "You still have a sweet tongue," he says.

 

She is embarrassed; her iron hair has gone straggly and she presses it flat with the heels of her hands as if trying to crush something inside her skull. "I shouldn't say something like that but it's frightening, having you show up in your fancy clothes wanting to claim my daughter. You make me think, if I hadn't had the abortion, if I hadn't let my parents have their way, it might have all worked out differently, and we could have a daughter now. But you

"I know. You did the right thing." He feels her fighting the impulse to touch him, to cling to him, to let herself be crushed into his clumsy arms as once. He looks for a last topic. Awkwardly he asks, "What're you going to do, when Morris grows up and leaves home?" He remembers his hat and picks it up, pinching the soft new crown in three fingers.

 

"I don't know. Hang on a little more. Whatever happens, land won't go down. Every year I last it out here is money in the bank."

 

He sighs through his nose again. "O.K., if that's how it is. I'll run then. Really no soap on the girl?"

 

"Of course not. Think it through. Suppose she was yours. At this stage it'd just confuse her."

 

He blinks. Is this an admission? He says, "I never was too good at thinking things through."

 

Ruth smiles at the floor. The squarish dent⁵⁴ above her cheekbone, seen this way from above, was one of the first things he noticed about her. Chunky and tough but kindly¹⁶², somehow. Another human heart, telling him he was a big bunny, out by the parking meters in the neon light, the first time they met. Trains still ran through the center of Brewer then. "Men don't have to be," she says. "They don't get pregnant."

 

The dog became agitated¹⁶³ when they both stood and Ruth's voice became louder and angry, and now Fritzie leads them from the room and waits, tail inquisitively¹⁶⁴ wagging, with her nose at the crack of the door leading outside. Ruth opens it and the storm door wide enough for the dog to pass through but not Harry. "Want a cup of coffee?" she asks.

 

He told Janice one o'clock at Schaechner's. "Oh Jesus, thanks, but I ought to get back to work."

 

"You came here just about Annabelle? You don't want to hear about me?"

 

"I have heard about you, haven't I?"

 

"Whether I have a boyfriend or not, whether I ever thought about you?"

 

"Yeah, well, I'm sure that'd be interesting. From the sound of it you've done terrifically. Frank and Morris and, who's the other one?"

 

"Scott."

 

"Right. And you have all this land. Sorry, you know, to have left you in such a mess way back then."

 

"Well," Ruth says, with a considering slowness in which he imagines he can hear her late husband speaking. "I guess we make our own messes."

 

She seems now not merely fat and gray but baffled: straw on her sweater, hair on her cheeks. A shaggy monster, lonely. He longs to be out that double door into the winter air, where nothing is growing. Once he escaped by telling her, I'll be right back, but now there is not even that to say. Both know, what people should never know, that they will not meet again. He notices on the hand of hers that grips the doorknob a thin gold ring all but lost in the flesh of one finger. His heart races, trapped.

 

She has mercy on him. "Take care, Rabbit," she says. "I was just kidding about the outfit¹⁶⁵, you look good." Harry ducks his head as if to kiss her cheek but she says, "No." By the time he has taken a step off the concrete porch, her shadow has vanished from the double door's black glass. The gray of the day has intensified¹⁶⁶, releasing a few dry flakes of snow that will not amount to anything, that float sideways like flecks¹⁶⁷ of ash. Fritzie trots¹⁶⁸ beside him to the glossy¹⁶⁹ grape?blue Cebca, and has to be discouraged from jumping into the back seat.

 

Once on his way, out the driveway and past the mailboxes that say BLANKENBILLER and MUTH, Harry pops a Life Saver into his mouth and wonders if he should have called her bluff on the birth certificates. Or suppose Frank had had another wife, and Scott was his child by that marriage? If the girl was as young as Ruth said, wouldn't she still be in high school? But no. Let go. Let it go. God doesn't want him to have a daughter.

 

Waiting in the overheated front room of Schaechner's surrounded by plush new furniture, Janice looks petite and prosperous and, with her Caribbean tan, younger than forty?three. When he kisses her, on the lips, she says, "Mmm. Butter Rum. What are you hiding?"

 

"Onions for lunch."

 

She dips her nose close to his lapel. "You smell of smoke."

 

"Uh, Manny gave me a cigar."

 

She hardly listens to his lies, she is breathy and electric with news of her own. "Harry, Melanie called Mother from Ohio. Nelson is with her. Everything's all right."

 

As Janice continues, he can see her mouth move, her bangs tremble, her eyes widen and narrow, and her fingers tug⁴⁸ in excitement at the pearl strand¹⁷⁰ the lapels of her coat disclose, but Rabbit is distracted from the exact sense of what she is saying by remembering, when he bent¹⁷¹ his face close to old Ruth's in the light of the door, a glitter there, on the tired skin beneath her eyes, and by the idiotic¹⁷² thought, which it seems he should bottle and sell, that our tears are always young, the saltwater stays the same from cradle, as she said, to grave.

 

 

 

The little stone house that Harry and Janice bought for $78,000, with $15,600 down, sits on a quarter?acre of bushy land tucked in off a macadamized dead end behind two larger examples of what is locally known as Penn Park Pretentious¹⁷³: a tall mockTudor with gables like spires¹⁷⁴ and red?tiled roofs and clinker bricks sticking out at crazy melted angles, and a sort of neo?plantation¹⁷⁵ manse of serene¹⁷⁶ thin bricks the pale yellow of lemonade, with a glassed?in sunporch and on the other side a row of Palladian windows, where Harry guesses the dining room is. He has been out surveying his property, looking for a sunny patch where a garden might be dug in this spring. The spot behind Ma Springer's house on Joseph Street had been too shady. He finds a corner that might ?do, with some cutting back of oak limbs that belong to his neighbor. The earth generally in this overgrown, mature suburb is wellshaded; his lawn is half moss¹⁷⁷, which this mild winter has dried but left exposed and resilient still. He also finds a little cement fish pond with a blue?painted bottom, dry and drifted with pine needles. Someone had once sunk seashells in the wet cement of the slanting¹⁷⁸ rim²⁵. The things you buy when you buy a house. Doorknobs, windowsills, radiators¹⁷⁹. All his. If he were a fish he could swim in this pond, come spring. He tries to picture that moment when whoever it was, man, woman, or child or all three, had set these shells here, in the summer shade of trees a little less tall than these above him now. The weak winter light falls everywhere in his yard, webbed by the shadows from leafless twigs¹⁸¹. He senses standing here a silt⁷² of caring that has fallen from purchaser to purchaser. The house was built in that depressed¹⁸² but scrupulous¹⁸³ decade when Harry was born. Suave¹⁸⁴ gray limestone had been hauled from the quarries¹⁸⁵ in the far north of Diamond County and dressed and fitted by men who took the time to do it right. At a later date, after the war, some owner broke through the wall facing away from the curb¹⁸⁶ and built an addition of clapboards and white?blotched brick. Paint is peeling from the clapboards beneath the Andersen windows of what is now Janice's kitchen. Harry makes a mental note to trim back the branches that brush against the house, to cut down the dampness. Indeed there are several trees here that might be turned altogether into firewood, but until they leaf out in the spring he can't be sure which should go. The house has two fireplaces, one in the big long living room and the other, off the same flue, in the little room behind, that Harry thinks of as a den⁵³. His den.

 

He and Janice moved in yesterday, a Saturday. Pru was coming home from the hospital with the baby and if they were not there she could take their Joseph Street bedroom, with its own bathroom, away from the street. Also they thought the confusion might mask for Janice's mother the pain of their escape. Webb Murkett and the others got back from the Caribbean Thursday night as planned, and Saturday morning Webb brought one of his roofer's trucks with extension ladders roped to both sides and helped them move. Ronnie Harrison, that fink, said he had to go into the office to tackle the backlog¹⁸⁷ of paperwork that had built up during his vacation; he had worked Friday night to midnight. But Buddy¹⁸⁸ Inglefinger came over with Webb, and it didn't take the three men more than two hours to move the Angstroms. There wasn't much furniture they could call their own, mostly clothes, and Janice's mahogany bureau, and some cardboard boxes of kitchen equipment that had been salvaged¹⁸⁹ when the previous house they could call their own had burned down in 1969. All of Nelson's stuff, they left. One of the butch women came out onto her porch and waved goodbye; so news travels in a neighborhood, even when the people aren't friendly. Harry had always meant to ask them what it was like, and why. He can see not liking men, he doesn't like them much himself, but why would you like women any better, ifyou were one? Especially women who hammer all the time, just like men.

 

From Schaechner's on Thursday afternoon he and Janice had bought, and got them to deliver on Friday, a new color Sony TV (Rabbit hates to put any more money into Japanese pockets but he knows from Consumer Reports that in this particular line they can't be touched for quality) and a pair of big padded silvery?pink wing chairs (he has always wanted a wing chair, he hates drafts on his neck, people have died from drafts on their necks) and a Queen?size mattress and box springs on a metal frame, without headboard. This bed he and Webb and Buddy carry upstairs to the room at the back, with a partially¹⁹⁰ slanted¹⁹¹ ceiling but space for a mirror if they want it on the blank wall next to the closet door, and the chairs and TV go not into the living room, which is too big to think about furnishing at first, but into the much cozier room just off it, the den. Always he has wanted a den, a room where people would have trouble getting at him. What he especially loves about this little room, besides the fireplace and the built?in shelves where you could keep either books or Ma's knickknacks and china when she dies, with liquor in the cabinets below, and even room for a little refrigerator when they get around to it, are the wall?to?wall carpeting of a kind of greenand?orange mix that reminds him of cheerleaders' tassels¹⁹² and the little high windows whose sashes crank open and shut and are composed of leaded lozenge?panes such as you see in books of fairy tales. He thinks in this room he might begin to read books, instead of just magazines and newspapers, and begin to learn about history, say. You have to step down into the den, one step down from the hardwood floor of the living room, and this small difference in plane hints to him of many reforms and consolidations now possible in his life, like new shoots on a tree cropped back.

 

Franklin Drive is the elegant street their dead?end spur cuts off of 14VZ Franklin Drive is their postal¹⁹³ address, and the spur itself has no street name, they should call it Angstrom Way. Webb suggested Angstrom Alley¹⁹⁴, but Harry has had enough of alleys¹⁹⁵ in his Mt. Judge years, and resents Webb's saying this. First he tells you to sell gold too soon, then he fucks your wife, and now he puts your house down. Harry has never lived at so low a number as 14Y2 before. But the mailman in his little red, white, and blue jeep knows where they are. Already they've received mail here: flyers to RESIDENT collected while they were in the Caribbean, and Saturday around one?thirty, after Webb and Buddy were gone, while Janice and Harry in the kitchen were arranging spoons and pans they'd forgotten they owned, the letter slot clacked and a postcard and a white envelope lay on the front hall's bare floor. The envelope, one of the long plain stamped ones you buy at the post office, had no return address and was postmarked Brewer. It was addressed to just MR. HARRY ANGSTROM in the same slanting block printing that had sent him last April the clipping about Skeeter. Inside this new envelope the clipping was very small, and the same precise hand that had addressed it had schoolteacherishly inscribed¹⁹⁶ in ballpoint along the top edge, From "Golf Magazine" Annual "Roundup." The item read:

 

 

A COSTLY¹⁹⁷ BIRDIE

 

Dr. Sherman Thomas cooked his own goose when he killed one of the Canadian variety at Congressional CC. The court levied¹⁹⁸ a $500 fine for the act.

 

 

Janice forced a laugh, reading at his side, there in the echoing bare hallway, that led through a white arch into the long living room.

 

He looked over at her guiltily and agreed with her unspoken thought. "Thelma."

 

Her color had risen. A minute before, they had been in sentimental²⁰⁰ raptures²⁰¹ over an old Mixmaster that, plugged in again after ten years in Ma Springer's attic²⁰², had whirred. Now she blurted²⁰³, "She'll never let us alone. Never."

 

"Thelma? Of course she will, that was the deal. She was very definite about it. Weren't you, with Webb?"

 

"Oh of course, but words don't mean anything to a woman in love."

 

"Who? You with Webb?"

 

"No, you goon. Thelma. With you."

 

"She told me, she loves Ronnie. Though I don't see how she can."

 

"He's her bread and butter. You're her dream man. You really turn her on."

 

"You sound amazed," he said accusingly.

 

"Oh, you don't not turn me on, I can see what she sees, it's just. . ." She turned away to hide her tears. Everywhere he looked, women were crying. ". . . . the intrusion. To know that that was her that sent that other thing way back then, to think of her watching us all the time, waiting to pounce²⁰⁴ . . . They're evil people, Harry. I don't want to see any of them anymore."

 

"Oh come on." He had to hug her, there in the hollow hall. He likes it now when she gets all flustered²⁰⁵ and frowny, her breath hot and somehow narrow with grief she seems most his then, the keystone of his wealth. Once when she got like this, her fear contaminated him and he ran; but in these middle years it is so clear to him that he will never run that he can laugh at her, his stubborn prize. "They're just like us. That was a holiday. In real life they're very square."

 

Janice was vehement²⁰⁶. "I'm furious with her, doing such a flirtatious²⁰⁷ thing, so soon after. They'll never let us alone, never, now that we have a house. As long as we were at Mother's we were protected."

 

And it was true, the Harrisons and the Murketts and Buddy Inglefinger and the tall new girlfriend with her frizzy hair now up in corn rows and juju beads²⁰⁸ like the woman in "10" did come over last night, the Angstroms' first night in their new house, bearing bottles of champagne²⁰⁹ and brandy, and stayed until two, so Sunday feels sour and guilty. Harry has no habits yet in this house; without habits and Ma Springer's old furniture to cushion him, his life stretches emptily on all sides, and it seems that moving in any direction he's bound to take a fall.

 

The other piece of mail that came Saturday, the postcard, was from Nelson.

 

 

Hi Mom & Dad ?

 

Spring Semester begins the 28th so am in good shape. Need certified²¹⁰ check for $1087 (397 instrucional fee, 90 general fee, 600 surcharge for non Ohio students) plus living expenses. $2000?2500 slid. be enuff. Will call when you have phone. Melanie says Hi. Love, Nelson

 

 

On the other side of the card was a modern brick building topped by big slatted things like hot air vents¹, identified as Business

 

Administration Building, Kent State University. Harry asked, "What about Pru? The kid's a father and doesn't seem to know it."

 

"He knows it. He just can't do everything at once. He's told

 

Pru over the phone he'll drive back as soon as he's registered and look at the baby and leave us the car he took. Though maybe,

 

Harry, we could just let him use it for now."

 

"That's my Corona!"

 

"He's doing what you wanted him to do, go back to college.

 

Pru understands."

 

"She understands she's linked up with a hopeless loser," Harry said, but his heart wasn't in it. The kid was no threat to him for now. Harry was king of the castle.

 

And today is Super Sunday. Janice tries to get him up for church, she is driving Mother, but he is far too hungover and wants to return to the warm pocket of a dream he had been having, a dream involving a girl, a young woman, he has never met before, with darkish hair, they have met somehow at a party and are in a little bathroom together, not speaking but with a rapport²¹¹, as if just having had sex or about to have sex, between them, sex very certain and casual between them but not exactly happening, the floor of many small square tiles at an angle beneath them, the small space of the bathroom cupped around them like the little chrome bowl around the flame of the perpetual cigar lighter²¹² at the old tobacco store downtown, the bliss²¹³ of a new relationship, he wants it to go on and on but is awake and can't get back. This bed- room, its bright slanted ceiling, is strange. They must get curtains soon. Is Janice up to this? Poor mutt, she's never had to do much. He makes what breakfast he can of a single orange in the nearly empty refrigerator, plus some salted nuts left over from the party last night, plus a cup of instant coffee dissolved with hot water straight from the tap. This house too, like Webb's, has those single?lever faucets²¹⁴ shaped like a slender prick stung on the tip by a bee. The refrigerator went with the place and, one of the things that sold him, has an automatic ice?maker²¹⁵ that turns out crescent- shaped cubes by the bushel. Even though the old Mixmaster works he hasn't forgotten his promise to Janice to buy her a Cuisinart. Maybe the trouble she has getting meals on the table related to its being Ma Springer's old?fashioned kitchen. He roams through his house warily²¹⁶ exulting²¹⁷ in the cast?iron radiators, the brass²¹⁸ window catches, the classy little octagonal bathroom tiles, and the doors with key?lock knobs; these details of what he has bought shine out in the absence of furniture and will soon sink from view as the days here clutter²¹⁹ them over. Now they are naked and pristine²²⁰.

 

Upstairs, in a slanting closet off of what once must have been a boys' bedroom ? its walls pricked with dozens of thumbtack holes and marred²²¹ with ends of Scotch²²² tape used to hold posters - he finds stacks of Playboys and Penthouses from the early Seventies. He fetches from out beside the kitchen steps, under the slowly revolving²²³ electric meter, one of the big green plastic trash barrels he and Janice bought yesterday at Shur Valu; but before disposing of each magazine Rabbit leafs through it, searching out the center spreads month after month, year after year, as the airbrushing recedes and the pubic hair first peeks²²⁴ and then froths boldly forth²²⁵ and these young women perfect as automobile²²⁶ bodies let their negligees fall open frontally and revolve²²⁷ upon their couches of leopard²²⁸ skin so subscribers' eyes at last can feast upon their full shame and treasure. An invisible force month after month through each year's seasons forces gently wider open their flawless thighs²²⁹ until somewhere around the bicentennial issues the Constitutional triumph of open beaver²³⁰ is attained²³¹, and the buxom²³² boldly gazing girls from Texas and Hawaii and South Dakota yield up to the lights and lens a vertical²³³ rosy²³⁴ aperture²³⁵ that seems to stare back, out of a blood?flushed nether²³⁶ world, scarcely pretty, an ultimate of disclosure which yet acts as a barrier to some secret beyond, within, still undisclosed as the winter light diminishes at the silent window. Outside, a squirrel is watching, its gray back arched, its black eye alert. Nature, Harry sees, is everywhere. This tree that comes so close to the house he thinks is a cherry, its bark in rings. The squirrel, itself spied, scurries²³⁷ on. The full load of magazines makes the trash barrel almost too heavy to lift. A ton of cunt. He lugs²³⁸ it downstairs. Janice comes back after two, having had lunch with her mother and Pru and the baby.

 

"Everybody seemed cheerful," she reports, "including Baby."

 

"Baby have a name yet?"

 

"Pru asked Nelson about Rebecca and he said absolutely not. Now she's thinking of Judith. That's her mother's name. I told them to forget Janice, I never much liked it for myself."

 

"I thought she hated her mother."

 

"She doesn't hate her, she doesn't much respect her. It's her father she hates. But he's been on the phone to her a couple of times and been very, what's the word, conciliatory."

 

"Oh great. Maybe he can come and help run the lot. He can do our steam fitting. How does Pru feel about Nelson's running off, just on the eve?"

 

Janice takes off her hat, a fuzzy violet loose?knit beret she wears in winter and that makes her look with the sheepskin coat like some brown?faced boy of a little soldier off to the wars. Her hair stands up with static electricity. In the empty living room she has nowhere to drop her hat, and throws it onto a white windowsill. "Well," she says, "she's interesting about it. For just now she says she's just as glad he isn't around, it would be one more thing to cope with. In general she feels it's something he had to do, to get his shit together ?that's her expression. I think she knows she pushed him. Once he gets his degree, she thinks, he'll be much more comfortable with himself. She doesn't seem at all worried about losing him for good or anything."

 

"Huh. Whaddeya have to do to get blamed for something these days?"

 

"They're very tolerant of each other," Janice says, "and I think that's nice." She heads upstairs, and Harry follows her up, closely, afraid of losing her in the vast newness of their house.

 

He asks, "She gonna go out there and live with him in an apartment or what?"

 

"She thinks her going out there with the baby would panic him right now. And of course for Mother it'd be much nicer if she stayed."

 

"Isn't Pru at all miffed about Melanie?"

 

"No, she says Melanie will watch after him for her. They don't have this jealousy²³⁹ thing the way we do, if you can believe them."

 

"If."

 

"Speaking of which." Janice drops her coat on the bed and bends over, ass high, to unzip her boots. "Thelma had left a message with Mother about whether or not you and I wanted to come over to their house for a light supper and watch the Super Bowl. I guess the Murketts will be there."

 

"And you said?"

 

"I said No. Don't worry, I was quite sweet. I said we were having Mother and Pru over here to watch the game on our brand?new Sony. It's true. I invited them." In stocking feet she stands and puts her hands on the hips⁹⁶ of her black church suit as if daring him to admit he would rather go out and be with that racy crowd than stay home with his family.

 

"Fine," he says. "I haven't really seen -"

 

"Oh, and quite a sad thing. Mother got it from Grace Stuhl, who's good friends apparently with Peggy Fosnacht's aunt. While we were down there Peggy went into her doctor's for a check?up and by nighttime he had her in the hospital and a breast taken off."

 

"My God." Breast he had sucked. Poor old Peggy. Flicked²⁴⁰ away by God's fmgemail. Life is too big for us, in the end.

 

"They of course said they got it all but then they always say that.

 

"She seemed lately headed for something unfortunate."

 

"She's been grotesque²⁴¹. I should call her, but not today."

 

Janice is changing into dungarees to do housecleaning. She says the people have left the place filthy²⁴² but he can't see it, except for the Playboys. She has never been much of a neatness freak wherever they have lived before. Uncurtained winter light bouncing off the bare floors and blank walls turns her underwear to silver and gives her shoulders and arms a quick life as of darting²⁴³ fish before they disappear into an old shirt of his and a moth²?eaten sweater. Behind her their new bed, unmade, hasn't been fucked on yet, they were too drunk and exhausted²⁴⁴ last night. In fact they haven't since that night on the island. He asks her irritably²⁴⁵ what about his lunch.

 

Janice asks, "Oh, didn't you find something in the fridge?"

 

"There was one orange. I ate it for breakfast."

 

"I know I bought eggs and sliced ham but I guess Buddy and what's?her?name ?"

 

"Valerie."

 

"Wasn't her hair wild? do you think she takes drugs? ? ate it all up in that omelette they made after midnight. Isn't that a sign of drugs, an abnormal appetite for food? I know there's some cheese left, Harry. Couldn't you make do with cheese and crackers²⁴⁶ until I go out and buy something for Mother later? I don't know what's open Sundays around here, I can't keep running back to the Mt. Judge Superette and using up gas."

 

"'No," he agrees, and makes do with cheese and crackers and a Schlitz that is left over from the three sixpacks Ronnie and Thelma brought over. Webb and Cindy brought the brandy and champagne. All afternoon he helps Janice clean, Windexing windows and wiping woodwork while she mops floors and even scours²⁴⁷ the kitchen and bathroom sinks. They have a downstairs bathroom here but he doesn't know where to buy toilet paper printed with comic strips. Janice has brought her mother's waxing machine in the Mustang along with some Butcher's paste and he wipes the wax on the long blond living?room floor, each whorl of wood grain and slightly popped?up nail and old scuff²⁴⁸ of a rubber heel his, his house. As he lays the wax on with circular swipes Rabbit keeps chasing the same few thoughts in his brain, stupid as brains are when you do physical work. Last night he kept wondering if the other two couples had gone ahead and swapped²⁴⁹, Ronnie and Cindy doing it the second time, after he and Janice had left and they did act cozy²⁵⁰, as if the four of them made the innermost circle of the party and the Angstroms and poor Buddy and that hungry Valerie were second echelon²⁵¹ or third worlders somehow. Thelma got pretty drunk for her, her sallow skin gleaming to remind him of Vaseline, though when he thanked her for sending the clipping about the goose she stared at him and then sideways at Ronnie and then back at him as if he had rocks in his head. He guesses it'll all come out, what happened down there afterwards, people can't keep a good secret, but it pains him to think that Thelma would let Webb do to her everything the two of them did or that Cindy really wanted to go with Ronnie again and would lift up her heavy breast with a motherly hand so that loudmouthed jerk could suck and tell about it, with his scalp bare like that he's such a baby, Harrison. No point in keeping secrets, we'll all be dead soon enough, already we're survivors²⁵², the kids are everywhere, making the music, giving the news. Ever since that encounter with Ruth he's felt amputated, a whole world half?seen in the comer of his eye snuffed out. Janice and the waxing machine are whining²⁵³ and knocking behind him and the way his brain is going on reminds him of some article he read last year in the paper or Time about some professor at Princeton's theory that in ancient times the gods spoke¹⁹⁹ to people directly through the left or was it the right half of their brains, they were like robots with radios in their heads telling them everything to do, and then somehow around the time of the ancient Greeks or Assyrians the system broke up, the batteries too weak to hear the orders, though there are glimmers²⁵⁴ still and that is why we go to church, and what with all these jigaboos and fags roller?skating around with transistorized earmuffs on their heads we're getting back to it. How at night just before drifting off he hears Mom's voice clear as a whisper from the corner of the room saying Hassy, a name as dead as the boy that was called that is dead. Maybe the dead are gods, there's certainly something kind about them, the way they give you room. What you lose as you age is witnesses, the ones that watched from early on and cared, like your own little grandstand. Mom, Pop, old man Springer, baby Becky, good old Jill (maybe ?that dream had to do with the time he took her in so suddenly, except her hair wasn't dark, it was so intense, the dream, there's nothing like a new relationship), Skeeter, Mr. Abendroth, Frank Byer, Mamie Eisenhower just recently, John Wayne, LBJ, JFK, Skylab, the goose. With Charlie's mother and Peggy Fosnacht cooking. And his daughter Annabelle Byer snuffed out with that whole world he was watching in the corner of his eye like those entire planets obliterated²⁵⁵ in Star Wars. The more dead you know it seems the more living there are you don't know. Ruth's tears, when he was leaving: maybe God is in the universe the way salt is in the ocean, giving it a taste. He could never understand why people can't drink saltwater, it can't be any worse than mixing Coke and potato chips.

 

Behind him he hears Janice knocking her waxer clumsily against the baseboards at every sweep and it comes to him why they're being so busy, they're trying not to panic here in this house, where they shouldn't be at all, so far from Joseph Street. Lost in space. Like what souls must feel when they awaken²⁵⁶ in a baby's body so far from Heaven: not only scared so they cry but guilty, guilty. A huge hole to fill up. The money it'll take to fill these rooms with furniture when they had it all free before: he's ruined himself. And the mortgage payments: $62,400 at 13%2 per cent comes to nearly $8500 interest alone, $700 a month over twenty years nibbling²⁵⁷ away at the principal until he's sixty?six. What did Ruth say about her youngest, 6/6/66? Funny about numbers, they don't lie but do play tricks. Three score and ten, all the things he'll never get to do now: to have Cindy arrange herself in the pose of one of those Penthouse sluts on a leopard skin and get down in front of her on all fours and just eat and eat and eat.

 

Last night Buddy turned to him so drunk his silver?rimmed²⁵⁸ eyeglasses were steamed and said he knew it was crazy, he knew what people would say about her being too tall and having three children and all, but Valerie really did it for him. She is the one, Harry. With tears in his eyes he said that. The big news from over at the Flying Eagle was Doris Kaufmann's planning to get married again. To a guy Rabbit used to know slightly, Don Eberhardt, who had gotten rich buying up inner?city real estate when nobody wanted it, before the gas crunch²⁵⁹. Life is sweet, that's what they say.

 

Light still lingers in the windows, along the white windowsills, at five when they finish, the days this time of year lengthening²⁶⁰ against the grain. The planets keep their courses no matter what we do. In the freshly waxed hall by the foot of the stairs he touches Janice underneath²⁶¹ her chin where the flesh is soft but not really repulsive²⁶² and suggests a little nap upstairs, but she gives him a kiss warm and competent, the competence²⁶³ cancelling out the warmth, and tells him, "Oh Harry, that's a sweet idea but I have no idea when they might be coming, it's all mixed up with a hedown Mother was going to have, she really does seem frailer²⁶⁴, and the baby's feeding time, and I haven't even shopped yet. Isn't the Super Bowl on?"

 

"Not till six, it's on the West Coast. There's a pre?game thing on at four?thirty but it's all hoopla, you can only take so much. I wanted to watch the Phoenix²⁶⁵ Open at two?thirty, but you were so damn frantic to clean up just because your mother's coming over."

 

"You should have said something. I could have done it myself."

 

While she goes off in the Mustang he goes upstairs, because there isn't any place downstairs to lie down. He hopes to see the squirrel again, but the animal is gone. He thought squirrels hibernated²⁶⁶, but maybe this winter is too mild. He holds his hands over a radiator¹⁸⁰, his, and with pride and satisfaction feels it breathing heat. He lies down on their new bed with the Amish quilt they brought from Mt. Judge and almost without transition falls asleep. In his dream he and Charlie are in trouble at the agency, some crucial papers with numbers on them are lost, and where the new cars should be in the showroom there are just ragged¹²⁸ craters²⁶⁷, carefully painted with stripes and stars, in the concrete floor. He awakes realizing he is running scared. There has been another explosion, muffled²⁶⁸: Janice closing the door downstairs. It is after six. "I had to drive out almost to the ballpark before I found this MinitMart that was open. They didn't have fresh anything of course, but I got four frozen Chinese dinners that the pictures of on the box looked good."

 

"Isn't crap like that loaded with chemicals? You don't want to poison Pru's milk."

 

"And I bought you lots of baloney and eggs and cheese and crackers so stop your complaining."

 

The nap, that at first waking had felt as if somebody had slugged him in the face with a ball of wet clothes, begins to sink into his bones and cheer him up. Darkness has erased²⁶⁹ the staring depth of day; the windows might be black photographic plates in their frames. Thelma and Nelson are out there circling, waiting to move in. Janice bought thirty dollars' worth at the MinitMart and as she fills the bright refrigerator he sees in a comer there are two more beers that escaped the vultures last night. She even brought him a jar of salted peanuts for all of $1.29 to watch the game with. The first half sways back and forth. He is rooting for the Steelers to lose, he hates what they did to the Eagles and in any case doesn't like overdogs; he pulls for the Rams²⁷⁰ the way he does for the Afghan rebels against the Soviet military machine.

 

At half?time a lot of girls in colored dresses and guys that look like fags in striped jerseys²⁷¹ dance while about a thousand pieces of California brass imitate the old Big Bands with an off?key blare; these kids try to jitterbug but they don't have the swing, that onebeat wait back on your heels and then the twirl. They do a lot of disco wiggling instead. Then some little piece of sunshine with an Andrews?sisters pageboy sings "Sentimental journey" but it doesn't have that Doris Day wartime Forties soul, how could it? No war. These kids were all born, can you believe it, around 1960 at the earliest and, worse yet, are sexually mature. On the "a?all aboard" they snake together in what is supposed to be the Chattanooga Choo?choo and then produce, out there in cloudless California, flashing sheets like tinfoil²⁷² that are supposed to be solar panels. "Energy is people," they sing. "People are en?er?gy!" Who needs Khomeini and his oil? Who needs Afghanistan? Fuck the Russkis. Fuck the Japs, for that matter. We'll go it alone, from sea to shining sea.

 

Tired of sitting in his den alone with a hundred million other boobs watching, Harry goes into the kitchen for that second beer, Janice sits at a card table her mother parted with as a loan grudgingly²⁷³, even though she never plays cards except in the Poconos. "Where are our guests?" he asks.

 

Janice is sitting there helping the Chinese dinners warm up in the oven and reading a copy of House Beautiful she must have bought at the MinitMart. "They must have fallen asleep. They're up a good deal of the night, in a way it's a merry, Harry, we're not there anymore."

 

He trims his lips in upon a bitter taste in the beer. Grain gone bad. Men love their poison. "Well I guess living in this house with just you is the way for me to lose weight. I never get fed."

 

"You'll get fed," she says, turning a slick page.

 

Jealous of the magazine, of the love for this house he feels growing in her, he complains, "It's like waiting for a shoe to drop."

 

She darts²⁷⁴ a dark, not quite hostile look up at him. "I'd think you've had enough shoes drop lately to last ten years."

 

From her tone he supposes she means something about Thelma but that had been far from his mind, for now.

 

Their guests don't arrive until early in the fourth quarter, just after Bradshaw, getting desperate, has thrown a bomb to Stallworth; receiver and defender²⁷⁵ go up together and the lucky stiff makes a circus catch. Rabbit still feels the Rams are going to win it. Janice calls that Ma and Pru are here. Ma Springer is all chattery²⁷⁶ in the front hall, taking off her mink²⁷⁷, about the drive through Brewer, where hardly any cars were moving because she supposes of the game. She is teaching Pru to drive the Chrysler and Pru did very well once they figured out how to move the seat back: she hadn't realized what long legs Pru has. Pru, pressing a pink?wrapped bundle tight to her chest out of the cold, looks worn and thin in the face but more aligned²⁷⁸, like a bed tugged smooth. "We would have been here earlier but I was typing a letter to Nelson and wanted to finish," she apologizes.

 

"It worries me," Ma is going on, "they used to say it brought bad luck to take a baby out visiting before it was baptized."

 

"Oh Mother," Janice says; she is eager to show her mother the cleaned?up house and leads her upstairs, even though the only lights are some 40?watt²⁷⁹ neo?colonial wall sconces in which the previous owners had let many of the bulbs die.

 

As Harry resettles himself in one of his silvery?pink wing chairs ?in front of the game, he can hear the old lady clumping²⁸⁰ on her painful legs directly above his head, inspecting, searching out the room where she might some day have to come and stay. He assumes Pru is with them, but the footsteps mingling²⁸¹ on the ceiling are not that many, and Teresa comes softly down the one step into his den and deposits into his lap what he has been waiting for. Oblong cocooned²⁸² little visitor, the baby shows her profile blindly in the shuddering²⁸³ flashes of color jerking from the Sony, the tiny stitchless seam of the closed eyelid²⁸⁴ aslant²⁸⁵, lips bubbled forward beneath the whorled nose as if in delicate disdain²⁸⁶, she knows she's good. You can feel in the curve of the cranium she's feminine, that shows from the first day. Through all this she has pushed to be here, in his lap, his hands, a real presence hardly weighing anything but alive. Fortune's hostage, heart's desire, a granddaughter. His. Another nail in his coffin¹¹². His.

 

The End

1 vents   

（气体、液体等进出的）孔、口( vent的名词复数 )； （鸟、鱼、爬行动物或小哺乳动物的）肛门； 大衣等的)衩口； 开衩

参考例句：

• He always vents his anger on the dog. 他总是拿狗出气。
• The Dandelion Patch is the least developed of the four active vents. “蒲公英区”在这四个活裂口中是发育最差的一个。

2 moth   

n.蛾，蛀虫

参考例句：

• A moth was fluttering round the lamp.有一只蛾子扑打着翅膀绕着灯飞。
• The sweater is moth-eaten.毛衣让蛀虫咬坏了。

3 numb   

adj.麻木的，失去感觉的；v.使麻木

参考例句：

• His fingers were numb with cold.他的手冻得发麻。
• Numb with cold,we urged the weary horses forward.我们冻得发僵，催着疲惫的马继续往前走。

4 cane   

n.手杖，细长的茎，藤条；v.以杖击，以藤编制的

参考例句：

• This sugar cane is quite a sweet and juicy.这甘蔗既甜又多汁。
• English schoolmasters used to cane the boys as a punishment.英国小学老师过去常用教鞭打男学生作为惩罚。

5 harry   

vt.掠夺，蹂躏，使苦恼

参考例句：

• Today,people feel more hurried and harried.今天，人们感到更加忙碌和苦恼。
• Obama harried business by Healthcare Reform plan.奥巴马用医改掠夺了商界。

6 pricked   

刺，扎，戳( prick的过去式和过去分词 )； 刺伤； 刺痛； 使剧痛

参考例句：

• The cook pricked a few holes in the pastry. 厨师在馅饼上戳了几个洞。
• He was pricked by his conscience. 他受到良心的谴责。

7 prick   

v.刺伤，刺痛，刺孔；n.刺伤，刺痛

参考例句：

• He felt a sharp prick when he stepped on an upturned nail.当他踩在一个尖朝上的钉子上时，他感到剧烈的疼痛。
• He burst the balloon with a prick of the pin.他用针一戳，气球就爆了。

8 hunched   

（常指因寒冷、生病或愁苦）耸肩弓身的，伏首前倾的

参考例句：

• He sat with his shoulders hunched up. 他耸起双肩坐着。
• Stephen hunched down to light a cigarette. 斯蒂芬弓着身子点燃一支烟。

9 pro   

n.赞成，赞成的意见，赞成者

参考例句：

• The two debating teams argued the question pro and con.辩论的两组从赞成与反对两方面辩这一问题。
• Are you pro or con nuclear disarmament?你是赞成还是反对核裁军？

10 Mediterranean   

adj.地中海的；地中海沿岸的

参考例句：

• The houses are Mediterranean in character.这些房子都属地中海风格。
• Gibraltar is the key to the Mediterranean.直布罗陀是地中海的要冲。

11 ass   

n.驴；傻瓜，蠢笨的人

参考例句：

• He is not an ass as they make him.他不象大家猜想的那样笨。
• An ass endures his burden but not more than his burden.驴能负重但不能超过它能力所负担的。

12 exuberantly   

adv.兴高采烈地，活跃地，愉快地

参考例句：

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

13 swirling   

v.旋转，打旋( swirl的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• Snowflakes were swirling in the air. 天空飘洒着雪花。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• She smiled, swirling the wine in her glass. 她微笑着，旋动着杯子里的葡萄酒。 来自辞典例句

14 wagon   

n.四轮马车，手推车，面包车；无盖运货列车

参考例句：

• We have to fork the hay into the wagon.我们得把干草用叉子挑进马车里去。
• The muddy road bemired the wagon.马车陷入了泥泞的道路。

15 vice   

n.坏事；恶习；[pl.]台钳，老虎钳；adj.副的

参考例句：

• He guarded himself against vice.他避免染上坏习惯。
• They are sunk in the depth of vice.他们堕入了罪恶的深渊。

16 rumble   

n.隆隆声；吵嚷；v.隆隆响；低沉地说

参考例句：

• I hear the rumble of thunder in the distance.我听到远处雷声隆隆。
• We could tell from the rumble of the thunder that rain was coming.我们根据雷的轰隆声可断定，天要下雨了。

17 brewer   

n. 啤酒制造者

参考例句：

• Brewer is a very interesting man. 布鲁尔是一个很有趣的人。
• I decided to quit my job to become a brewer. 我决定辞职，做一名酿酒人。

18 inviting   

adj.诱人的，引人注目的

参考例句：

• An inviting smell of coffee wafted into the room.一股诱人的咖啡香味飘进了房间。
• The kitchen smelled warm and inviting and blessedly familiar.这间厨房的味道温暖诱人，使人感到亲切温馨。

19 ridge   

n.山脊；鼻梁；分水岭

参考例句：

• We clambered up the hillside to the ridge above.我们沿着山坡费力地爬上了山脊。
• The infantry were advancing to attack the ridge.步兵部队正在向前挺进攻打山脊。

20 mattress   

n.床垫，床褥

参考例句：

• The straw mattress needs to be aired.草垫子该晾一晾了。
• The new mattress I bought sags in the middle.我买的新床垫中间陷了下去。

21 convertible   

adj.可改变的，可交换，同意义的；n.有活动摺篷的汽车

参考例句：

• The convertible sofa means that the apartment can sleep four.有了这张折叠沙发，公寓里可以睡下4个人。
• That new white convertible is totally awesome.那辆新的白色折篷汽车简直棒极了。

22 holocaust   

n.大破坏；大屠杀

参考例句：

• The Auschwitz concentration camp always remind the world of the holocaust.奥辛威茨集中营总是让世人想起大屠杀。
• Ahmadinejad is denying the holocaust because he's as brutal as Hitler was.内贾德否认大屠杀，因为他像希特勒一样残忍。

23 economizing   

v.节省，减少开支( economize的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• Strengthing Management of Economizing Electricity Enhancing BenefIt'step by Step. 强化节电管理效益逐上台阶。 来自互联网
• We should lose no time in increasing production and economizing. 六、抓紧增产节约。 来自互联网

24 capitalism   

n.资本主义

参考例句：

• The essence of his argument is that capitalism cannot succeed.他的论点的核心是资本主义不能成功。
• Capitalism began to develop in Russia in the 19th century.十九世纪资本主义在俄国开始发展。

25 rim   

n.(圆物的)边，轮缘；边界

参考例句：

• The water was even with the rim of the basin.盆里的水与盆边平齐了。
• She looked at him over the rim of her glass.她的目光越过玻璃杯的边沿看着他。

26 suede   

n.表面粗糙的软皮革

参考例句：

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

27 corona   

n.日冕

参考例句：

• The corona gains and loses energy continuously.日冕总是不断地获得能量和损失能量。
• The corona is a brilliant,pearly white,filmy light,about as bright as the full moon.光环带是一种灿烂的珠白色朦胧光，几乎像满月一样明亮。

28 allocated   

adj. 分配的 动词allocate的过去式和过去分词

参考例句：

• The Ford Foundation allocated millions of dollars for cancer research. 福特基金会拨款数百万美元用于癌症研究。
• More funds will now be allocated to charitable organizations. 现在会拨更多的资金给慈善组织。

29 quartz   

n.石英

参考例句：

• There is a great deal quartz in those mountains.那些山里蕴藏着大量石英。
• The quartz watch keeps good time.石英表走时准。

30 tuned   

adj.调谐的，已调谐的v.调音( tune的过去式和过去分词 )；调整；（给收音机、电视等）调谐；使协调

参考例句：

• The resort is tuned in to the tastes of young and old alike. 这个度假胜地适合各种口味，老少皆宜。
• The instruments should be tuned up before each performance. 每次演出开始前都应将乐器调好音。 来自《简明英汉词典》

31 stodgy   

adj.易饱的；笨重的；滞涩的；古板的

参考例句：

• It wasn't easy to lose puppy fat when Mum fed her on stodgy home cooking.母亲给她吃易饱的家常菜，她想减掉婴儿肥可是很难。
• The gateman was a stodgy fellow of 60.看门人是个六十岁的矮胖子。

32 bug   

n.虫子；故障；窃听器；vt.纠缠；装窃听器

参考例句：

• There is a bug in the system.系统出了故障。
• The bird caught a bug on the fly.那鸟在飞行中捉住了一只昆虫。

33 charisma   

n.(大众爱戴的)领袖气质，魅力

参考例句：

• He has enormous charisma. He is a giant of a man.他有超凡的个人魅力，是个伟人。
• I don't have the charisma to pull a crowd this size.我没有那么大的魅力，能吸引这么多人。

34 steer   

vt.驾驶，为…操舵；引导；vi.驾驶

参考例句：

• If you push the car, I'll steer it.如果你来推车，我就来驾车。
• It's no use trying to steer the boy into a course of action that suits you.想说服这孩子按你的方式行事是徒劳的。

35 standing   

n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的

参考例句：

• After the earthquake only a few houses were left standing.地震过后只有几幢房屋还立着。
• They're standing out against any change in the law.他们坚决反对对法律做任何修改。

36 digits   

n.数字( digit的名词复数 )；手指，足趾

参考例句：

• The number 1000 contains four digits. 1000是四位数。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The number 410 contains three digits. 数字 410 中包括三个数目字。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》

37 virgin   

n.处女，未婚女子；adj.未经使用的；未经开发的

参考例句：

• Have you ever been to a virgin forest?你去过原始森林吗？
• There are vast expanses of virgin land in the remote regions.在边远地区有大片大片未开垦的土地。

38 hood   

n.头巾，兜帽，覆盖；v.罩上，以头巾覆盖

参考例句：

• She is wearing a red cloak with a hood.她穿着一件红色带兜帽的披风。
• The car hood was dented in.汽车的发动机罩已凹了进去。

39 screwdriver   

n.螺丝起子；伏特加橙汁鸡尾酒

参考例句：

• He took a screwdriver and teased out the remaining screws.他拿出螺丝刀把其余的螺丝卸了下来。
• The electric drill can also be used as a screwdriver.这把电钻也可用作螺丝刀。

40 vengeance   

n.报复，报仇，复仇

参考例句：

• He swore vengeance against the men who murdered his father.他发誓要向那些杀害他父亲的人报仇。
• For years he brooded vengeance.多年来他一直在盘算报仇。

41 hymns   

n.赞美诗，圣歌，颂歌( hymn的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• At first, they played the hymns and marches familiar to them. 起初他们只吹奏自己熟悉的赞美诗和进行曲。 来自英汉非文学 - 百科语料821
• I like singing hymns. 我喜欢唱圣歌。 来自辞典例句

42 mellow   

adj.柔和的；熟透的；v.变柔和；(使)成熟

参考例句：

• These apples are mellow at this time of year.每年这时节，苹果就熟透了。
• The colours become mellow as the sun went down.当太阳落山时，色彩变得柔和了。

43 waxy   

adj.苍白的；光滑的

参考例句：

• Choose small waxy potatoes for the salad.选些个头小、表皮光滑的土豆做色拉。
• The waxy oil keeps ears from getting too dry.这些蜡状耳油可以保持耳朵不会太干燥。

44 rustling   

n. 瑟瑟声，沙沙声 adj. 发沙沙声的

参考例句：

• the sound of the trees rustling in the breeze 树木在微风中发出的沙沙声
• the soft rustling of leaves 树叶柔和的沙沙声

45 drooping   

adj. 下垂的，无力的 动词droop的现在分词

参考例句：

• The drooping willows are waving gently in the morning breeze. 晨风中垂柳袅袅。
• The branches of the drooping willows were swaying lightly. 垂柳轻飘飘地摆动。

46 hoops   

n.箍( hoop的名词复数 )；（篮球）篮圈；（旧时儿童玩的）大环子；（两端埋在地里的）小铁弓

参考例句：

• a barrel bound with iron hoops 用铁箍箍紧的桶
• Hoops in Paris were wider this season and skirts were shorter. 在巴黎，这个季节的裙圈比较宽大，裙裾却短一些。 来自飘（部分）

47 anticipation   

n.预期，预料，期望

参考例句：

• We waited at the station in anticipation of her arrival.我们在车站等着，期待她的到来。
• The animals grew restless as if in anticipation of an earthquake.各种动物都变得焦躁不安，像是感到了地震即将发生。

48 tug   

v.用力拖(或拉)；苦干；n.拖；苦干；拖船

参考例句：

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

49 tugged   

v.用力拉，使劲拉，猛扯( tug的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• She tugged at his sleeve to get his attention. 她拽了拽他的袖子引起他的注意。
• A wry smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. 他的嘴角带一丝苦笑。 来自《简明英汉词典》

50 chilly   

adj.凉快的，寒冷的

参考例句：

• I feel chilly without a coat.我由于没有穿大衣而感到凉飕飕的。
• I grew chilly when the fire went out.炉火熄灭后，寒气逼人。

51 fumbling   

n. 摸索,漏接 v. 摸索,摸弄,笨拙的处理

参考例句：

• If he actually managed to the ball instead of fumbling it with an off-balance shot. 如果他实际上设法拿好球而不是fumbling它。50-balance射击笨拙地和迅速地会开始他的岗位移动，经常这样结束。
• If he actually managed to secure the ball instead of fumbling it awkwardly an off-balance shot. 如果他实际上设法拿好球而不是fumbling它。50-50提议有时。他从off-balance射击笨拙地和迅速地会开始他的岗位移动，经常这样结束。

52 fragrant   

adj.芬香的，馥郁的，愉快的

参考例句：

• The Fragrant Hills are exceptionally beautiful in late autumn.深秋的香山格外美丽。
• The air was fragrant with lavender.空气中弥漫薰衣草香。

53 den   

n.兽穴；秘密地方；安静的小房间，私室

参考例句：

• There is a big fox den on the back hill.后山有一个很大的狐狸窝。
• The only way to catch tiger cubs is to go into tiger's den.不入虎穴焉得虎子。

54 dent   

n.凹痕，凹坑；初步进展

参考例句：

• I don't know how it came about but I've got a dent in the rear of my car.我不知道是怎么回事，但我的汽车后部有了一个凹痕。
• That dent is not big enough to be worth hammering out.那个凹陷不大，用不着把它锤平。

55 boycott   

n./v.(联合)抵制，拒绝参与

参考例句：

• We put the production under a boycott.我们联合抵制该商品。
• The boycott lasts a year until the Victoria board permitsreturn.这个抗争持续了一年直到维多利亚教育局妥协为止。

56 apparently   

adv.显然地；表面上，似乎

参考例句：

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

57 Soviet   

adj.苏联的，苏维埃的；n.苏维埃

参考例句：

• Zhukov was a marshal of the former Soviet Union.朱可夫是前苏联的一位元帅。
• Germany began to attack the Soviet Union in 1941.德国在1941年开始进攻苏联。

58 usher   

n.带位员，招待员；vt.引导，护送；vi.做招待，担任引座员

参考例句：

• The usher seated us in the front row.引座员让我们在前排就座。
• They were quickly ushered away.他们被迅速领开。

59 penicillin   

n.青霉素，盘尼西林

参考例句：

• I should have asked him for a shot of penicillin.我应当让他给我打一针青霉素的。
• Penicillin was an extremely significant medical discovery.青霉素是极其重要的医学发现。

60 spectrum   

n.谱，光谱，频谱；范围，幅度，系列

参考例句：

• This is a kind of atomic spectrum.这是一种原子光谱。
• We have known much of the constitution of the solar spectrum.关于太阳光谱的构成，我们已了解不少。

61 misery   

n.痛苦，苦恼，苦难；悲惨的境遇，贫苦

参考例句：

• Business depression usually causes misery among the working class.商业不景气常使工薪阶层受苦。
• He has rescued me from the mire of misery.他把我从苦海里救了出来。

62 hitching   

搭乘； （免费）搭乘他人之车( hitch的现在分词 )； 搭便车； 攀上； 跃上

参考例句：

• The farmer yoked the oxen before hitching them to the wagon. 农夫在将牛套上大车之前先给它们套上轭。
• I saw an old man hitching along on his stick. 我看见一位老人拄着手杖蹒跚而行。

63 bleached   

漂白的，晒白的，颜色变浅的

参考例句：

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

64 jutting   

v.（使）突出( jut的现在分词 )；伸出；（从…）突出；高出

参考例句：

• The climbers rested on a sheltered ledge jutting out from the cliff. 登山者在悬崖的岩棚上休息。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The soldier saw a gun jutting out of some bushes. 那士兵看见丛林中有一枝枪伸出来。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》

65 pumpkin   

n.南瓜

参考例句：

• They ate turkey and pumpkin pie.他们吃了火鸡和南瓜馅饼。
• It looks like there is a person looking out of the pumpkin!看起来就像南瓜里有人在看着你！

66 rusting   

n.生锈v.（使）生锈( rust的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• There was an old rusting bolt on the door. 门上有一个生锈的旧门闩。 来自辞典例句
• Zinc can be used to cover other metals to stop them rusting. 锌可用来涂在其他金属表面以防锈。 来自辞典例句

67 whitewashed   

粉饰，美化，掩饰( whitewash的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• The wall had been whitewashed. 墙已粉过。
• The towers are in the shape of bottle gourds and whitewashed. 塔呈圆形，状近葫芦，外敷白色。 来自汉英文学 - 现代散文

68 orchard   

n.果园，果园里的全部果树，(美俚)棒球场

参考例句：

• My orchard is bearing well this year.今年我的果园果实累累。
• Each bamboo house was surrounded by a thriving orchard.每座竹楼周围都是茂密的果园。

69 odds   

n.让步，机率，可能性，比率；胜败优劣之别

参考例句：

• The odds are 5 to 1 that she will win.她获胜的机会是五比一。
• Do you know the odds of winning the lottery once?你知道赢得一次彩票的几率多大吗？

70 transparent   

adj.明显的，无疑的；透明的

参考例句：

• The water is so transparent that we can see the fishes swimming.水清澈透明，可以看到鱼儿游来游去。
• The window glass is transparent.窗玻璃是透明的。

71 confided   

v.吐露（秘密，心事等）( confide的过去式和过去分词 )；（向某人）吐露（隐私、秘密等）

参考例句：

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

72 silt   

n.淤泥，淤沙，粉砂层，泥沙层；vt.使淤塞；vi.被淤塞

参考例句：

• The lake was almost solid with silt and vegetation.湖里几乎快被淤泥和植物填满了。
• During the annual floods the river deposits its silt on the fields.每年河水泛滥时都会在田野上沉积一层淤泥。

73 silted   

v.（河流等）为淤泥淤塞( silt的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）淤塞

参考例句：

• The riverbed is silted up, so there's no outlet for the floodwater. 河道淤塞，水无出路。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• The river is silted up and the water flows sluggishly. 河道淤塞，水流迟滞。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

74 thatch   

vt.用茅草覆盖…的顶部；n.茅草(屋)

参考例句：

• They lit a torch and set fire to the chapel's thatch.他们点着一支火把，放火烧了小教堂的茅草屋顶。
• They topped off the hut with a straw thatch. 他们给小屋盖上茅草屋顶。

75 flakes   

小薄片( flake的名词复数 )； （尤指）碎片； 雪花； 古怪的人

参考例句：

• It's snowing in great flakes. 天下着鹅毛大雪。
• It is snowing in great flakes. 正值大雪纷飞。

76 commotion   

n.骚动，动乱

参考例句：

• They made a commotion by yelling at each other in the theatre.他们在剧院里相互争吵，引起了一阵骚乱。
• Suddenly the whole street was in commotion.突然间，整条街道变得一片混乱。

77 corrugated   

adj.波纹的；缩成皱纹的；波纹面的；波纹状的v.（使某物）起皱褶(corrugate的过去式和过去分词)

参考例句：

• a corrugated iron roof 波纹铁屋顶
• His brow corrugated with the effort of thinking. 他皱着眉头用心地思考。 来自《简明英汉词典》

78 overlapped   

_adj.重叠的v.部分重叠( overlap的过去式和过去分词 )；（物体）部份重叠；交叠；（时间上）部份重叠

参考例句：

• His visit and mine overlapped. 他的访问期与我的访问期有几天重叠。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• Our visits to the town overlapped. 我们彼此都恰巧到那小城观光。 来自辞典例句

79 panes   

窗玻璃( pane的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The sun caught the panes and flashed back at him. 阳光照到窗玻璃上，又反射到他身上。
• The window-panes are dim with steam. 玻璃窗上蒙上了一层蒸汽。

80 tattered   

adj.破旧的，衣衫破的

参考例句：

• Her tattered clothes in no way detracted from her beauty.她的破衣烂衫丝毫没有影响她的美貌。
• Their tattered clothing and broken furniture indicated their poverty.他们褴褛的衣服和破烂的家具显出他们的贫穷。

81 recedes   

v.逐渐远离( recede的第三人称单数 )；向后倾斜；自原处后退或避开别人的注视；尤指问题

参考例句：

• For this reason the near point gradually recedes as one grows older. 由于这个原因，随着人渐渐变老，近点便逐渐后退。 来自辞典例句
• Silent, mournful, abandoned, broken, Czechoslovakia recedes into the darkness. 缄默的、悲哀的、被抛弃的、支离破碎的捷克斯洛伐克，已在黑暗之中。 来自辞典例句

82 puffed   

adj.疏松的v.使喷出( puff的过去式和过去分词 )；喷着汽（或烟）移动；吹嘘；吹捧

参考例句：

• He lit a cigarette and puffed at it furiously. 他点燃了一支香烟，狂吸了几口。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He felt grown-up, puffed up with self-importance. 他觉得长大了，便自以为了不起。 来自《简明英汉词典》

83 frantic   

adj.狂乱的，错乱的，激昂的

参考例句：

• I've had a frantic rush to get my work done.我急急忙忙地赶完工作。
• He made frantic dash for the departing train.他发疯似地冲向正开出的火车。

84 inhuman   

adj.残忍的，不人道的，无人性的

参考例句：

• We must unite the workers in fighting against inhuman conditions.我们必须使工人们团结起来反对那些难以忍受的工作条件。
• It was inhuman to refuse him permission to see his wife.不容许他去看自己的妻子是太不近人情了。

85 fascination   

n.令人着迷的事物，魅力，迷恋

参考例句：

• He had a deep fascination with all forms of transport.他对所有的运输工具都很着迷。
• His letters have been a source of fascination to a wide audience.广大观众一直迷恋于他的来信。

86 clatters   

盘碟刀叉等相撞击时的声音( clatter的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• I thought, 'Aye aye, hit it before he comes and clatters me. 我想，'埃赞成，击出他来之前和clatters我。

87 latch   

n.门闩，窗闩；弹簧锁

参考例句：

• She laid her hand on the latch of the door.她把手放在门闩上。
• The repairman installed an iron latch on the door.修理工在门上安了铁门闩。

88 scent   

n.气味，香味，香水，线索，嗅觉；v.嗅，发觉

参考例句：

• The air was filled with the scent of lilac.空气中弥漫着丁香花的芬芳。
• The flowers give off a heady scent at night.这些花晚上散发出醉人的芳香。

89 tumult   

n.喧哗；激动，混乱；吵闹

参考例句：

• The tumult in the streets awakened everyone in the house.街上的喧哗吵醒了屋子里的每一个人。
• His voice disappeared under growing tumult.他的声音消失在越来越响的喧哗声中。

90 reclaim   

v.要求归还，收回；开垦

参考例句：

• I have tried to reclaim my money without success.我没能把钱取回来。
• You must present this ticket when you reclaim your luggage.当你要取回行李时，必须出示这张票子。

91 fiery   

adj.燃烧着的，火红的；暴躁的；激烈的

参考例句：

• She has fiery red hair.她有一头火红的头发。
• His fiery speech agitated the crowd.他热情洋溢的讲话激动了群众。

92 gingery   

adj.姜味的

参考例句：

• You can tell that it' s root ginger, cause It'smells really gingery. 你可以分辨出姜块，因为它闻起来有很重的姜味。 来自互联网

93 flattened   

[医]（水）平扁的，弄平的

参考例句：

• She flattened her nose and lips against the window. 她把鼻子和嘴唇紧贴着窗户。
• I flattened myself against the wall to let them pass. 我身体紧靠着墙让他们通过。

94 denim   

n.斜纹棉布；斜纹棉布裤，牛仔裤

参考例句：

• She wore pale blue denim shorts and a white denim work shirt.她穿着一条淡蓝色的斜纹粗棉布短裤，一件白粗布工作服上衣。
• Dennis was dressed in denim jeans.丹尼斯穿了一条牛仔裤。

95 unravelled   

解开，拆散，散开( unravel的过去式和过去分词 )； 阐明； 澄清； 弄清楚

参考例句：

• I unravelled the string and wound it into a ball. 我把绳子解开并绕成一个球。
• The legal tangle was never really unravelled. 这起法律纠葛从来没有真正解决。

96 hips   

abbr.high impact polystyrene 高冲击强度聚苯乙烯，耐冲性聚苯乙烯n.臀部( hip的名词复数 )；[建筑学]屋脊；臀围（尺寸）；臀部…的

参考例句：

• She stood with her hands on her hips. 她双手叉腰站着。
• They wiggled their hips to the sound of pop music. 他们随着流行音乐的声音摇晃着臀部。 来自《简明英汉词典》

97 greasy   

adj. 多脂的，油脂的

参考例句：

• He bought a heavy-duty cleanser to clean his greasy oven.昨天他买了强力清洁剂来清洗油污的炉子。
• You loathe the smell of greasy food when you are seasick.当你晕船时，你会厌恶油腻的气味。

98 incipient   

adj.起初的，发端的，初期的

参考例句：

• The anxiety has been sharpened by the incipient mining boom.采矿业初期的蓬勃发展加剧了这种担忧。
• What we see then is an incipient global inflation.因此，我们看到的是初期阶段的全球通胀.

99 blister   

n.水疱；(油漆等的)气泡；v.(使)起泡

参考例句：

• I got a huge blister on my foot and I couldn't run any farther.我脚上长了一个大水泡，没办法继续跑。
• I have a blister on my heel because my shoe is too tight.鞋子太紧了，我脚后跟起了个泡。

100 sockets   

n.套接字，使应用程序能够读写与收发通讯协定(protocol)与资料的程序( Socket的名词复数 )；孔( socket的名词复数 )；（电器上的）插口；托座；凹穴

参考例句：

• All new PCs now have USB sockets. 新的个人计算机现在都有通用串行总线插孔。
• Make sure the sockets in your house are fingerproof. 确保你房中的插座是防触电的。 来自超越目标英语 第4册

101 hostility   

n.敌对，敌意；抵制［pl.］交战，战争

参考例句：

• There is open hostility between the two leaders.两位领导人表现出公开的敌意。
• His hostility to your plan is well known.他对你的计划所持的敌意是众所周知的。

102 tickles   

（使）发痒( tickle的第三人称单数 )； （使）愉快，逗乐

参考例句：

• My foot [nose] tickles. 我的脚[鼻子]痒。
• My nose tickles from the dust and I want to scratch it. 我的鼻子受灰尘的刺激发痒，很想搔它。

103 sniffs   

v.以鼻吸气，嗅，闻( sniff的第三人称单数 )；抽鼻子（尤指哭泣、患感冒等时出声地用鼻子吸气）；抱怨，不以为然地说

参考例句：

• When a dog smells food, he usually sniffs. 狗闻到食物时常吸鼻子。 来自辞典例句
• I-It's a difficult time [ Sniffs ] with my husband. 最近[哭泣]和我丈夫出了点问题。 来自电影对白

104 writhes   

（因极度痛苦而）扭动或翻滚( writhe的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• He pats her kindly on the shoulder. She writhes. 他和和气气地拍拍她的肩膀。她扭动了一下。
• A little girl writhes on water face about, I ask what she has incorrect. 一个小女孩在水上翻腾转身，我问她有什麽不对。

105 skull   

n.头骨；颅骨

参考例句：

• The skull bones fuse between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five.头骨在15至25岁之间长合。
• He fell out of the window and cracked his skull.他从窗子摔了出去，跌裂了颅骨。

106 bulging   

膨胀； 凸出（部）； 打气； 折皱

参考例句：

• Her pockets were bulging with presents. 她的口袋里装满了礼物。
• Conscious of the bulging red folder, Nim told her,"Ask if it's important." 尼姆想到那个鼓鼓囊囊的红色文件夹便告诉她：“问问是不是重要的事。”

107 liking   

n.爱好；嗜好；喜欢

参考例句：

• The word palate also means taste or liking.Palate这个词也有“口味”或“嗜好”的意思。
• I must admit I have no liking for exaggeration.我必须承认我不喜欢夸大其词。

108 parlor   

n.店铺，营业室；会客室，客厅

参考例句：

• She was lying on a small settee in the parlor.她躺在客厅的一张小长椅上。
• Is there a pizza parlor in the neighborhood?附近有没有比萨店？

109 modem   

n.调制解调器

参考例句：

• Does your computer have a modem?你的电脑有调制解调器吗？
• Provides a connection to your computer via a modem.通过调制解调器连接到计算机上。

110 smolders   

n.焖烧，文火，冒烟( smolder的名词复数 )v.用文火焖烧，熏烧，慢燃( smolder的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• Watch as fire smolders at the bullet-ridden Red Mosque complex. 现在，大火正在红色清真寺内燃烧。 来自互联网

111 coffins   

n.棺材( coffin的名词复数 )；使某人早亡[死，完蛋，垮台等]之物

参考例句：

• The shop was close and hot, and the atmosphere seemed tainted with the smell of coffins. 店堂里相当闷热，空气仿佛被棺木的味儿污染了。 来自辞典例句
• Donate some coffins to the temple, equal to the number of deaths. 到寺庙里，捐赠棺材盒给这些死者吧。 来自电影对白

112 coffin   

n.棺材，灵柩

参考例句：

• When one's coffin is covered,all discussion about him can be settled.盖棺论定。
• The coffin was placed in the grave.那口棺材已安放到坟墓里去了。

113 teems   

v.充满( teem的第三人称单数 )；到处都是；（指水、雨等）暴降；倾注

参考例句：

• The swamp teems with mosquitoes. 这片沼泽地蚊子多极了。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
• That book teems with blunders. 那本书错误不少。 来自辞典例句

114 paperback   

n.平装本，简装本

参考例句：

• A paperback edition is now available at bookshops.平装本现在在书店可以买到。
• Many books that are out of print are reissued in paperback form.许多绝版的书籍又以平装本形式重新出现。

115 thrillers   

n.紧张刺激的故事( thriller的名词复数 )；戏剧；令人感到兴奋的事；（电影）惊悚片

参考例句：

• He has written seven thrillers, and clearly enjoys intellectual pursuits. 他已经写了7本惊悚小说，显然很喜欢这样的智力活动。 来自辞典例句
• Most Americans prefer to read fast-moving adventure stories that we call "thrillers". 大部分美国人喜欢看我们称之为"惊险小说"的情节多变的冒险故事。 来自辞典例句

117 stouter   

粗壮的( stout的比较级 )； 结实的； 坚固的； 坚定的

参考例句：

• Freddie was much stouter, more benevolent-looking, cheerful, and far more dandified. 弗烈特显得更魁伟，更善良、更快活，尤其更像花花公子。 来自教父部分
• Why hadn't she thought of putting on stouter shoes last night? 她昨天晚上怎么没想起换上一双硬些的鞋呢？

118 squinting   

斜视( squint的现在分词 )； 眯着眼睛； 瞟； 从小孔或缝隙里看

参考例句：

• "More company," he said, squinting in the sun. "那边来人了，"他在阳光中眨巴着眼睛说。
• Squinting against the morning sun, Faulcon examined the boy carefully. 对着早晨的太阳斜起眼睛，富尔康仔细地打量着那个年轻人。

119 bouffant   

adj.（发式、裙子等）向外胀起的

参考例句：

• Her short brown hair was curled in a puffy bouffant hairdo.她棕色的卷卷的短发蓬松鼓起。
• For example,in the late 1960 s women became tired of bouffant hairstyles and sought new looks.例如在20世纪60年代后期，妇女开始对蓬松的发型感到厌倦,开始追求新的形象。

120 shutter   

n.百叶窗；(照相机)快门；关闭装置

参考例句：

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

121 format   

n.设计，版式；[计算机]格式，DOS命令:格式化(磁盘)，用于空盘或使用过的磁盘建立新空盘来存储数据；v.使格式化，设计，安排

参考例句：

• Please format this floppy disc.请将这张软盘格式化。
• The format of the figure is very tasteful.该图表的格式很雅致。

122 pushy   

adj.固执己见的，一意孤行的

参考例句：

• But she insisted and was very pushy.但她一直坚持,而且很急于求成。
• He made himself unpopular by being so pushy.他特别喜欢出风头，所以人缘不好。

123 obnoxious   

adj.极恼人的，讨人厌的，可憎的

参考例句：

• These fires produce really obnoxious fumes and smoke.这些火炉冒出来的烟气确实很难闻。
• He is the most obnoxious man I know.他是我认识的最可憎的人。

124 bastard   

n.坏蛋，混蛋；私生子

参考例句：

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

125 torment   

n.折磨；令人痛苦的东西(人)；vt.折磨；纠缠

参考例句：

• He has never suffered the torment of rejection.他从未经受过遭人拒绝的痛苦。
• Now nothing aggravates me more than when people torment each other.没有什么东西比人们的互相折磨更使我愤怒。

126 abortion   

n.流产，堕胎

参考例句：

• She had an abortion at the women's health clinic.她在妇女保健医院做了流产手术。
• A number of considerations have led her to have a wilful abortion.多种考虑使她执意堕胎。

127 raggedly   

破烂地，粗糙地

参考例句：

• The crowd was shouting raggedly now, instead of in chorus as at first. 群众杂乱地喊着，比第一次的口号稍稍见得不整齐。 来自子夜部分
• I took the cigarette he offered, drawing at it raggedly. 我接过他给的烟，在上面胡乱地画起来。

128 ragged   

adj.衣衫褴褛的，粗糙的，刺耳的

参考例句：

• A ragged shout went up from the small crowd.这一小群人发出了刺耳的喊叫。
• Ragged clothing infers poverty.破衣烂衫意味着贫穷。

129 withholds   

v.扣留( withhold的第三人称单数 )；拒绝给予；抑制（某事物）；制止

参考例句：

• Marketing success or failure is directly traceable to the support that top management gives or withholds. 市场营销的成败直接归因于最高管理层能否给予支持。 来自辞典例句
• I lie awake fuming-isn't It'supposed to be the woman who withholds favours? 我干躺在那儿，气得睡不着：不应该是女人才会拿性作为要挟吗？ 来自互联网

130 watery   

adj.有水的，水汪汪的；湿的，湿润的

参考例句：

• In his watery eyes there is an expression of distrust.他那含泪的眼睛流露出惊惶失措的神情。
• Her eyes became watery because of the smoke.因为烟熏，她的双眼变得泪汪汪的。

131 dealer   

n.商人，贩子

参考例句：

• The dealer spent hours bargaining for the painting.那个商人为购买那幅画花了几个小时讨价还价。
• The dealer reduced the price for cash down.这家商店对付现金的人减价优惠。

132 colon   

n.冒号，结肠，直肠

参考例句：

• Here,too,the colon must be followed by a dash.这里也是一样，应当在冒号后加破折号。
• The colon is the locus of a large concentration of bacteria.结肠是大浓度的细菌所在地。

133 retirement   

n.退休，退职

参考例句：

• She wanted to enjoy her retirement without being beset by financial worries.她想享受退休生活而不必为金钱担忧。
• I have to put everything away for my retirement.我必须把一切都积蓄起来以便退休后用。

134 taxpayer   

n.纳税人

参考例句：

• The new scheme will run off with a lot of the taxpayer's money.这项新计划将用去纳税人许多钱。
• The taxpayer are unfavourably disposed towards the recent tax increase.纳税者对最近的增加税收十分反感。

135 quarry   

n.采石场；v.采石；费力地找

参考例句：

• Michelangelo obtained his marble from a quarry.米开朗基罗从采石场获得他的大理石。
• This mountain was the site for a quarry.这座山曾经有一个采石场。

136 bluff   

v.虚张声势，用假象骗人；n.虚张声势，欺骗

参考例句：

• His threats are merely bluff.他的威胁仅仅是虚张声势。
• John is a deep card.No one can bluff him easily.约翰是个机灵鬼。谁也不容易欺骗他。

137 softens   

（使）变软( soften的第三人称单数 )； 缓解打击； 缓和； 安慰

参考例句：

• Iron softens with heat. 铁受热就软化。
• Moonlight softens our faults; all shabbiness dissolves into shadow. 月光淡化了我们的各种缺点，所有的卑微都化解为依稀朦胧的阴影。 来自名作英译部分

138 helping   

n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的

参考例句：

• The poor children regularly pony up for a second helping of my hamburger. 那些可怜的孩子们总是要求我把我的汉堡包再给他们一份。
• By doing this, they may at times be helping to restore competition. 这样一来, 他在某些时候,有助于竞争的加强。

139 confides   

v.吐露（秘密，心事等）( confide的第三人称单数 )；（向某人）吐露（隐私、秘密等）

参考例句：

• Now Butterfly confides to Pinkerton that she has secretly embraced Christianity. 蝴蝶向平克顿吐露，她已暗地里信奉了基督教。 来自辞典例句
• He also confides, in great secrecy, that his own heart still bleeds over Natalie. 他还极秘密地透露，他自己内心里还在为那塔丽感到痛苦。 来自辞典例句

140 twitching   

n.颤搐

参考例句：

• The child in a spasm kept twitching his arms and legs. 那个害痉挛的孩子四肢不断地抽搐。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• My eyelids keep twitching all the time. 我眼皮老是跳。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

141 skulks   

v.潜伏，偷偷摸摸地走动，鬼鬼祟祟地活动( skulk的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• The lonely man skulks down the main street all day. 这个孤独的人整天在这条大街上躲躲闪闪。 来自互联网

142 maroon   

v.困住，使（人）处于孤独无助之境；n.逃亡黑奴；孤立的人；酱紫色，褐红色；adj.酱紫色的，褐红色的

参考例句：

• Five couples were marooned in their caravans when the River Avon broke its banks.埃文河决堤的时候，有5对夫妇被困在了他们的房车里。
• Robinson Crusoe has been marooned on a desert island for 26 years.鲁滨逊在荒岛上被困了26年。

143 streaked   

adj.有条斑纹的，不安的v.快速移动( streak的过去式和过去分词 )；使布满条纹

参考例句：

• The children streaked off as fast as they could. 孩子们拔脚飞跑 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
• His face was pale and streaked with dirt. 他脸色苍白，脸上有一道道的污痕。 来自辞典例句

144 gloss   

n.光泽，光滑；虚饰；注释；vt.加光泽于；掩饰

参考例句：

• John tried in vain to gloss over his faults.约翰极力想掩饰自己的缺点，但是没有用。
• She rubbed up the silver plates to a high gloss.她把银盘擦得很亮。

145 nostrils   

鼻孔( nostril的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Her nostrils flared with anger. 她气得两个鼻孔都鼓了起来。
• The horse dilated its nostrils. 马张大鼻孔。

146 upturn   

n.情况好转

参考例句：

• Experts have forecast an upturn in the stock market.专家已预测股票市场价格有上升趋势。
• The economy is experiencing an upturn.经济正在好转。

147 candor   

n.坦白，率真

参考例句：

• He covered a wide range of topics with unusual candor.他极其坦率地谈了许多问题。
• He and his wife had avoided candor,and they had drained their marriage.他们夫妻间不坦率，已使婚姻奄奄一息。

148 posterity   

n.后裔，子孙，后代

参考例句：

• Few of his works will go down to posterity.他的作品没有几件会流传到后世。
• The names of those who died are recorded for posterity on a tablet at the back of the church.死者姓名都刻在教堂后面的一块石匾上以便后人铭记。

149 lanky   

adj.瘦长的

参考例句：

• He was six feet four,all lanky and leggy.他身高6英尺4英寸，瘦高个儿，大长腿。
• Tom was a lanky boy with long skinny legs.汤姆是一个腿很细的瘦高个儿。

150 shrimp   

n.虾，小虾；矮小的人

参考例句：

• When the shrimp farm is built it will block the stream.一旦养虾场建起来，将会截断这条河流。
• When it comes to seafood,I like shrimp the best.说到海鲜，我最喜欢虾。

151 scoops   

n.小铲( scoop的名词复数 )；小勺；一勺[铲]之量；（抢先刊载、播出的）独家新闻v.抢先报道( scoop的第三人称单数 )；（敏捷地）抱起；抢先获得；用铲[勺]等挖（洞等）

参考例句：

• two scoops of mashed potato 两勺土豆泥
• I used three scoops of flour and one(scoop)of sugar. 我用了三杓面粉和一杓糖。 来自辞典例句

152 mischief   

n.损害，伤害，危害；恶作剧，捣蛋，胡闹

参考例句：

• Nobody took notice of the mischief of the matter. 没有人注意到这件事情所带来的危害。
• He seems to intend mischief.看来他想捣蛋。

153 deferred   

adj.延期的，缓召的v.拖延，延缓，推迟( defer的过去式和过去分词 )；服从某人的意愿，遵从

参考例句：

• The department deferred the decision for six months. 这个部门推迟了六个月才作决定。
• a tax-deferred savings plan 延税储蓄计划

154 inflated   

adj.（价格）飞涨的；（通货）膨胀的；言过其实的；充了气的v.使充气（于轮胎、气球等）( inflate的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）膨胀；（使）通货膨胀；物价上涨

参考例句：

• He has an inflated sense of his own importance. 他自视过高。
• They all seem to take an inflated view of their collective identity. 他们对自己的集体身份似乎都持有一种夸大的看法。 来自《简明英汉词典》

155 illicitly   

违法地，不正地

参考例句：

• That substance illicitly to fool quality-inspection testers because it can mimic the properties of protein. 乳制品之所以添加三聚氰胺是因为它可以虚增蛋白质含量、在质量测试中蒙混过关。
• Western governments international bodies should police Gaza's borders and crossing-points to stop weapons illicitly coming in. 西方政府和国际组织应该巡查加沙边界和交叉区域，阻止武器的非法流入。

156 limestone   

n.石灰石

参考例句：

• Limestone is often used in building construction.石灰岩常用于建筑。
• Cement is made from limestone.水泥是由石灰石制成的。

157 sequestered   

adj.扣押的；隐退的；幽静的；偏僻的v.使隔绝，使隔离( sequester的过去式和过去分词 )；扣押

参考例句：

• The jury is expected to be sequestered for at least two months. 陪审团渴望被隔离至少两个月。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Everything he owned was sequestered. 他的一切都被扣押了。 来自《简明英汉词典》

158 hisses   

嘶嘶声( hiss的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The speaker was received with a mixture of applause and hisses. 那演说者同时得到喝彩声和嘘声。
• A fire hisses if water is thrown on it. 把水浇到火上，火就发出嘶嘶声。

159 sneer   

v.轻蔑；嘲笑；n.嘲笑，讥讽的言语

参考例句：

• He said with a sneer.他的话中带有嘲笑之意。
• You may sneer,but a lot of people like this kind of music.你可以嗤之以鼻，但很多人喜欢这种音乐。

160 swell   

vi.膨胀，肿胀；增长，增强

参考例句：

• The waves had taken on a deep swell.海浪汹涌。
• His injured wrist began to swell.他那受伤的手腕开始肿了。

161 stew   

n.炖汤，焖，烦恼；v.炖汤，焖，忧虑

参考例句：

• The stew must be boiled up before serving.炖肉必须煮熟才能上桌。
• There's no need to get in a stew.没有必要烦恼。

162 kindly   

adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地

参考例句：

• Her neighbours spoke of her as kindly and hospitable.她的邻居都说她和蔼可亲、热情好客。
• A shadow passed over the kindly face of the old woman.一道阴影掠过老太太慈祥的面孔。

163 agitated   

adj.被鼓动的，不安的

参考例句：

• His answers were all mixed up,so agitated was he.他是那样心神不定，回答全乱了。
• She was agitated because her train was an hour late.她乘坐的火车晚点一个小时，她十分焦虑。

164 inquisitively   

过分好奇地； 好问地

参考例句：

• The Mouse looked at her rather inquisitively, and seemed to her to wink with one of its little eyes, but It'said nothing. 这老鼠狐疑地看着她，好像还把一只小眼睛向她眨了眨，但没说话。
• The mouse looked at her rather inquisitively. 那只耗子用疑问的眼光看看她。

165 outfit   

n.（为特殊用途的）全套装备，全套服装

参考例句：

• Jenney bought a new outfit for her daughter's wedding.珍妮为参加女儿的婚礼买了一套新装。
• His father bought a ski outfit for him on his birthday.他父亲在他生日那天给他买了一套滑雪用具。

166 intensified   

v.（使）增强， （使）加剧( intensify的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• Violence intensified during the night. 在夜间暴力活动加剧了。
• The drought has intensified. 旱情加剧了。 来自《简明英汉词典》

167 flecks   

n.斑点，小点( fleck的名词复数 )；癍

参考例句：

• His hair was dark, with flecks of grey. 他的黑发间有缕缕银丝。
• I got a few flecks of paint on the window when I was painting the frames. 我在漆窗框时，在窗户上洒了几点油漆。 来自《简明英汉词典》

168 trots   

小跑，急走( trot的名词复数 )； 匆匆忙忙地走

参考例句：

• A horse that trots, especially one trained for harness racing. 训练用于快跑特别是套轭具赛跑的马。
• He always trots out the same old excuses for being late. 他每次迟到总是重复那一套藉口。

169 glossy   

adj.平滑的；有光泽的

参考例句：

• I like these glossy spots.我喜欢这些闪闪发光的花点。
• She had glossy black hair.她长着乌黑发亮的头发。

170 strand   

vt.使（船）搁浅，使（某人）困于（某地）

参考例句：

• She tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ears.她把一缕散发夹到了耳后。
• The climbers had been stranded by a storm.登山者被暴风雨困住了。

171 bent   

n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的

参考例句：

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

172 idiotic   

adj.白痴的

参考例句：

• It is idiotic to go shopping with no money.去买东西而不带钱是很蠢的。
• The child's idiotic deeds caused his family much trouble.那小孩愚蠢的行为给家庭带来许多麻烦。

173 pretentious   

adj.自命不凡的，自负的，炫耀的

参考例句：

• He is a talented but pretentious writer.他是一个有才华但自命不凡的作家。
• Speaking well of yourself would only make you appear conceited and pretentious.自夸只会使你显得自负和虚伪。

174 spires   

n.（教堂的） 塔尖，尖顶( spire的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Her masts leveled with the spires of churches. 船的桅杆和教堂的塔尖一样高。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• White church spires lift above green valleys. 教堂的白色尖顶耸立在绿色山谷中。 来自《简明英汉词典》

175 plantation   

n.种植园，大农场

参考例句：

• His father-in-law is a plantation manager.他岳父是个种植园经营者。
• The plantation owner has possessed himself of a vast piece of land.这个种植园主把大片土地占为己有。

176 serene   

adj. 安详的，宁静的，平静的

参考例句：

• He has entered the serene autumn of his life.他已进入了美好的中年时期。
• He didn't speak much,he just smiled with that serene smile of his.他话不多，只是脸上露出他招牌式的淡定的微笑。

177 moss   

n.苔，藓，地衣

参考例句：

• Moss grows on a rock.苔藓生在石头上。
• He was found asleep on a pillow of leaves and moss.有人看见他枕着树叶和苔藓睡着了。

178 slanting   

倾斜的，歪斜的

参考例句：

• The rain is driving [slanting] in from the south. 南边潲雨。
• The line is slanting to the left. 这根线向左斜了。

179 radiators   

n.（暖气设备的）散热器( radiator的名词复数 )；汽车引擎的冷却器，散热器

参考例句：

• You can preset the radiators to come on when you need them to. 你可以预先调好暖气，使它在你需要的时候启动。
• Stars are radiators of vast power. 恒星是强大的发光体。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》

180 radiator   

n.暖气片，散热器

参考例句：

• The two ends of the pipeline are connected with the radiator.管道的两端与暖气片相连接。
• Top up the radiator before making a long journey.在长途旅行前加满散热器。

181 twigs   

细枝，嫩枝( twig的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Some birds build nests of twigs. 一些鸟用树枝筑巢。
• Willow twigs are pliable. 柳条很软。

182 depressed   

adj.沮丧的，抑郁的，不景气的，萧条的

参考例句：

• When he was depressed,he felt utterly divorced from reality.他心情沮丧时就感到完全脱离了现实。
• His mother was depressed by the sad news.这个坏消息使他的母亲意志消沉。

183 scrupulous   

adj.审慎的，小心翼翼的，完全的，纯粹的

参考例句：

• She is scrupulous to a degree.她非常谨慎。
• Poets are not so scrupulous as you are.诗人并不像你那样顾虑多。

184 suave   

adj.温和的；柔和的；文雅的

参考例句：

• He is a suave,cool and cultured man.他是个世故、冷静、有教养的人。
• I had difficulty answering his suave questions.我难以回答他的一些彬彬有礼的提问。

185 quarries   

n.（采）石场( quarry的名词复数 )；猎物（指鸟，兽等）；方形石；（格窗等的）方形玻璃v.从采石场采得( quarry的第三人称单数 )；从（书本等中）努力发掘（资料等）；在采石场采石

参考例句：

• This window was filled with old painted glass in quarries. 这窗户是由旧日的彩色菱形玻璃装配的。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• They hewed out the stones for the building from nearby quarries. 他们从邻近的采石场开凿出石头供建造那栋房子用。 来自辞典例句

186 curb   

n.场外证券市场，场外交易；vt.制止，抑制

参考例句：

• I could not curb my anger.我按捺不住我的愤怒。
• You must curb your daughter when you are in church.你在教堂时必须管住你的女儿。

187 backlog   

n.积压未办之事

参考例句：

• It will take a month to clear the backlog of work.要花一个月的时间才能清理完积压的工作。
• Investment is needed to reduce the backlog of repairs.需要投资来減轻积压的维修工作。

188 buddy   

n.（美口）密友，伙伴

参考例句：

• Calm down,buddy.What's the trouble?压压气，老兄。有什么麻烦吗？
• Get out of my way,buddy!别挡道了，你这家伙！

189 salvaged   

（从火灾、海难等中）抢救（某物）( salvage的过去式和过去分词 )； 回收利用（某物）

参考例句：

• The investigators studied flight recorders salvaged from the wreckage. 调查者研究了从飞机残骸中找到的黑匣子。
• The team's first task was to decide what equipment could be salvaged. 该队的首要任务是决定可以抢救哪些设备。

190 partially   

adv.部分地，从某些方面讲

参考例句：

• The door was partially concealed by the drapes.门有一部分被门帘遮住了。
• The police managed to restore calm and the curfew was partially lifted.警方设法恢复了平静，宵禁部分解除。

191 slanted   

有偏见的； 倾斜的

参考例句：

• The sun slanted through the window. 太阳斜照进窗户。
• She had slanted brown eyes. 她有一双棕色的丹凤眼。

192 tassels   

n.穗( tassel的名词复数 )；流苏状物；（植物的）穗；玉蜀黍的穗状雄花v.抽穗， （玉米）长穗须( tassel的第三人称单数 )；使抽穗， （为了使作物茁壮生长）摘去穗状雄花；用流苏装饰

参考例句：

• Tassels and Trimmings, Pillows, Wall Hangings, Table Runners, Bell. 采购产品垂饰，枕头，壁挂，表亚军，钟。 来自互联网
• Cotton Fabrics, Embroidery and Embroiders, Silk, Silk Fabric, Pillows, Tassels and Trimmings. 采购产品棉花织物，刺绣品而且刺绣，丝，丝织物，枕头，流行和装饰品。 来自互联网

193 postal   

adj.邮政的，邮局的

参考例句：

• A postal network now covers the whole country.邮路遍及全国。
• Remember to use postal code.勿忘使用邮政编码。

194 alley   

n.小巷，胡同；小径，小路

参考例句：

• We live in the same alley.我们住在同一条小巷里。
• The blind alley ended in a brick wall.这条死胡同的尽头是砖墙。

195 alleys   

胡同，小巷( alley的名词复数 )； 小径

参考例句：

• I followed him through a maze of narrow alleys. 我紧随他穿过一条条迂迴曲折的窄巷。
• The children lead me through the maze of alleys to the edge of the city. 孩子们领我穿过迷宫一般的街巷，来到城边。

196 inscribed   

v.写，刻( inscribe的过去式和过去分词 )；内接

参考例句：

• His name was inscribed on the trophy. 他的名字刻在奖杯上。
• The names of the dead were inscribed on the wall. 死者的名字被刻在墙上。 来自《简明英汉词典》

197 costly   

adj.昂贵的，价值高的，豪华的

参考例句：

• It must be very costly to keep up a house like this.维修这么一幢房子一定很昂贵。
• This dictionary is very useful,only it is a bit costly.这本词典很有用，左不过贵了些。

198 levied   

征（兵）( levy的过去式和过去分词 )； 索取； 发动（战争）； 征税

参考例句：

• Taxes should be levied more on the rich than on the poor. 向富人征收的税应该比穷人的多。
• Heavy fines were levied on motoring offenders. 违规驾车者会遭到重罚。

199 spoke   

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

参考例句：

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

200 sentimental   

adj.多愁善感的，感伤的

参考例句：

• She's a sentimental woman who believes marriage comes by destiny.她是多愁善感的人，她相信姻缘命中注定。
• We were deeply touched by the sentimental movie.我们深深被那感伤的电影所感动。

201 raptures   

极度欢喜( rapture的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Her heart melted away in secret raptures. 她暗自高兴得心花怒放。
• The mere thought of his bride moves Pinkerton to raptures. 一想起新娘，平克顿不禁心花怒放。

202 attic   

n.顶楼，屋顶室

参考例句：

• Leakiness in the roof caused a damp attic.屋漏使顶楼潮湿。
• What's to be done with all this stuff in the attic?顶楼上的材料怎么处理？

203 blurted   

v.突然说出，脱口而出( blurt的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• She blurted it out before I could stop her. 我还没来得及制止，她已脱口而出。
• He blurted out the truth, that he committed the crime. 他不慎说出了真相，说是他犯了那个罪。 来自《简明英汉词典》

204 pounce   

n.猛扑；v.猛扑，突然袭击，欣然同意

参考例句：

• Why do you pounce on every single thing I say?干吗我说的每句话你都要找麻烦？
• We saw the tiger about to pounce on the goat.我们看见老虎要向那只山羊扑过去。

205 flustered   

adj.慌张的；激动不安的v.使慌乱，使不安( fluster的过去式和过去分词)

参考例句：

• The honking of horns flustered the boy. 汽车喇叭的叫声使男孩感到慌乱。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
• She was so flustered that she forgot her reply. 她太紧张了，都忘记了该如何作答。 来自辞典例句

206 vehement   

adj.感情强烈的；热烈的；(人)有强烈感情的

参考例句：

• She made a vehement attack on the government's policies.她强烈谴责政府的政策。
• His proposal met with vehement opposition.他的倡导遭到了激烈的反对。

207 flirtatious   

adj.爱调情的，调情的，卖俏的

参考例句：

• a flirtatious young woman 卖弄风情的年轻女子
• Her flirtatious manners are intended to attract. 她的轻浮举止是想引人注意。 来自《简明英汉词典》

208 beads   

n.（空心）小珠子( bead的名词复数 )；水珠；珠子项链

参考例句：

• a necklace of wooden beads 一条木珠项链
• Beads of perspiration stood out on his forehead. 他的前额上挂着汗珠。

209 champagne   

n.香槟酒；微黄色

参考例句：

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

210 certified   

a.经证明合格的；具有证明文件的

参考例句：

• Doctors certified him as insane. 医生证明他精神失常。
• The planes were certified airworthy. 飞机被证明适于航行。

211 rapport   

n.和睦，意见一致

参考例句：

• She has an excellent rapport with her staff.她跟她职员的关系非常融洽。
• We developed a high degree of trust and a considerable personal rapport.我们发展了高度的互相信任和不错的私人融洽关系。

212 lighter   

n.打火机，点火器；驳船；v.用驳船运送；light的比较级

参考例句：

• The portrait was touched up so as to make it lighter.这张画经过润色，色调明朗了一些。
• The lighter works off the car battery.引燃器利用汽车蓄电池打火。

213 bliss   

n.狂喜，福佑，天赐的福

参考例句：

• It's sheer bliss to be able to spend the day in bed.整天都可以躺在床上真是幸福。
• He's in bliss that he's won the Nobel Prize.他非常高兴，因为获得了诺贝尔奖金。

214 faucets   

n.水龙头( faucet的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Water faucets shall be chrome-plated type with ball valve. 水龙头外表为铬镀层。 来自互联网
• The plumber came that afternoon and fixed the faucets in some minutes. 当天下午，管子工来了，几分钟内便把水龙头安装好。 来自互联网

215 maker   

n.制造者，制造商

参考例句：

• He is a trouble maker，You must be distant with him.他是个捣蛋鬼，你不要跟他在一起。
• A cabinet maker must be a master craftsman.家具木工必须是技艺高超的手艺人。

216 warily   

adv.留心地

参考例句：

• He looked warily around him,pretending to look after Carrie.他小心地看了一下四周，假装是在照顾嘉莉。
• They were heading warily to a point in the enemy line.他们正小心翼翼地向着敌人封锁线的某一处前进。

217 exulting   

vi. 欢欣鼓舞，狂喜

参考例句：

• He leaned back, exulting at the success of his plan. 他向后一靠，为自己计划成功而得意扬扬。
• Jones was exulting in the consciousness of his integrity. 琼斯意识到自己的忠贞十分高兴。

218 brass   

n.黄铜；黄铜器，铜管乐器

参考例句：

• Many of the workers play in the factory's brass band.许多工人都在工厂铜管乐队中演奏。
• Brass is formed by the fusion of copper and zinc.黄铜是通过铜和锌的熔合而成的。

219 clutter   

n.零乱，杂乱；vt.弄乱，把…弄得杂乱

参考例句：

• The garage is in such a clutter that we can't find anything.车库如此凌乱，我们什么也找不到。
• We'll have to clear up all this clutter.我们得把这一切凌乱的东西整理清楚。

220 pristine   

adj.原来的，古时的，原始的，纯净的，无垢的

参考例句：

• He wiped his fingers on his pristine handkerchief.他用他那块洁净的手帕擦手指。
• He wasn't about to blemish that pristine record.他本不想去玷污那清白的过去。

221 marred   

adj. 被损毁, 污损的

参考例句：

• The game was marred by the behaviour of drunken fans. 喝醉了的球迷行为不轨，把比赛给搅了。
• Bad diction marred the effectiveness of his speech. 措词不当影响了他演说的效果。

222 scotch   

n.伤口，刻痕；苏格兰威士忌酒；v.粉碎，消灭，阻止；adj.苏格兰(人)的

参考例句：

• Facts will eventually scotch these rumours.这种谣言在事实面前将不攻自破。
• Italy was full of fine views and virtually empty of Scotch whiskey.意大利多的是美景，真正缺的是苏格兰威士忌。

223 revolving   

adj.旋转的，轮转式的；循环的v.（使）旋转( revolve的现在分词 )；细想

参考例句：

• The theatre has a revolving stage. 剧院有一个旋转舞台。
• The company became a revolving-door workplace. 这家公司成了工作的中转站。

224 peeks   

n.偷看，窥视( peek的名词复数 )v.很快地看( peek的第三人称单数 )；偷看；窥视；微露出

参考例句：

• A freckle-face blenny peeks from its reef burrow in the Solomon Islands. 奇特的海生物图片画廊。一只斑点面容粘鱼窥视从它的暗礁穴在所罗门群岛。 来自互联网
• She peeks at her neighbor from the curtain. 她从窗帘后面窥视她的邻居。 来自互联网

225 forth   

adv.向前；向外，往外

参考例句：

• The wind moved the trees gently back and forth.风吹得树轻轻地来回摇晃。
• He gave forth a series of works in rapid succession.他很快连续发表了一系列的作品。

226 automobile   

n.汽车，机动车

参考例句：

• He is repairing the brake lever of an automobile.他正在修理汽车的刹车杆。
• The automobile slowed down to go around the curves in the road.汽车在路上转弯时放慢了速度。

227 revolve   

vi.(使)旋转；循环出现

参考例句：

• The planets revolve around the sun.行星绕着太阳运转。
• The wheels began to revolve slowly.车轮开始慢慢转动。

228 leopard   

n.豹

参考例句：

• I saw a man in a leopard skin yesterday.我昨天看见一个穿着豹皮的男人。
• The leopard's skin is marked with black spots.豹皮上有黑色斑点。

229 thighs   

n.股，大腿( thigh的名词复数 )；食用的鸡（等的）腿

参考例句：

• He's gone to London for skin grafts on his thighs. 他去伦敦做大腿植皮手术了。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The water came up to the fisherman's thighs. 水没到了渔夫的大腿。 来自《简明英汉词典》

230 beaver   

n.海狸，河狸

参考例句：

• The hat is made of beaver.这顶帽子是海狸毛皮制的。
• A beaver is an animals with big front teeth.海狸是一种长着大门牙的动物。

231 attained   

（通常经过努力）实现( attain的过去式和过去分词 )； 达到； 获得； 达到（某年龄、水平、状况）

参考例句：

• She has attained the degree of Master of Arts. 她已获得文学硕士学位。
• Lu Hsun attained a high position in the republic of letters. 鲁迅在文坛上获得崇高的地位。

232 buxom   

adj.（妇女）丰满的，有健康美的

参考例句：

• Jane is a buxom blond.简是一个丰满的金发女郎.
• He still pictured her as buxom,high-colored,lively and a little blowsy.他心中仍旧认为她身材丰满、面色红润、生气勃勃、还有点邋遢。

233 vertical   

adj.垂直的，顶点的，纵向的；n.垂直物，垂直的位置

参考例句：

• The northern side of the mountain is almost vertical.这座山的北坡几乎是垂直的。
• Vertical air motions are not measured by this system.垂直气流的运动不用这种系统来测量。

234 rosy   

adj.美好的，乐观的，玫瑰色的

参考例句：

• She got a new job and her life looks rosy.她找到一份新工作，生活看上去很美好。
• She always takes a rosy view of life.她总是对生活持乐观态度。

235 aperture   

n.孔，隙，窄的缺口

参考例句：

• The only light came through a narrow aperture.仅有的光亮来自一个小孔。
• We saw light through a small aperture in the wall.我们透过墙上的小孔看到了亮光。

236 nether   

adj.下部的，下面的；n.阴间；下层社会

参考例句：

• This terracotta army well represents his ambition yet to be realized in the nether-world.这一批兵马俑很可能代表他死后也要去实现的雄心。
• He was escorted back to the nether regions of Main Street.他被护送回中央大道南面的地方。

237 scurries   

v.急匆匆地走( scurry的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• A salamander scurries into flame to be destroyed. 一成火焰蝾代人受过被毁坏。 来自互联网

238 lugs   

钎柄

参考例句：

• "They put on a lot of lugs here, don't they?" “这里的人的架子可不小，是不是？ 来自英汉文学 - 嘉莉妹妹
• In this department, hydro-set plates are assembled and joined together at the plate lugs. 在这个工段，组装脱水固化的极板并通过极板耳连在一起。 来自辞典例句

239 jealousy   

n.妒忌，嫉妒，猜忌

参考例句：

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

240 flicked   

（尤指用手指或手快速地）轻击( flick的过去式和过去分词 )； （用…）轻挥； （快速地）按开关； 向…笑了一下（或瞥了一眼等）

参考例句：

• She flicked the dust off her collar. 她轻轻弹掉了衣领上的灰尘。
• I idly picked up a magazine and flicked through it. 我漫不经心地拿起一本杂志翻看着。

241 grotesque   

adj.怪诞的，丑陋的；n.怪诞的图案，怪人（物）

参考例句：

• His face has a grotesque appearance.他的面部表情十分怪。
• Her account of the incident was a grotesque distortion of the truth.她对这件事的陈述是荒诞地歪曲了事实。

242 filthy   

adj.卑劣的；恶劣的，肮脏的

参考例句：

• The whole river has been fouled up with filthy waste from factories.整条河都被工厂的污秽废物污染了。
• You really should throw out that filthy old sofa and get a new one.你真的应该扔掉那张肮脏的旧沙发，然后再去买张新的。

243 darting   

v.投掷，投射( dart的现在分词 )；向前冲，飞奔

参考例句：

• Swallows were darting through the clouds. 燕子穿云急飞。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
• Swallows were darting through the air. 燕子在空中掠过。 来自辞典例句

244 exhausted   

adj.极其疲惫的，精疲力尽的

参考例句：

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

245 irritably   

ad.易生气地

参考例句：

• He lost his temper and snapped irritably at the children. 他发火了，暴躁地斥责孩子们。
• On this account the silence was irritably broken by a reproof. 为了这件事，他妻子大声斥责，令人恼火地打破了宁静。 来自英汉文学 - 嘉莉妹妹

246 crackers   

adj.精神错乱的，癫狂的n.爆竹( cracker的名词复数 )；薄脆饼干；（认为）十分愉快的事；迷人的姑娘

参考例句：

• That noise is driving me crackers. 那噪声闹得我简直要疯了。
• We served some crackers and cheese as an appetiser. 我们上了些饼干和奶酪作为开胃品。 来自《简明英汉词典》

247 scours   

走遍（某地）搜寻（人或物）( scour的第三人称单数 )； （用力）刷； 擦净； 擦亮

参考例句：

• The roasting pan scours better than pot. 烤盘比锅容易擦干净。
• The best scours for UF membrane washing were 0.1%NaOH and 0.5%U10 solution consecutively washing. 0.1%NaOH 和0.5%U10溶液是理想的超滤膜清洗剂。

248 scuff   

v. 拖着脚走；磨损

参考例句：

• Polly,bewildered and embarrassed,dropped her head and scuffed her feet.波莉既困惑又尴尬，低下头拖着脚走开了。
• Constant wheelchair use will scuff almost any floor surface.任何地板上经常有轮椅走动几乎都会有所磨损。

249 swapped   

交换（工作）( swap的过去式和过去分词 )； 用…替换，把…换成，掉换（过来）

参考例句：

• I liked her coat and she liked mine, so we swapped. 我喜欢她的外套，她喜欢我的外套，于是我们就交换了。
• At half-time the manager swapped some of the players around. 经理在半场时把几名队员换下了场。

250 cozy   

adj.亲如手足的，密切的，暖和舒服的

参考例句：

• I like blankets because they are cozy.我喜欢毛毯，因为他们是舒适的。
• We spent a cozy evening chatting by the fire.我们在炉火旁聊天度过了一个舒适的晚上。

251 echelon   

n.梯队；组织系统中的等级；v.排成梯队

参考例句：

• What kind of friends can be considered the first echelon of the friends?那什么样的朋友才能算第一梯队的朋友？
• These are the first echelon members.这些是我们的第一梯队的队员。

252 survivors   

幸存者，残存者，生还者( survivor的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The survivors were adrift in a lifeboat for six days. 幸存者在救生艇上漂流了六天。
• survivors clinging to a raft 紧紧抓住救生筏的幸存者

253 whining   

n. 抱怨，牢骚 v. 哭诉，发牢骚

参考例句：

• That's the way with you whining, puny, pitiful players. 你们这种又爱哭、又软弱、又可怜的赌棍就是这样。
• The dog sat outside the door whining (to be let in). 那条狗坐在门外狺狺叫着（要进来）。

254 glimmers   

n.微光，闪光( glimmer的名词复数 )v.发闪光，发微光( glimmer的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• A faint lamp glimmers at the end of the passage. 一盏昏暗的灯在走廊尽头发出微弱的光线。 来自互联网
• The first glimmers of an export-led revival are apparent. 拉动出库复苏的第一缕曙光正出现。 来自互联网

255 obliterated   

v.除去( obliterate的过去式和过去分词 )；涂去；擦掉；彻底破坏或毁灭

参考例句：

• The building was completely obliterated by the bomb. 炸弹把那座建筑物彻底摧毁了。
• He began to drink, drank himself to intoxication, till he slept obliterated. 他一直喝，喝到他快要迷糊地睡着了。 来自《简明英汉词典》

256 awaken   

vi.醒，觉醒；vt.唤醒，使觉醒，唤起，激起

参考例句：

• Old people awaken early in the morning.老年人早晨醒得早。
• Please awaken me at six.请于六点叫醒我。

257 nibbling   

v.啃，一点一点地咬（吃）( nibble的现在分词 )；啃出（洞），一点一点咬出（洞）；慢慢减少；小口咬

参考例句：

• We sat drinking wine and nibbling olives. 我们坐在那儿，喝着葡萄酒嚼着橄榄。
• He was nibbling on the apple. 他在啃苹果。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

258 rimmed   

adj.有边缘的，有框的v.沿…边缘滚动；给…镶边

参考例句：

• Gold rimmed spectacles bit deep into the bridge of his nose. 金边眼镜深深嵌入他的鼻梁。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Trees rimmed the pool. 水池的四周树木环绕。 来自《简明英汉词典》

259 crunch   

n.关键时刻；艰难局面；v.发出碎裂声

参考例句：

• If it comes to the crunch they'll support us.关键时刻他们是会支持我们的。
• People who crunch nuts at the movies can be very annoying.看电影时嘎吱作声地嚼干果的人会使人十分讨厌。

260 lengthening   

（时间或空间）延长，伸长( lengthen的现在分词 )； 加长

参考例句：

• The evening shadows were lengthening. 残阳下的影子越拉越长。
• The shadows are lengthening for me. 我的影子越来越长了。 来自演讲部分

261 underneath   

adj.在...下面，在...底下；adv.在下面

参考例句：

• Working underneath the car is always a messy job.在汽车底下工作是件脏活。
• She wore a coat with a dress underneath.她穿着一件大衣，里面套着一条连衣裙。

262 repulsive   

adj.排斥的，使人反感的

参考例句：

• She found the idea deeply repulsive.她发现这个想法很恶心。
• The repulsive force within the nucleus is enormous.核子内部的斥力是巨大的。

263 competence   

n.能力，胜任，称职

参考例句：

• This mess is a poor reflection on his competence.这种混乱情况说明他难当此任。
• These are matters within the competence of the court.这些是法院权限以内的事。

264 frailer   

脆弱的( frail的比较级 )； 易损的； 易碎的

参考例句：

• Somehow he looked older and frailer in his city clothes. 不知怎么回事，他穿着城市服装，显得衰老一点。

265 phoenix   

n.凤凰，长生(不死)鸟；引申为重生

参考例句：

• The airline rose like a phoenix from the ashes.这家航空公司又起死回生了。
• The phoenix worship of China is fetish worship not totem adoration.中国凤崇拜是灵物崇拜而非图腾崇拜。

266 hibernated   

（某些动物）冬眠，蛰伏( hibernate的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• The insects have hibernated in beech mast on the ground. 一些昆虫在地上的山毛榉果实中冬眠。
• Like most of the omnivorous animals, they hibernated only after storing enough energy. 跟大多数杂食性动物，它们只在储存了足够的能量后才冬眠。

267 craters   

n.火山口( crater的名词复数 )；弹坑等

参考例句：

• Small meteorites have left impact craters all over the planet's surface. 这个行星的表面布满了小块陨石留下的撞击坑。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The battlefield was full of craters made by exploding shells. 战场上布满弹坑。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》

268 muffled   

adj.（声音）被隔的；听不太清的；（衣服）裹严的；蒙住的v.压抑，捂住( muffle的过去式和过去分词 )；用厚厚的衣帽包着（自己）

参考例句：

• muffled voices from the next room 从隔壁房间里传来的沉闷声音
• There was a muffled explosion somewhere on their right. 在他们的右面什么地方有一声沉闷的爆炸声。 来自《简明英汉词典》

269 erased   

v.擦掉( erase的过去式和过去分词 )；抹去；清除

参考例句：

• He erased the wrong answer and wrote in the right one. 他擦去了错误答案，写上了正确答案。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He removed the dogmatism from politics; he erased the party line. 他根除了政治中的教条主义，消除了政党界限。 来自《简明英汉词典》

270 rams   

n.公羊( ram的名词复数 )；(R-)白羊（星）座；夯；攻城槌v.夯实（土等）( ram的第三人称单数 )；猛撞；猛压；反复灌输

参考例句：

• A couple of rams are butting at each other. 两只羊正在用角互相抵触。 来自辞典例句
• More than anything the rams helped to break what should have been on interminable marriage. 那些牡羊比任何东西都更严重地加速了他们那本该天长地久的婚姻的破裂。 来自辞典例句

271 jerseys   

n.运动衫( jersey的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The maximum quantity of cotton jerseys this year is about DM25,000. 平方米的羊毛地毯超过了以往的订货。 来自口语例句
• The NBA is mulling the prospect of stitching advertising logos onto jerseys. 大意：NBA官方正在酝酿一个大煞风景的计划——把广告标志绣上球服！ 来自互联网

272 tinfoil   

n.锡纸，锡箔

参考例句：

• You can wrap it up in tinfoil.你可以用锡箔纸裹住它。
• Drop by rounded tablespoon onto tinfoil.Bake for 9 to 11 minutes or until golden brown.用大餐勺把刚刚搅拌好的糊糊盛到锡纸上，烘烤9至11分钟，直到变成金黄色。

273 grudgingly   

参考例句：

• He grudgingly acknowledged having made a mistake. 他勉强承认他做错了。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Their parents unwillingly [grudgingly] consented to the marriage. 他们的父母无可奈何地应允了这门亲事。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

274 darts   

n.掷飞镖游戏；飞镖( dart的名词复数 )；急驰，飞奔v.投掷，投射( dart的第三人称单数 )；向前冲，飞奔

参考例句：

• His darts trophy takes pride of place on the mantelpiece. 他将掷镖奖杯放在壁炉顶上最显著的地方。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• I never saw so many darts in a bodice! 我从没见过紧身胸衣上纳了这么多的缝褶！ 来自《简明英汉词典》

275 defender   

n.保卫者，拥护者，辩护人

参考例句：

• He shouldered off a defender and shot at goal.他用肩膀挡开防守队员，然后射门。
• The defender argued down the prosecutor at the court.辩护人在法庭上驳倒了起诉人。

276 chattery   

养猫的处所

参考例句：

• A large number of female cats are kept together in a cattery. 很多的母猫被关在一个猫舍。
• Special thanks SAN-FE Cattery, share his beautiful line with us. 特别感谢SAN-FE猫舍，与我们分享优秀的血统！

277 mink   

n.貂，貂皮

参考例句：

• She was wearing a blue dress and a mink coat.她穿着一身蓝色的套装和一件貂皮大衣。
• He started a mink ranch and made a fortune in five years. 他开了个水貂养殖场，五年之内就赚了不少钱。

278 aligned   

adj.对齐的，均衡的

参考例句：

• Make sure the shelf is aligned with the top of the cupboard.务必使搁架与橱柜顶端对齐。

279 watt   

n.瓦，瓦特

参考例句：

• The invention of the engine is creditable to Watt.发动机的发明归功于瓦特。
• The unit of power is watt.功率的单位是瓦特。

280 clumping   

v.（树、灌木、植物等的）丛、簇( clump的现在分词 )；（土、泥等）团；块；笨重的脚步声

参考例句：

• Wipe the wand off before the first coat to prevent clumping. 把睫毛棒刷干净，避免结块。 来自互联网
• Fighting gravitational clumping would take a wavelength of a few dozen light-years. 为了对抗重力造成的聚集，这些粒子的波长可能会长达好几十光年的距离。 来自互联网

281 mingling   

adj.混合的

参考例句：

• There was a spring of bitterness mingling with that fountain of sweets. 在这个甜蜜的源泉中间，已经掺和进苦涩的山水了。
• The mingling of inconsequence belongs to us all. 这场矛盾混和物是我们大家所共有的。

282 cocooned   

v.茧，蚕茧( cocoon的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• The doctors cocooned the patient in blankets. 医生们将病人紧包在毯子里。 来自辞典例句
• I cocooned in my own kingdom. 我完全沉迷在我自己的王国中。 来自辞典例句

283 shuddering   

v.战栗( shudder的现在分词 )；发抖；（机器、车辆等）突然震动；颤动

参考例句：

• 'I am afraid of it,'she answered, shuddering. “我害怕，”她发着抖，说。 来自英汉文学 - 双城记
• She drew a deep shuddering breath. 她不由得打了个寒噤，深深吸了口气。 来自飘（部分）

284 eyelid   

n.眼睑，眼皮

参考例句：

• She lifted one eyelid to see what he was doing.她抬起一只眼皮看看他在做什么。
• My eyelid has been tumid since yesterday.从昨天起，我的眼皮就肿了。

285 aslant   

adv.倾斜地；adj.斜的

参考例句：

• The sunlight fell aslant the floor.阳光斜落在地板上。
• He leant aslant against the wall.他身子歪斜着依靠在墙上。

286 disdain   

n.鄙视，轻视；v.轻视，鄙视，不屑

参考例句：

• Some people disdain labour.有些人轻视劳动。
• A great man should disdain flatterers.伟大的人物应鄙视献媚者。