During this sleep he has an intense dream. He and his mother and father and some others are sitting around their kitchen table. It's the old kitchen. A girl at the table reaches with a very long arm weighted with a bracelet1 and turns a handle of the wood icebox and cold air sweeps over Rabbit. She has opened the door of the square cave where the cake of ice sits; and there it is, inches from Harry2's eyes, lopsided from melting but still big, holding within its semi?opaque3 bulk the white partition that the cakes have when they come bumping down the chute at the ice plant. He leans closer into the cold breath of the ice, a tin?smelling coldness he associates with the metal that makes up the walls of the cave and the ribs5 of its floor, delicate rhinoceros6 gray, mottled with the same disease the linoleum7 has. Having leaned closer he sees that under the watery8 skin are hundreds of clear white veins9 like the capillar-ies on a leaf, as if ice too were built up of living cells. And further inside, so ghostly it comes to him last, hangs a jagged cloud, the star of an explosion, whose center is uncertain in refraction but whose arms fly from the core of pallor as straight as long eraser-marks diagonally into all planes of the cube. The rusted11 ribs the cake rests on wobble through to his eyes like the teeth of a grin. Fear probes him; the cold lump is alive.
His mother speaks to him. "Close the door."
"I didn't open it."
"I know."
"She did."
"I know. My good boy wouldn't hurt anyone." The girl at the table fumbles12 a piece of food and with terrible weight Mother turns and scolds her. The scolding keeps on and on, senselessly, the same thing over and over again, a continuous pumping of words like a deep inner bleeding. It is himself bleeding; his grief for the girl distends13 his face until it feels like a huge white dish. "Tart14 can't eat decently as a baby," Mother says.
"Hey, hey, hey," Rabbit cries, and stands up to defend his sister. Mother rears away, scoffing15. They are in the narrow place between the two houses; only himself and the girl; it is Janice Springer. He tries to explain about his mother. Janice's head meekly16 stares at his shoulder; when he puts his arms around her he is conscious of her eyes being bloodshot. Though their faces are not close he feels her breath, hot with tears. They are out behind the Mt. Judge Recreation Hall, out in back with the weeds and tramped?down bare ground and embedded17 broken bottles; through the wall they hear music on loudspeakers. Janice has a pink dance dress on, and is crying. He repeats, sick at heart, about his mother, that she was just getting at him but the girl keeps crying, and to his horror her face begins to slide, the skin to slip slowly from the bone, but there is no bone, just more melting stuff underneath18; he cups his hands with the idea of catching19 it and patting it back; as it drips in loops into his palms the air turns white with what is his own scream.
The white is light; the pillow glows against his eyes and sun-light projects the bubble flaws of the window panes20 onto the drawn21 shade. This woman is curled up under the blankets between him and the window. Her hair in sunlight sprays red, brown, gold, white, and black across her pillow. Smiling with relief, he gets up on an elbow and kisses her solid slack cheek, admires its tough texture22 of pores. He sees by faint rose streaks23 how imperfectly he scrubbed her face in the dark. He returns to the position in which he slept, but he has slept too much in?recent hours. As if to seek the entrance to another dream he reaches for her naked body across the little distance and wanders up and down broad slopes, warm like freshly baked cake. Her back is toward him; he cannot see her eyes. Not until she sighs heavily and stretches and turns toward him does he know she is awake.
Again, then, they make love, in morning light with cloudy mouths, her breasts floating shallow on her ridged rib4 cage. Her nipples are sunken brown buds, her bush a brass25 froth. It is almost too naked; his climax26 seems petty in relation to the wealth of brilliant skin, and he wonders if she pretends. She says not; no, it was different but all right. Really all right. He goes back under the covers while she pads around on bare feet getting dressed. Funny how she puts on her bra before her underpants. Her putting on her underpants makes him conscious of her legs as separate things: thick pink liquid twists diminishing downward into her ankles. They take a rosy27 light from the reflection of each other as she walks around. Her accepting his watching her flatters him, shelters him. They have become domestic.
Church bells ring loudly. He moves to her side of the bed to watch the crisply dressed people go into the limestone28 church across the street, whose lit window had lulled29 him to sleep. He reaches and pulls up the shade a few feet. The rose window is dark now, and above the church, above Mt. Judge, the sun glares in a facade30 of blue. It strikes a shadow down from the church steeple, a cool stumpy negative in which a few men with flowers in their lapels stand and gossip while the common sheep of the flock stream in, heads down. The thought of these people having the bold idea of leaving their homes to come here and pray pleases and reassures31 Rabbit, and moves him to close his own eyes and bow his head with a movement so tiny that Ruth won't notice. Help me, Christ. Forgive me. Take me down the way. Bless Ruth, Janice, Nelson, my mother and father, Mr. and Mrs. Springer, and the unborn baby. Forgive Tothero and all the others. Amen.
He opens his eyes to the day and says, "That's a pretty big congregation."
"Sunday morning," she says. "I could throw up every Sunday morning."
"Why?"
She just says, "Fuh," as if he knows the answer. After thinking a bit, and seeing him lie there looking out the window seriously, she says, "I once had a guy in here who woke me up at eight o'clock because he had to teach Sunday school at nine?thirty."
"You don't believe anything?"
"No. You mean you do?"
"Well, yeah. I think so." Her rasp, her sureness, makes him wince32; he wonders if he's lying. If he is, he is hung in the middle of nowhere, and the thought hollows him. Across the street a few people in their best clothes walk on the pavement past the row of worn brick homes; are they walking on air? Their clothes, they put on their best clothes: he clings to the thought giddily; it seems a visual proof of the unseen world.
"Well, if you do what are you doing here?" she asks.
"Why not? You think you're Satan or somebody?"
This stops her a moment, standing33 there with her comb, before she laughs. "Well you go right ahead if it makes you happy."
He presses her. "Why don't you believe anything?"
"You're kidding."
"No. Doesn't it ever, at least for a second, seem obvious to you?"
"God, you mean? No. It seems obvious just the other way. All the time."
"Well now if God doesn't exist, why does anything?"
"Why? There's no why to it. Things just are." She stands before the mirror, and her comb pulling back on her hair pulls her upper lip up; women are always looking that way in the movies.
"That's not the way I feel about you," he says, "that you just are."
"Hey, why don't you get some clothes on instead of just lying
there giving me the Word?"
This, and her turning, hair swirling34, to say it, stir him. "Come here," he asks. The idea of making it while the churches are full excites him.
"No," Ruth says. She is really a little sore. His believing in God grates against her.
"You don't like me now?"
"What does it matter to you?"
"You know it does."
"Get out of my bed."
"I guess I owe you fifteen more dollars.'
"All you owe me is getting the hell out."
"What! Leave you all alone?" He says this as with comical speed, while she stands there startled, he jumps from bed and gathers up some of his clothes and ducks into the bathroom and closes the door. When he comes out, in underclothes, he says, still clowning, "You don't like me any more," and moves pouting35 to where his trousers are neatly36 laid on the chair. While he was out of the room she made the bed.
"I like you enough," she says in a preoccupied37 voice, tugging39 the bedspread smooth.
"Enough for what?"
"Enough."
"Why do you like me?"
"'Cause you're bigger than I am." She moves to the next cor-ner and tugs40. "Boy that used to gripe hell out of me, the way these little women everybody thinks are so cute grab all the big men."
"They have something," he tells her. "They seem easier to nail down."
She laughs and says, "To nail down or screw?"
He pulls up his trousers and buckles41 the belt. "Why else do you like me?"
She looks at him. "Shall I tell you?"
"Tell me."
"'Cause you haven't given up. In your stupid way you're still fighting."
He loves hearing this; pleasure spins along his nerves, making him feel immense. But American modesty43 has been drilled into him, and "the will to achievement" glides44 out of his mouth, which he tries to make look lopsided. She gets it.
"That poor old bastard46," she says. "He really is a bastard too."
"Hey, I'll tell you what," Rabbit says. "I'll run out and get some stuff at that grocery store you can cook for our lunch."
"Say, you settle right in, don't you?"
"Why? Were you going to meet somebody?"
"No, I don't have anybody today."
"Well, then. You said last night you liked to cook."
"I said I used to."
"Well, if you used to you still do. What shall I get?"
"How do you know the store's open?"
"Isn't it? Sure it is. Those little stores make all their money on Sundays, what with the supermarkets." He goes to the window and looks up at the corner. Sure, the door of the store opens and a man comes out with a newspaper.
"Your shirt's filthy," she says behind him.
"I know." He moves away from the window light. "It's Tothero's shirt. I got to get my own clothes. But let me get us food now. What shall I get?"
"What do you like?" she asks.
He leaves pleased. The thing about her is, she's good?natured. He knew it the second he saw her standing by the parking meters. He could just tell from the way her thighs48 made a lap. With women, you keep bumping against them, because they want different things; they're a different race. The good ones develop give. In all the green world nothing feels as good as a woman's good nature. The pavement kicks under his feet as he runs to the grocery store in his dirty shirt. What do you like? He has her. He knows he has her.
He brings back eight hot dogs in cellophane, a package of frozen lima beans, a package of frozen French fries, a quart of milk, ajar of relish49, a loaf of raisin50 bread, a ball of cheese wrapped in red cellophane, and, on top of the bag, a Ma Sweitzer's shoo?fly pie. It all costs $2.43. As she brings the things out of the bag in her tiny stained kitchen, Ruth says, "You're not a very healthy eater."
"I wanted lamb chops but he only had hot dogs and salami and hash in cans."
While she cooks he wanders around her living room and finds a row of pocketbook mysteries on a shelf under a table beside a chair. The Jewish guy in the bunk52 beside his at Fort Larson used to read those all the time. Ben Shamberger. A smart mouth but mournful inky eyes. Hated the Army. Broke his arm from riding a steer54 one weekend on a dare from that maniac55 Jarzylo. Ruth has opened the windows, and the cool March air is sharpened by this memory of baking Texas. Ruth's curtains of dingy56 dotted Swiss blow; their gauze skin gently fills and they lean in toward him as he stands paralyzed by another memory: his home, when he was a child, the Sunday papers rattling57 on the floor, stirred by the afternoon draft, and his mother rattling the dishes in the kitchen. When she is done, she will organize them all, Pop and him and baby Miriam, to go for a walk. Because of the baby, they will not go far, just a few blocks maybe to the old gravel58 quarry59, where the ice pond of winter, melted into a lake a few inches deep, doubles the height of the quarry cliff by throwing its rocks upside down into a pit of reflection. But it is only water; they take a few steps farther along the edge and from this new angle the pond mirrors the sun, the illusion of inverted60 cliffs is wiped out, and the water is as solid as ice with light. Rabbit holds little Mim hard by the hand. "Hey," he calls to Ruth. "I got a terrific idea. Let's go for a walk this afternoon."
"Walk! I walk all the time."
"Let's walk up to the top of Mt. Judge from here." He can't remember having ever gone up the mountain from the Brewer61 side. Gusts62 of anticipation63 sweep over him, and as he turns, exalted64, away from the curtains stiff and leaning with the breeze, huge church bells ring. "Yeah let's," he calls into the kitchen. "How about it?" Out on the street people leave church carrying wands of green absentmindedly at their sides.
When Ruth serves lunch he sees she is a better cook than Janice; she has boiled the hot dogs somehow without splitting them. With Janice, they always arrived at the table torn and twisted and tortured?looking. He and Ruth eat at a small por-celain table in the kitchen. As he touches his fork to his plate he remembers the cold feel in his dream of Janice's face dropping into his hands, and the memory spoils his first bite, makes it itself a kind of horror. Nevertheless he says "Terrific" and gamely goes ahead and eats and does regain65 his appetite.
Ruth's face across from him takes some of the pale glare of the table?top; the skin of her broad forehead shines and the two blemishes66 beside her nose are like spots something spilled has left. She seems to sense that she has become unattractive, and eats with quick little self?effacing67 bites.
"Hey," he says.
"What?"
"You know I still have that car parked over on Cherry Street."
"You're O.K. The meters don't matter on Sunday."
"Yeah, but they will tomorrow."
"Sell it."
"Huh?"
"Sell the car. Simplify your life. Get rich quick."
"No, I mean ? oh. You mean for you. Look, I still have thirty dollars, why dontcha let me give it to you now?" He reaches toward his hip68 pocket.
"No, no, I did not mean that. I didn't mean anything. It just popped into my fat head." She is embarrassed; her neck goes splotchy and his pity is roused, to think how beautiful she appeared last night.
He explains. "You see, my wife's old man is a used?car dealer69 and when we got married he sold us this car at a pretty big discount. So in a way it's really my wife's car and anyway since she has the kid I think she ought to have it. And then as you say my shirt's dirty and I ought to get my clothes if I can. So what I thought was, after lunch why don't I sneak70 over to my place and leave the car and pick up my clothes?"
"Suppose she's there?"
"She won't be. She'll be at her mother's."
"I think you'd like it if she was there," Ruth says.
He wonders; he imagines opening the door and finding Janice sitting there in the armchair with an empty glass watching television and feels, like a piece of food stuck in his throat at last going down, his relief at finding her face still firm, still its old dumb tense self of a face. "No, I wouldn't," he tells Ruth. "I'm scared of her."
"Obviously," Ruth says.
"There's something about her," he insists. "She's a menace."
"This poor wife you left? You're the menace, I'd say."
"Me?"
"Oh that's right. You think you're a rabbit." Her tone in saying this is faintly jeering71 and irritable72, he doesn't know why.
She asks, "What do you think you're going to do with these clothes?"
He admits, "Bring them here."
She takes in the breath but comes out with nothing.
"Just for tonight," he pleads. "You're not doing anything are you?
"Maybe. I don't know. Probably not."
"Well then, great. Hey. I love you."
She rises to clear away the plates and stands there, thumb on china, staring at the center of the white table. She shakes her head heavily and says, "You're bad news."
Across from him her broad pelvis, snug73 in a nubbly brown skirt, is solid and symmetrical as the base of a powerful column. His heart rises through that strong column and, enraptured74 to feel his love for her founded anew yet not daring to lift his eyes to the test of her face, he says, "I can't help it. You're such good news."
He eats three pieces of shoo?fly pie and a crumb75 in the corner of his lips comes off on her sweater when he kisses her breasts goodbye in the kitchen. He leaves her with the dishes. His car is waiting for him on Cherry Street in the cool spring noon mys-teriously; it is as if a room of a house he owned had been detached and scuttled76 by this curb77 and now that the tide of night was out stood up glistening78 in the sand, slightly tilting79 but unharmed, ready to sail at the turn of a key. Under his rumpled80 dirty clothes his body feels clean, narrow, hollow. He has scored. The car smells of rubber and dust and painted metal hot in the sun: a sheath for the knife of himself. He cuts through the Sunday?stunned81 town, the soft rows of domestic brick, the banistered porches of wood. He drives around the southern flank of Mt. Judge; its slope by the highway is dusted the yellow?green of new leaves; higher up, the evergreens82 make a black horizon with the sky. The view has changed since the last time he came this way. Yesterday morning the sky was ribbed with thin?stretched dawn clouds, and he was exhausted83, heading into the center of the net, where alone there seemed a chance of rest. Now the noon of another day has burned away the clouds, and the sky in the windshield is blank and cold, and he feels nothing ahead of him, Ruth's blue?eyed nothing, the nothing she told him she did, the nothing she believes in. Your heart lifts forever through that blank sky.
His mood of poise84 crumbles85 as he descends86 into the familiar houses of Mt. Judge. He becomes cautious, nervous. He turns up Jackson, up Potter, up Wilbur, and tries to make out from some external sign if there is anyone in his apartment. No telltale light would show; it is the height of day. No car is out front. He circles the block twice, straining his neck to see a face at the win-dow. The panes are high and opaque. Ruth was wrong; he does not want to see Janice.
The bare possibility makes him so faint that when he gets out of the car the bright sun almost knocks him down. As he climbs the stairs, the steps seem to calibrate88, to restrain by notches89, a help-less tendency in his fear?puffed90 body to rise. He raps on the door, braced91 to run. Nothing answers on the other side. He taps again, listens, and takes the key out of his pocket.
Though the apartment is empty, it is yet so full of Janice he begins to tremble; the sight of that easy chair turned to face the television attacks his knees. Nelson's broken toys on the floor derange92 his head; all the things inside his skull93, the gray matter, the bones of his ears, the apparatus94 of his eyes, seem clutter95 clogging96 the tube of his self his sinuses choke, with a sneeze or tears he doesn't know. The living room smells of desertion. The shades are still drawn. Janice drew them in the afternoons to keep glare off the television screen. Someone has made gestures of cleaning up; her ashtray97 and her empty glass have been taken away. Rabbit puts the door key and the car keys on top of the television case, metal painted brown in imitation of wood grain. As he opens the closet door the knob bumps against the edge of the set. Some of her clothes are gone.
He means to reach for his clothes but instead turns and wan-ders toward the kitchen, trying to gather up the essence of what he has done. Their bed sags98 in the filtered sunlight. Never a good bed. Her parents had given it to them. On the bureau there is a square glass ashtray and a pair of fingernail scissors and a spool99 of white thread and a needle and some hairpins100 and a telephone book and a Baby Ben with luminous101 numbers and a recipe she never used torn from a magazine and a necklace made of sandalwood beads102 carved in Java he got her for Christmas. Insecurely tilted103 against the wall is the big oval mirror they took away when her parents had a new bathroom put in; he always meant to attach it to the plaster above her bureau for her but never got around to buying molly bolts. A glass on the windowsill, half full of stale, bubbled water, throws a curved patch of diluted104 sun onto the bare place where the mirror should have been fixed105. Three long nicks, here, scratched in the wall, parallel; what ever made them, when? Beyond the edge of the bed a triangle of linoleum bathroom floor shows; the time after her shower, her bottom blushing with steam, lifting her anns gladly to kiss him, soaked licks of hair in her armpits. What gladness had seized her, and then him, unasked?
In the kitchen he discovers an odd oversight106: the pork chops never taken from the pan, cold as death, riding congealed107 grease. He dumps them out in the paper bag under the sink and with a spatula108 scrapes crumbs109 of the stiff speckled fat after them. The bag, stained dark brown at the bottom, smells of something sweetly rotting. He puzzles. The garbage can is downstairs out back, he doesn't want to make two trips. He decides to forget it. He draws scalding water into the sink and puts the pan in to soak. The breath of steam is a whisper in a tomb.
In frightened haste he takes clean jockey pants, T?shirts, and socks from a drawer, three shirts in cellophane and blue cardboard from another, a pair of laundered110 suntans from a third, draws his two suits and a sports shirt from the closet, and wraps the smaller clothing in the suits to form a bundle he can carry. The job makes him sweat. Clutching his clothes between two arms and a lifted thigh47, he surveys the apartment once more, and the furniture, carpeting, wallpaper all seem darkly glazed111 with the murk filming his own face; the rooms are filled with the flavor of an awkward job, and he is glad to get out. The door snaps shut behind him irrevocably. His key is inside.
Toothbrush. Razor. Cufflinks. Shoes. At each step down he remembers something he forgot. He hurries, his feet patter. He jumps. His head almost hits the naked bulb burning at the end of a black cord in the vestibule. His name on the mailbox seems to call at him as he sweeps past; its letters of blue ink crowd the air like a cry. He feels ridiculous, ducking into the sunlight like one of those weird112 thieves you read about in the back pages of newspapers who instead of stealing money and silver carry away a porcelain113 washbasin, twenty rolls of wallpaper, or a bundle of old clothes.
"Good afternoon, Mr. Angstrom."
A neighbor is passing, Miss Arndt, in a lavender church hat, carrying a palm frond114 in clutched hands. "Oh. Hello. How are you?" She lives three houses up; they think she has cancer.
"I am just splendid," she says. "Just splendid." And stands there in sunshine, bewildered by splendor115, flatfooted, leaning unconsciously against the slope of the pavement. A gray car goes by too slowly. Miss Arndt sticks in Rabbit's way, amiably116 confused, grateful for something, her simple adherence117 to the pavement it seems, like a fly who stops walking on the ceiling to marvel118 at itself.
"How do you like the weather?" he asks.
"I love it, I love it; Palm Sunday is always blue. It makes the sap rise in my legs." She laughs and he follows; she stands rooted to the hot cement between the feathery shade of two young maples119. She knows nothing, he becomes certain.
"Yes," he says, for her eyes have fixed on his arms. "I seem to be doing spring cleaning." He shrugs120 the bundle to clarify.
"Good," she says, with a surprising sarcastic121 snarl122. "You young husbands, you certainly take the bit in your teeth." Then she twists, and exclaims, "Why, there's a clergyman in there!"
The gray car has come back, even more slowly, down the center of the street. With a dismay that makes the bundle of clothes double its weight in his arms, Rabbit realizes he is pinned. He lurches from the porch and strides past Miss Arndt saying, "I got to run," right on top of her considered remark, "It's not Reverend Kruppenbach."
No, of course not Kruppenbach; Rabbit knows who it is, though he doesn't know his name. The Episcopalian. The Springers were Episcopalians, more of the old phony's social climbing, they were originally Reformeds. Rabbit doesn't quite run. The downhill pavement jars his heels at every stride. He can't see the cement under the bundle he carries. If he can just make the alley123. His one hope is the minister can't be sure it's him. He feels the gray car crawling behind him; he thinks of throwing the clothes away and really running. If he could get into the old ice plant. But it's a block away. He feels Ruth, the dishes done, waiting on the other side of the mountain.
As a shark nudges silent creases124 of water ahead of it, the gray fender makes ripples125 of air that break against the back of Rabbit's knees. The faster he walks the harder these ripples break. Behind his ear a childishly twanging voice pipes, "I beg your pardon. Are you Harry Angstrom?"
With a falling sensation of telling a lie Rabbit turns and halfwhispers, "Yes."
The fair young man with his throat manacled in white lets his car glide45 diagonally against the curb, yanks on the handbrake, and shuts off the motor, thus parking on the wrong side of the street, cockeyed. Funny how ministers ignore small laws. Rabbit remembers how Kruppenbach's son used to tear around town on a motorcycle. It seemed somehow blasphemous126. "Well, I'm Jack87 Eccles," this minister says, and inconsequently laughs a syllable127. The white stripe of an unlit cigarette hanging from his lips makes with the echoing collar a comic picture in the car window. He gets out of his car, a '58 Buick four?door Special, with those canted fins128 and that rocket?arc of chrome on the side, and offers his hand. To accept it Rabbit has to put his big ball of clothes down in the strip of grass between the pavement and curb.
Eccles' handshake, eager and practiced and hard, seems to symbolize129 for him an embrace. For an instant Rabbit fears he will never let go. He feels caught, foresees explanations, embarrassments130, prayers, reconciliations131 rising up like dank walls; his skin prickles in desperation. He senses tenacity132 in his captor.
The minister is about his age or a little older and a good bit shorter. But not small; a sort of needless muscularity runs under his black coat. He stands edgily133, with his chest faintly cupped. He has long reddish eyebrows134 that push a worried wrinkle around above the bridge of his nose, and a little pale pointed135 knob of a chin tucked under his mouth. Despite his looking vexed136 there is something friendly and silly about him.
"Where are you going?" he asks.
"Huh? Nowhere." Rabbit is distracted by the man's suit; it only feigns137 black. It is really blue, a sober but elegant, lightweight, midnight blue. While his little vest or bib or whatever is black as a stove. The effort of keeping the cigarette between his lips twists Eccles' laugh into a snort. He slaps the breasts of his coat. "Do you have a match by any chance?"
"Gee138 I'm sorry, no. I quit smoking."
"You're a better man than I am." He pauses and thinks, then looks at Harry with startled, arched eyebrows. The distention makes his gray eyes seem round and as pale as glass. "Can I give you a lift?"
"No. Hell. Don't bother."
"I'd like to talk to you."
"No; you don't really want to, do you?"
"I do, yes. Very much."
"Yeah. O.K." Rabbit picks up his clothes and walks around the front of the Buick and gets in. The interior has that sweet tangy plastic new?car smell; he takes a deep breath of it and it cools his fear. "This is about Janice?"
Eccles nods, staring out the rear window as he backs away from the curb. His upper lip overhangs his lower; there are scoops139 of weary violet below his eyes. Sunday would be his heavy day.
"How is she? What did she do?"
"She seems much saner140 today. She and her father came to church this morning." They drive down the street. Eccles adds nothing, just gazes through the windshield, blinking. He pokes141 the lighter142 in on the dashboard.
"I thought she'd be with them," Rabbit says. He is getting slightly annoyed at the way the minister isn't bawling143 him out or something; he doesn't seem to know his job.
The lighter pops. Eccles puts it to his cigarette, inhales144, and seems to come back into focus. "Evidently," he says, "when you didn't come back in half an hour she called your parents and had your father bring your boy over to your apartment. Your father, I gather, was very reassuring145 and told her you had probably been sidetracked somewhere. She remembered you had been late getting home because of some street game and thought you might have gone back to it. I believe your father even walked around town looking for the game."
"Where was old man Springer?"
"She didn't call them. She didn't call them until two o'clock that morning, when I suppose the poor thing had given up all hope." "Poor thing" is one word on his lips, worn smooth.
Harry asks, "Not until two?" Pity grips him; his hands tighten146 on the bundle, as if comforting Janice.
"Around then. By then she was in such a state, alcoholic147 and otherwise, that her mother called me."
"Why you?"
"I don't know. People do." Eccles laughs. "They're supposed to; it's comforting. To me at least. I always thought Mrs. Springer hated me. She hadn't been to church in months." As he turns to face Rabbit, to follow up this joke, a little quizzical pang148 lifts his eyebrows and forces his broad mouth open.
"This was around two in the morning?"
"Between two and three."
"Gee, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to get you out of bed."
The minister shakes his head irritably149. "That's not a consider-ation"
"Well I feel terrible about this."
"Do you? That's hopeful. Uh, what, exactly, is your plan?"
"I don't really have a plan. I'm sort of playing it by ear."
Eccles' laughter surprises him; it occurs to Rabbit that the minister is an expert on affairs like this ? broken homes, fleeing husbands ? and that "playing it by ear" has struck a fresh note. He feels flattered. Eccles has this knack150.
"Your mother has an interesting viewpoint," the minister says. "She thinks it's all an illusion your wife and I have, that you've deserted151. She says you're much too good a boy to do anything of the sort."
"You've been busy on this, haven't you?"
"This, and a death yesterday."
"Gee, I'm sorry."
They have been driving idly, at low speed, through the fam-iliar streets; once they passed the ice plant, and at another point rounded a corner from which you can see across the valley to the next ridge24 of hills. "Say, if you really want to give me a lift," Rabbit says, "you could drive over into Brewer."
"You don't want me to take you to your wife?"
"No. Good grief. I mean I don't think it would do any good, do you?"
For a long time it seems that the other man didn't hear him; his tidy, tired profile stares through the windshield as the big car hums forward steadily152. Harry has taken the breath to repeat himself when Eccles says, "Not if you don't want good to come of it."
The matter seems ended this simply. They drive down Potter Avenue toward the highway. The sunny streets have just children on them, some of them still in their Sunday?school clothes. Little girls wear pastel organdy dresses that stick straight out from their waists. Their ribbons match their socks.
Eccles asks, "What did she do that made you leave?"
"She asked me to buy her a pack of cigarettes."
Eccles doesn't laugh as he had hoped; he seems to dismiss the remark as impudence153, a little over the line. But it was the truth. "It's the truth. It just felt like the whole business was fetching and haul-ing, all the time trying to hold this mess together she was making all the time. I don't know, it seemed like I was glued in with a lot of busted154 toys and empty glasses and the television going and meals late or never and no way of getting out. Then all of a sudden it hit me how easy it was to get out, just walk out, and by damn it was easy."
"For less than two days, it's been."
"It's been not only easy. It's been strange, too." Rather than try to describe the strangeness, he asks, "What's Janice going to do, do you think?"
"She doesn't know. Your wife seems almost paralyzed; she doesn't want anyone to do anything."
"Poor kid. She's such a mutt."
"Why are you here?"
" 'Cause you caught me."
"I mean why were you in front of your home?"
"I came back to get clean clothes."
"Do clean clothes mean so much to you? Why cling to that decency155 if trampling156 on the others is so easy?"
Rabbit feels now the danger of talking; his words are coming back to him, little hooks and snares157 are being fashioned. "Also I was leaving her the car."
"Why? Don't you need it, to explore your freedom in?"
"I just thought she should have it. Her father sold it to us cheap. Anyway it didn't do me any good."
"No?" Eccles stubs his cigarette out in the car ashtray and goes to his coat pocket for another. They are rounding the mountain, at the highest stretch of road, where the hill rises too steeply on one side and falls too steeply on the other to give space to a house or gasoline station. The river darkly shines down below. "Now if 1 were to leave my wife," he says, "I'd get into a car and drive a thousand miles." It almost seems like advice, coming calmly from above the white collar.
"That's what I did!" Rabbit cries, delighted by how much they have in common. "I drove as far as West Virginia. Then I thought the hell with it and came back." He must try to stop swearing; he wonders why he's doing it. To keep them apart, maybe; he feels a dangerous tug38 drawing him toward this man.
"Should I ask why?"
"Oh I don't know. A combination of things. It seemed safer to be in a place I know."
"You didn't come back to protect your wife?"
Rabbit is wordless at the idea.
Eccles continues, "You speak of this feeling of muddle158. What do you think it's like for other young couples? In what way do you think you're exceptional?"
"You don't think there's any answer to that but there is. I once did something right. I played first?rate basketball. I really did. And after you're first?rate at something, no matter what, it kind of takes the kick out of being second?rate. And that little thing Janice and I had going, boy, it was really second?rate."
The dashboard lighter pops. Eccles uses it and quickly returns his eyes to his driving. They've come down into the outskirts159 of Brewer. He asks, "Do you believe in God?"
Having rehearsed that this morning, Rabbit answers without hesitation160, "Yes."
Eccles blinks in surprise. The furry161 lid in his one?eyed profile shutters162, but his face does not turn. "Do you think, then, that God wants you to make your wife suffer?"
"Let me ask you. Do you think God wants a waterfall to be a tree?" This question of Jimmies sounds, Rabbit realizes, ridiculous; he is annoyed that Eccles simply takes it in, with a sad drag of smoke. He realizes that no matter what he says, Eccles will take it in with the same weary smoke; he is a listener by trade. His big fair head must be stuffed with a gray mash163 of everybody's precious secrets and passionate164 questions, a mash that nothing, young as he is, can color. For the first time, Rabbit dislikes him.
"No," Eccles says after thought. "But I think He wants a little tree to become a big tree."
"If you're telling me I'm not mature, that's one thing I don't cry over since as far as I can make out it's the same thing as being dead."
"I'm immature165 myself," Eccles offers.
It's not enough of an offering. Rabbit tells him off. "Well, I'm not going back to that little soppy dope no matter how sorry you feel for her. I don't know what she feels. I haven't known for years. All I know is what's inside me. That's all I have. Do you know what I was doing to support that bunch? I was demonstrating a penny's worth of tin called a frigging MagiPeeler in McCrory's five and dime166!"
Eccles looks at him wide?eyed. "Well that explains your oratorical167 gifts," he says.
This aristocratic sneer168 rings true; puts them both in place. Rabbit feels less at sea. "Hey, I wish you'd let me out," he says. They're on Weiser Street, heading toward the great sunflower, dead in day.
"Won't you let me take you to where you're staying?"
"I'm not staying anywhere."
"All right." With a trace ofboyish bad temper Eccles pulls over and stops in front of a fire hydrant. As he brakes racily, something clatters169 in the trunk.
"You're coming apart," Rabbit tells him.
"Just my golf clubs."
"You play?"
"Badly. Do you?" He seems animated170; the cigarette bums171 forgotten in his fingers.
"I used to caddy."
"Could I invite you for a game?" Ali. Here's the hook.
Rabbit gets out hugging his great ball of clothes and stands on the curb and sidesteps, clowning in his freedom. "I don't have clubs."
"They're easy to rent. Please. I mean it." Eccles leans far over, to speak through the door. "It's hard for me to find partners. Everybody works except me." He laughs.
Rabbit knows he should run, but the thought of a game, and an idea that it's safest to see the hunter, make resistance.
Eccles presses. "I'm afraid you'll go back to demonstrating peelers if I don't catch you soon. Tuesday? Tuesday at two? Shall I pick you up?"
"No; I'll come to your house."
"Promise?"
"Yeah. But don't trust a promise from me."
"I have to." Eccles names an address in Mt. Judge and they call goodbye at the curb. An old cop walks with a wise squint172 along the pavement beside the shut, stunned Sunday storefronts. To him it must look like a priest parting from the president of his Youth Group, who is carrying a bundle of clothes for the poor. Harry grins at this cop, and walks along the sparkling pavement with his stomach singing. Funny, the world just can't touch you once you follow your instincts.
Ruth lets him in, a pocket mystery in one hand. Her eyes look sleepy from reading. She has changed into another sweater. Her hair is loose and seems darker. He dumps the clothes on her bed. "Do you have hangers173?"
"Say. You really think you have it made."
"I made you," he says. "I made you and the sun and the stars." Squeezing her in his arms it seems that he did. She is tepid174 and solid in his embrace, not friendly, not not. The filmy smell of soap lifts into his nostrils175 while dampness touches his jaw176. She has washed her hair. Clean, she is clean, a big clean woman; he puts his nose against her skull to drink in the demure177 sharp scent178. He thinks of her naked in the shower, her hair hanging oozy179 with lather180, her neck bowed to the whipping water. "I made you bloom," he says.
"Oh you're a wonder," she answers, and pushes away from his chest. As he hangs up his suits tidily, Ruth asks, "You give your wife the car?"
"There was nobody there. I snuck in and out. I left the key inside."
"And nobody caught you?"
"As a matter of fact somebody did. The Episcopal minister gave me a ride back into Brewer."
"Say; you are religious, aren't you?"
"I didn't ask him."
"What did he say?"
"Nothing much."
"What was he like?"
"Kind of creepy. Giggled182 a lot."
"Maybe just you make him giggle181."
"I'm supposed to play golf with him on Tuesday."
"You're kidding."
"No, really. I told him I don't know how."
She laughs, on and on, in that prolonged way women use when they're excited by you and ashamed of it. "Oh my Rabbit," she exclaims in a fond final breath. "You just grab what comes, don't you?"
"He got hold of me," he insists, knowing his attempts to explain will amuse her, for shapeless reasons. "I didn't do anything."
"You poor soul," she says. "You're just irresistible183."
With keen secret relief, he at last takes off his dirty clothes and changes into clean underwear, fresh socks, and suntans. He left his razor at home but Ruth has a little curved female one for armpits that he uses. He chooses a wool sports shirt, for these afternoons in spring cool off sharply, and puts his suede184 shoes back on. He forgot to steal any other shoes. "Let's go for that walk," he announces, dressed.
"I'm reading," Ruth says from a chair. The book is open to near the end. She reads books nicely, without cracking their backs, though they cost only 35￠. She has combed her hair and put it back in a roll at the nape of her neck.
"Come on. Get out in the weather." He goes over and tries to tug the mystery from her hand. The title is The Deaths at Oxford185. Now what should she care about deaths at Oxford? When she has him here, wonderful Harry Angstrom.
"Wait," she pleads, and turns a page, and reads some sentences as the book is pulled slowly up, her eyes shuttling, and then suddenly lets him take it. "God, you're a bully186."
He marks her place with a burnt match and looks at her bare feet. "Do you have sneakers or anything? You can't wear heels."
"No. Hey I'm sleepy."
"We'll go to bed early."
Her eyeballs turn on him at this, her lips pursed a little. There is this vulgarity in her, that just couldn't let that just go by.
"Come on," he says. "Put on flat shoes and we'll get your hair
"I'll have to wear heels, they're all I have." As she bows her head to pinch them on, the white line of her parting makes him smile, it's so straight. Like a little birthday girl's parting.
They approach the mountain through the city park. The trash baskets and movable metal benches have not been set out yet. On the concrete?and?plank187 benches fluffy188 old men sun like greater pigeons, dressed in patches of gray multiple as feathers. The trees in small leaf dust the half?bare ground with shadow. Sticks and strings189 protect the newly seeded margins190 of the unraked gravel walks. The breeze, flowing steadily down the slope from the empty bandshell, is cool out of the sun. The wool shirt was right. Pigeons with mechanical heads waddle191 away from their shoetips and resettle, chuffling, behind them. A derelict stretches an arm along the back of a bench to dry, and out of a gouged192 face daintily sneezes like a cat. A few toughs, fourteen or younger, smoke and jab near the locked equipment shed of a play pavilion on whose yellow boards someone has painted in red TEX & JOSIE, RITA & JAY. Where would they get red paint? He takes Ruth's hand. The ornamental193 pool in front of the bandshell is drained and scum?stained; they move along a path parallel to the curve of its cold lip, which echoes back the bandshell's silence. A World War II tank, made a monument, points its empty guns at far?off clay tennis courts. The nets are not up, the lines unlimed.
Trees darken; pavilions slide downhill. They walk through the upper region of the park, which delinquents194 haunt at night, scattering195 condoms and candy?bar wrappers. The beginning of the steps is almost hidden in an overgrowth of great bushes tinted196 dull amber53 with the first buds. Long ago, when hiking was customary entertainment, the city built stairs up the Brewer side of the mountain. They are made of six?foot tarred logs with dirt filled in flat behind them. Iron pipes have since been driven, to hold these tough round risers in place, and fine blue gravel scattered198 over the packed dirt they dam. The footing is difficult for Ruth; Rabbit watches her body struggle to propel her weight on the digging points of her heels. They catch and buckle42. Her backside lurches, her arms swim for balance.
He tells her, "Take off your shoes."
"And kill my feet? You're a thoughtful bastard."
"Well then, let's go back down."
"No, no," she says. "We must be halfway199."
"We're nowhere near half up. Take off your shoes. These blue stones are stopping; it'll just be mashed200?down dirt."
"With chunks201 of glass in it."
But further on she does take off her shoes. Bare of stockings, her white feet lift lightly under his eyes; the yellow skin of her heels flickers202. Under the swell203 of calf204 her ankles are thin. In a fond gesture he takes off his shoes and socks, to share whatever pain there is. The dirt is trod smooth, but embedded pebbles205 stab his skin with the force of his weight. Also the ground is cold. "Ouch," he says. "Owitch."
"Come on, soldier," she says, "be brave."
They learn to walk on the grass at the ends of the logs. Tree branches overhang part of the way, making it an upward tunnel. At other spots the air is clear behind them, and they can look over the rooftops of Brewer into the twentieth story of the courthouse, the city's one skyscraper206. Concrete eagles stand in relief, wings flared207, between its top windows. Two middle?aged208 couples in plaid scarves, bird?watchers, pass them on the way down; as soon as this couple has descended209 out of sight behind the gnarled arm of an oak, Rabbit hops51 up to Ruth's step and kisses her, hugs her hot bulk, tastes the salt in the sweat on her face, which is unresponsive. She thinks this is a silly time; her one?eyed woman's mind is intent on getting up the hill. But the thought of her city girl's paper?pale feet bare on the stones for his sake makes his heart, pumping with exertion210, swell, and he clings to her broad body. An airplane goes over, rapidly rattling the air.
"My queen," he says, "my good horse."
"Your what?"
"Horse."
Near the top, the mountain rises sheer in a cliff, and here modem211 men have built concrete stairs with an iron railing that in a Z of three flights reach the macadam parking lot of the Pinnacle212 Hotel. Ruth and Rabbit put their shoes back on and, climbing the stairs, watch the city slowly flatten213 under them.
Rails guard the cliff edge. He grips one white beam, warmed by the sun that now is sinking away from the zenith, and looks straight down, into the exploding heads of trees. A frightening view, remembered from boyhood, when he used to wonder ifyou jumped would you die or be cushioned on those green heads as on the clouds of a dream? In the lower part of his vision the stonewalled cliff rises to his feet foreshortened to the narrowness of a knife; in the upper part the hillside slopes down, faint paths revealed and random214 clearings and the steps they have climbed.
Ruth's gaze, her lids half?closed as if she were reading a book, rests on the city.
O.K. He brought them up here. To see what? The city stretches from dollhouse rows at the base of the park through a broad blurred215 belly216 of flowerpot red patched with tar10 roofs and twinkling cars and ends as a rose tint197 in the mist that hangs above the distant river. Gas tanks glimmer217 in this smoke. Suburbs lie like scarves in it. But the city is huge in the middle view, and he opens his lips as if to force the lips of his soul to receive the taste of the truth about it, as if truth were a secret in such low solution that only immensity can give us a sensible taste. Air dries his mouth.
His day has been bothered by God: Ruth mocking, Eccles blinking ? why did they teach you such things if no one believed them? It seems plain, standing here, that if there is this floor there is a ceiling, that the true space in which we live is upward space. Someone is dying. In this great stretch of brick someone is dying. The thought comes from nowhere: simple percentages. Someone in some house along these streets, if not this minute then the next, dies; and in that suddenly stone chest the heart of this flat prostrate218 rose seems to him to be. He moves his eyes to find the spot; perhaps he can see the cancer?blackened soul of an old man mount through the blue like a monkey on a string. He strains his ears to hear the pang of release as this ruddy illusion at his feet gives up this reality. Silence blasts him. Chains of cars creep without noise; a dot comes out of a door. What is he doing here, standing on air? Why isn't he home? He becomes frightened and begs Ruth, "Put your arm around me."
She carelessly obliges, taking a step and swinging her haunch against his. He clasps her tighter and feels better. Brewer at their feet seems to warm in the sloping sunlight: its vast red cloth seems to lift from the valley in which it is sunk concavely, to fill like a breast with a breath, Brewer the mother of a hundred thousand, shelter of love, ingenious and luminous artifact. So it is in a return of security that he asks, voicing like a loved child a teasing doubt, "Were you really a hooer?"
To his surprise she turns hard under his arm and twists away and stands beside the railing menacingly. Her eyes narrow; her chin changes shape. In his nervousness he notices three Boy Scouts219 staring at them across the asphalt. She asks, "Are you really a rat?"
He feels the need of care in his answer. "In a way."
"All right then."
They take a bus down.
收听单词发音 |
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bracelet
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| n.手镯，臂镯 | |
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harry
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| vt.掠夺，蹂躏，使苦恼 | |
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opaque
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| adj.不透光的；不反光的，不传导的；晦涩的 | |
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rib
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| n.肋骨，肋状物 | |
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ribs
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| n.肋骨( rib的名词复数 )；（船或屋顶等的）肋拱；肋骨状的东西；（织物的）凸条花纹 | |
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rhinoceros
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| n.犀牛 | |
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linoleum
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| n.油布，油毯 | |
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watery
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| adj.有水的，水汪汪的；湿的，湿润的 | |
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veins
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| n.纹理；矿脉( vein的名词复数 )；静脉；叶脉；纹理 | |
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tar
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| n.柏油，焦油；vt.涂或浇柏油/焦油于 | |
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rusted
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| v.（使）生锈( rust的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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fumbles
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| 摸索，笨拙的处理( fumble的名词复数 ) | |
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distends
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| v.（使）膨胀，肿胀( distend的第三人称单数 ) | |
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tart
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| adj.酸的；尖酸的，刻薄的；n.果馅饼；淫妇 | |
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scoffing
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| n. 嘲笑, 笑柄, 愚弄 v. 嘲笑, 嘲弄, 愚弄, 狼吞虎咽 | |
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meekly
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| adv.温顺地，逆来顺受地 | |
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embedded
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| a.扎牢的 | |
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underneath
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| adj.在...下面，在...底下；adv.在下面 | |
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catching
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| adj.易传染的，有魅力的，迷人的，接住 | |
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panes
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| 窗玻璃( pane的名词复数 ) | |
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drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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texture
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| n.(织物)质地；(材料)构造；结构；肌理 | |
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streaks
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| n.（与周围有所不同的）条纹( streak的名词复数 )；（通常指不好的）特征（倾向）；（不断经历成功或失败的）一段时期v.快速移动( streak的第三人称单数 )；使布满条纹 | |
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ridge
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| n.山脊；鼻梁；分水岭 | |
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brass
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| n.黄铜；黄铜器，铜管乐器 | |
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climax
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| n.顶点；高潮；v.(使)达到顶点 | |
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rosy
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| adj.美好的，乐观的，玫瑰色的 | |
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limestone
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| n.石灰石 | |
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lulled
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| vt.使镇静，使安静（lull的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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facade
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| n.(建筑物的)正面，临街正面；外表 | |
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reassures
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| v.消除恐惧或疑虑，恢复信心( reassure的第三人称单数 ) | |
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wince
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| n.畏缩，退避，（因痛苦，苦恼等)面部肌肉抽动；v.畏缩，退缩，退避 | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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swirling
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| v.旋转，打旋( swirl的现在分词 ) | |
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pouting
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| v.撅（嘴）( pout的现在分词 ) | |
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neatly
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| adv.整洁地，干净地，灵巧地，熟练地 | |
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preoccupied
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| adj.全神贯注的，入神的；被抢先占有的；心事重重的v.占据（某人）思想，使对…全神贯注，使专心于( preoccupy的过去式) | |
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tug
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| v.用力拖(或拉)；苦干；n.拖；苦干；拖船 | |
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tugging
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| n.牵引感v.用力拉，使劲拉，猛扯( tug的现在分词 ) | |
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tugs
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| n.猛拉( tug的名词复数 )；猛拖；拖船v.用力拉，使劲拉，猛扯( tug的第三人称单数 ) | |
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buckles
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| 搭扣，扣环( buckle的名词复数 ) | |
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buckle
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| n.扣子，带扣；v.把...扣住，由于压力而弯曲 | |
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modesty
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| n.谦逊，虚心，端庄，稳重，羞怯，朴素 | |
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glides
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| n.滑行( glide的名词复数 )；滑音；音渡；过渡音v.滑动( glide的第三人称单数 )；掠过；（鸟或飞机 ） 滑翔 | |
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glide
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| n./v.溜，滑行；(时间)消逝 | |
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bastard
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| n.坏蛋，混蛋；私生子 | |
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thigh
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| n.大腿；股骨 | |
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thighs
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| n.股，大腿( thigh的名词复数 )；食用的鸡（等的）腿 | |
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relish
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| n.滋味，享受，爱好，调味品；vt.加调味料，享受，品味；vi.有滋味 | |
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raisin
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| n.葡萄干 | |
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hops
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| 跳上[下]( hop的第三人称单数 )； 单足蹦跳； 齐足（或双足）跳行； 摘葎草花 | |
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52
bunk
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| n.(车、船等倚壁而设的)铺位；废话 | |
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53
amber
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| n.琥珀；琥珀色；adj.琥珀制的 | |
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steer
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| vt.驾驶，为…操舵；引导；vi.驾驶 | |
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55
maniac
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| n.精神癫狂的人；疯子 | |
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56
dingy
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| adj.昏暗的，肮脏的 | |
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57
rattling
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| adj. 格格作响的, 活泼的, 很好的 adv. 极其, 很, 非常 动词rattle的现在分词 | |
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58
gravel
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| n.砂跞；砂砾层；结石 | |
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59
quarry
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| n.采石场；v.采石；费力地找 | |
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60
inverted
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| adj.反向的，倒转的v.使倒置，使反转( invert的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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61
brewer
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| n. 啤酒制造者 | |
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62
gusts
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| 一阵强风( gust的名词复数 )； （怒、笑等的）爆发； （感情的）迸发； 发作 | |
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63
anticipation
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| n.预期，预料，期望 | |
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64
exalted
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| adj.(地位等)高的，崇高的；尊贵的，高尚的 | |
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65
regain
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| vt.重新获得，收复，恢复 | |
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66
blemishes
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| n.（身体的）瘢点( blemish的名词复数 )；伤疤；瑕疵；污点 | |
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67
effacing
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| 谦逊的 | |
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68
hip
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| n.臀部，髋；屋脊 | |
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69
dealer
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| n.商人，贩子 | |
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70
sneak
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| vt.潜行(隐藏,填石缝)；偷偷摸摸做；n.潜行；adj.暗中进行 | |
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71
jeering
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| adj.嘲弄的，揶揄的v.嘲笑( jeer的现在分词 ) | |
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72
irritable
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| adj.急躁的；过敏的；易怒的 | |
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73
snug
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| adj.温暖舒适的，合身的，安全的；v.使整洁干净，舒适地依靠，紧贴；n.（英）酒吧里的私房 | |
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74
enraptured
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| v.使狂喜( enrapture的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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75
crumb
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| n.饼屑，面包屑，小量 | |
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76
scuttled
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| v.使船沉没( scuttle的过去式和过去分词 )；快跑，急走 | |
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77
curb
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| n.场外证券市场，场外交易；vt.制止，抑制 | |
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78
glistening
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| adj.闪耀的，反光的v.湿物闪耀，闪亮( glisten的现在分词 ) | |
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79
tilting
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| 倾斜，倾卸 | |
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80
rumpled
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| v.弄皱，使凌乱( rumple的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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81
stunned
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| adj. 震惊的，惊讶的 动词stun的过去式和过去分词 | |
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82
evergreens
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| n.常青树，常绿植物，万年青( evergreen的名词复数 ) | |
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83
exhausted
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| adj.极其疲惫的，精疲力尽的 | |
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84
poise
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| vt./vi. 平衡，保持平衡；n.泰然自若，自信 | |
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85
crumbles
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| 酥皮水果甜点( crumble的名词复数 ) | |
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86
descends
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| v.下来( descend的第三人称单数 )；下去；下降；下斜 | |
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87
jack
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| n.插座，千斤顶，男人；v.抬起，提醒，扛举；n.（Jake）杰克 | |
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88
calibrate
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| 校准；使合标准；测量（枪的）口径 | |
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89
notches
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| n.（边缘或表面上的）V型痕迹( notch的名词复数 )；刻痕；水平；等级 | |
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90
puffed
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| 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 | |
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91
braced
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| adj.拉牢的v.支住( brace的过去式和过去分词 )；撑牢；使自己站稳；振作起来 | |
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92
derange
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| v.使精神错乱 | |
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93
skull
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| n.头骨；颅骨 | |
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94
apparatus
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| n.装置，器械；器具，设备 | |
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95
clutter
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| n.零乱，杂乱；vt.弄乱，把…弄得杂乱 | |
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96
clogging
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| 堵塞，闭合 | |
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97
ashtray
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| n.烟灰缸 | |
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98
sags
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| 向下凹或中间下陷( sag的第三人称单数 )； 松弛或不整齐地悬着 | |
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99
spool
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| n.（缠录音带等的）卷盘（轴）；v.把…绕在卷轴上 | |
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100
hairpins
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| n.发夹( hairpin的名词复数 ) | |
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101
luminous
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| adj.发光的，发亮的；光明的；明白易懂的；有启发的 | |
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102
beads
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| n.（空心）小珠子( bead的名词复数 )；水珠；珠子项链 | |
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103
tilted
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| v. 倾斜的 | |
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104
diluted
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| 无力的，冲淡的 | |
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105
fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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106
oversight
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| n.勘漏，失察，疏忽 | |
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107
congealed
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| v.使凝结，冻结( congeal的过去式和过去分词 )；（指血）凝结 | |
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108
spatula
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| n.抹刀 | |
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109
crumbs
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| int. (表示惊讶)哎呀 n. 碎屑 名词crumb的复数形式 | |
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110
laundered
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| v.洗（衣服等），洗烫（衣服等）( launder的过去式和过去分词 )；洗（黑钱）（把非法收入改头换面，变为貌似合法的收入） | |
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111
glazed
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| adj.光滑的，像玻璃的；上过釉的；呆滞无神的v.装玻璃( glaze的过去式)；上釉于，上光；（目光）变得呆滞无神 | |
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112
weird
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| adj.古怪的，离奇的；怪诞的，神秘而可怕的 | |
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113
porcelain
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| n.瓷；adj.瓷的，瓷制的 | |
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114
frond
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| n.棕榈类植物的叶子 | |
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115
splendor
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| n.光彩；壮丽，华丽；显赫，辉煌 | |
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116
amiably
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| adv.和蔼可亲地，亲切地 | |
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117
adherence
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| n.信奉，依附，坚持，固着 | |
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118
marvel
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| vi.(at)惊叹vt.感到惊异；n.令人惊异的事 | |
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119
maples
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| 槭树，枫树( maple的名词复数 )； 槭木 | |
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120
shrugs
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| n.耸肩（以表示冷淡，怀疑等）( shrug的名词复数 ) | |
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121
sarcastic
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| adj.讥讽的，讽刺的，嘲弄的 | |
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122
snarl
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| v.吼叫，怒骂，纠缠，混乱；n.混乱，缠结，咆哮 | |
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123
alley
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| n.小巷，胡同；小径，小路 | |
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124
creases
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| （使…）起折痕，弄皱( crease的第三人称单数 )； （皮肤）皱起，使起皱纹 | |
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125
ripples
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| 逐渐扩散的感觉( ripple的名词复数 ) | |
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126
blasphemous
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| adj.亵渎神明的，不敬神的 | |
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127
syllable
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| n.音节；vt.分音节 | |
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128
fins
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| [医]散热片；鱼鳍；飞边；鸭掌 | |
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129
symbolize
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| vt.作为...的象征，用符号代表 | |
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130
embarrassments
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| n.尴尬( embarrassment的名词复数 )；难堪；局促不安；令人难堪或耻辱的事 | |
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131
reconciliations
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| 和解( reconciliation的名词复数 )； 一致； 勉强接受； （争吵等的）止息 | |
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132
tenacity
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| n.坚韧 | |
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133
edgily
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| adv.刀口锐利，轮廓过分鲜明，尖利 | |
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134
eyebrows
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| 眉毛( eyebrow的名词复数 ) | |
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135
pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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136
vexed
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| adj.争论不休的；（指问题等）棘手的；争论不休的问题；烦恼的v.使烦恼( vex的过去式和过去分词 )；使苦恼；使生气；详细讨论 | |
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137
feigns
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| 假装，伪装( feign的第三人称单数 )； 捏造（借口、理由等） | |
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138
gee
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| n.马；int.向右！前进！，惊讶时所发声音；v.向右转 | |
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139
scoops
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| 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） | |
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140
saner
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| adj.心智健全的( sane的比较级 )；神志正常的；明智的；稳健的 | |
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141
pokes
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| v.伸出( poke的第三人称单数 )；戳出；拨弄；与（某人）性交 | |
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142
lighter
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| n.打火机，点火器；驳船；v.用驳船运送；light的比较级 | |
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143
bawling
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| v.大叫，大喊( bawl的现在分词 )；放声大哭；大声叫出；叫卖（货物） | |
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144
inhales
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| v.吸入( inhale的第三人称单数 ) | |
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145
reassuring
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| a.使人消除恐惧和疑虑的，使人放心的 | |
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146
tighten
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| v.(使)变紧；(使)绷紧 | |
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147
alcoholic
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| adj.（含）酒精的，由酒精引起的；n.酗酒者 | |
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148
pang
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| n.剧痛，悲痛，苦闷 | |
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149
irritably
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| ad.易生气地 | |
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150
knack
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| n.诀窍，做事情的灵巧的，便利的方法 | |
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151
deserted
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| adj.荒芜的，荒废的，无人的，被遗弃的 | |
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152
steadily
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| adv.稳定地；不变地；持续地 | |
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153
impudence
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| n.厚颜无耻；冒失；无礼 | |
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154
busted
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| adj. 破产了的，失败了的，被降级的，被逮捕的，被抓到的 动词bust的过去式和过去分词 | |
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155
decency
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| n.体面，得体，合宜，正派，庄重 | |
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156
trampling
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| 踩( trample的现在分词 )； 践踏； 无视； 侵犯 | |
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157
snares
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| n.陷阱( snare的名词复数 )；圈套；诱人遭受失败（丢脸、损失等）的东西；诱惑物v.用罗网捕捉，诱陷，陷害( snare的第三人称单数 ) | |
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158
muddle
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| n.困惑，混浊状态；vt.使混乱，使糊涂，使惊呆；vi.胡乱应付，混乱 | |
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159
outskirts
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| n.郊外，郊区 | |
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160
hesitation
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| n.犹豫，踌躇 | |
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161
furry
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| adj.毛皮的；似毛皮的；毛皮制的 | |
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162
shutters
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| 百叶窗( shutter的名词复数 )； （照相机的）快门 | |
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163
mash
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| n.麦芽浆，糊状物，土豆泥；v.把…捣成糊状，挑逗，调情 | |
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164
passionate
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| adj.热情的，热烈的，激昂的，易动情的，易怒的，性情暴躁的 | |
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165
immature
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| adj.未成熟的，发育未全的，未充分发展的 | |
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166
dime
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| n.（指美国、加拿大的钱币）一角 | |
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167
oratorical
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| adj.演说的，雄辩的 | |
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168
sneer
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| v.轻蔑；嘲笑；n.嘲笑，讥讽的言语 | |
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169
clatters
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| 盘碟刀叉等相撞击时的声音( clatter的名词复数 ) | |
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170
animated
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| adj.生气勃勃的，活跃的，愉快的 | |
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171
bums
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| n. 游荡者，流浪汉，懒鬼，闹饮，屁股 adj. 没有价值的，不灵光的，不合理的 vt. 令人失望，乞讨 vi. 混日子，以乞讨为生 | |
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172
squint
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| v. 使变斜视眼, 斜视, 眯眼看, 偏移, 窥视; n. 斜视, 斜孔小窗; adj. 斜视的, 斜的 | |
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173
hangers
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| n.衣架( hanger的名词复数 )；挂耳 | |
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174
tepid
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| adj.微温的，温热的，不太热心的 | |
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175
nostrils
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| 鼻孔( nostril的名词复数 ) | |
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176
jaw
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| n.颚，颌，说教，流言蜚语；v.喋喋不休，教训 | |
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177
demure
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| adj.严肃的；端庄的 | |
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178
scent
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| n.气味，香味，香水，线索，嗅觉；v.嗅，发觉 | |
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179
oozy
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| adj.软泥的 | |
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180
lather
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| n.(肥皂水的)泡沫，激动 | |
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181
giggle
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| n.痴笑，咯咯地笑；v.咯咯地笑着说 | |
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182
giggled
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| v.咯咯地笑( giggle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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183
irresistible
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| adj.非常诱人的，无法拒绝的，无法抗拒的 | |
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184
suede
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| n.表面粗糙的软皮革 | |
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185
Oxford
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| n.牛津（英国城市） | |
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186
bully
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| n.恃强欺弱者，小流氓；vt.威胁，欺侮 | |
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187
plank
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| n.板条，木板，政策要点，政纲条目 | |
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188
fluffy
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| adj.有绒毛的，空洞的 | |
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189
strings
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| n.弦 | |
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190
margins
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| 边( margin的名词复数 )； 利润； 页边空白； 差数 | |
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191
waddle
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| vi.摇摆地走；n.摇摆的走路(样子) | |
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192
gouged
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| v.凿( gouge的过去式和过去分词 )；乱要价；（在…中）抠出…；挖出… | |
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193
ornamental
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| adj.装饰的；作装饰用的；n.装饰品；观赏植物 | |
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194
delinquents
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| n.（尤指青少年）有过失的人，违法的人( delinquent的名词复数 ) | |
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195
scattering
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| n.[物]散射；散乱，分散；在媒介质中的散播adj.散乱的；分散在不同范围的；广泛扩散的；（选票）数量分散的v.散射(scatter的ing形式)；散布；驱散 | |
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196
tinted
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| adj. 带色彩的 动词tint的过去式和过去分词 | |
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197
tint
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| n.淡色，浅色；染发剂；vt.着以淡淡的颜色 | |
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198
scattered
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| adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的 | |
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199
halfway
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| adj.中途的，不彻底的，部分的；adv.半路地，在中途，在半途 | |
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200
mashed
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| a.捣烂的 | |
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201
chunks
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| 厚厚的一块( chunk的名词复数 )； （某物）相当大的数量或部分 | |
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202
flickers
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| 电影制片业； （通常指灯光）闪烁，摇曳( flicker的名词复数 ) | |
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203
swell
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| vi.膨胀，肿胀；增长，增强 | |
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204
calf
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| n.小牛，犊，幼仔，小牛皮 | |
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205
pebbles
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| [复数]鹅卵石； 沙砾； 卵石，小圆石( pebble的名词复数 ) | |
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206
skyscraper
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| n.摩天大楼 | |
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207
Flared
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| adj. 端部张开的, 爆发的, 加宽的, 漏斗式的 动词flare的过去式和过去分词 | |
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208
aged
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| adj.年老的，陈年的 | |
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209
descended
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| a.为...后裔的，出身于...的 | |
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210
exertion
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| n.尽力，努力 | |
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211
modem
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| n.调制解调器 | |
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212
pinnacle
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| n.尖塔，尖顶，山峰；(喻)顶峰 | |
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213
flatten
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| v.把．．．弄平，使倒伏；使(漆等)失去光泽 | |
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214
random
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| adj.随机的；任意的；n.偶然的(或随便的)行动 | |
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215
blurred
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| v.（使）变模糊( blur的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）难以区分；模模糊糊；迷离 | |
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216
belly
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| n.肚子，腹部；(像肚子一样)鼓起的部分，膛 | |
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217
glimmer
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| v.发出闪烁的微光；n.微光，微弱的闪光 | |
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218
prostrate
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| v.拜倒，平卧，衰竭；adj.拜倒的，平卧的，衰竭的 | |
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219
scouts
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| 侦察员[机，舰]( scout的名词复数 )； 童子军； 搜索； 童子军成员 | |
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