The straight path is made smooth. Mr. Springer had been paying rent on the apartment all along, it turns out; he is a personal friend of the landlord and had arranged it without troubling his daughter. He always had a hunch1 Harry2 would come back but didn't want to advertise it in case he was wrong. Harry and Nelson move in and start housekeeping. Rabbit has a gift for housekeeping; the sensation of dust sucking into the vacuum cleaner, down the cloth hose, into a paper bag that when it is full of compact gray fluff will pop the cover of the Electrolux like a gentleman tipping his hat, pleases him. He was not entirely4 miscast as a barker for the MagiPeel Peeler; he has an instinctive5 taste for the small appliances of civilization, the little grinders and slicers and holders6. Perhaps the oldest child should always be a girl; Mim, coming after him to the Angstrom household, was never exposed direct to the bright heart of the kitchen, but was always in his shadow with the housework, and sullen7 about assuming her share, which eventually became the greater share, because he was, after all, a boy. He supposes it will be the same with Nelson and Rebecca.
Nelson is a help. Closer to three now than two, the child can carry out orders that do not take him out of the room, understands that his toys belong in the bushel basket, and feels the happiness in cleanness, order, and light. The June breeze sighs at the screens of the long?closed windows. The sun dots the mesh9 with hundreds of sparkling T's and L's. Beyond the windows Wilbur Street falls away. The flat tin?and?tar3 roofs of their neighbors, weathered into gentle corrugations, glitter with mysterious pockets of rubble10, candy?bar wrappers and a pool of glass flakes11, litter that must have fallen from the clouds or been brought by birds to this street in the sky, planted with television aerials and hooded12 chimneys the size of fire hydrants. There are three of these roofs on the down side, tipped like terraces for drainage, three broad dirty steps leading to a brink13 below which the better homes begin, the stucco and brick forts, rugged14 with porches and dormer windows and lightning rods, guarded by conifers, protected by treaties with banks and firms of lawyers. It was strange that a row of tenements15 had been set above them; they had been tricked by growth. But in a town built against a mountain, height was too common to be precious; above them all there was the primitive16 ridge18, the dark slum of forest, separated from the decent part of town by a band of unpaved lanes, derelict farmhouses19, a cemetery20, and a few raw young developments. Wilbur Street was paved for a block past Rabbit's door, and then became a street of mud and gravel21 between two short rows of ranch22?houses of alternating color erected23 in 1953 on scraped red earth that even now is unsteadily pinned by the blades of grass that speckle it, so that after a good rain the gutter24?water flows orange down Wilbur Street. The land grows steeper still, and the woods begin.
Straight out from the windows Rabbit can look in the opposite direction across the town into the wide farm valley, with its golf course. He thinks, My valley. My home. The blemished25 greenpapered walls, the scatter26 rugs whose corners keep turning under, the closet whose door bumps the television set, unknown to his senses for months, have returned with unexpected force. Every corner locks against a remembered corner in his mind; every crevice27, every irregularity in the paint clicks against a nick already in his brain.
Under the sofa and chairs and behind doors and in the footspace under the kitchen cabinets he finds old fragments of toys that delight Nelson. The child has a perfect memory for his own possessions. "Mom?mom gay me dis."Holding up a plastic duck that had lost its wheels.
"She did?"
"Yop. Mom?mom did."
"Wasn't that nice of Mom?mom?"
"Yop."
"You know what?"
"What?"
"Mom?mom is Mommy's mommy!"
"Yop. Where Mommy?"
"At the hospital."
"At hop29?pital? Come back Fi?day?"
"That's right. She'll come back Friday. Won't she be happy to see how clean we make everything?"
"Yop. Daddy at hop?pital?"
"No. Daddy wasn't at the hospital. Daddy was away."
"Daddy away" ? the boy's eyes widen and his mouth drops open as he stares into the familiar concept of "away"; his voice deepens with the seriousness of it ? "long." His arms go out to measure the length, so far his fingers bend backward. It is as long as he can measure.
"But Daddy's not away now, is he?"
"Nope."
He takes Nelson with him in the car the day he goes to tell Mrs. Smith he has to quit working in her garden. Old man Springer has offered him a job in one of his lots. The rhododendron trees by the crunching30 driveway look dusty and barren with a few brown corsages still hanging to their branches. Mrs. Smith herself comes to the door. "Yes, yes," she croons, her brown face beaming.
"Mrs. Smith, this is my son Nelson."
"Yes, yes, how do you do, Nelson? You have your father's head." She pats the small head with a hand withered31 like a tobacco leaf. "Now let me think. Where did I put that jar of old candy? He can eat candy, can't he?"
"I guess a little but don't go looking for it."
"I will too, if I want to. The trouble with you, young man, you never gave me credit for any competence32 whatsoever33." She totters34 off, plucking with one hand at the front of her dress and poking35 the other into the air before her, as if she's brushing away cobwebs.
While she's out of the room he and Nelson stand looking at the high ceiling of this parlor36, at the tall windows with mullions as thin as chalk?lines, through whose panes37, some of which are tinted38 lavender, they can see the elms and hemlocks40 that guard the far rim17 of the estate. Paintings hang on the shining walls. One shows, in dark colors, a woman wrapped in a whipping strip of silk apparently41 having an argument, from the way her arms are flailing42, with a big swan that just stands there pushing. On another wall there is a portrait of a young woman in a black gown sitting in a padded chair impatiently. Her face, though squarish, is finelooking, with a triangular43 forehead caused by her hairdo. Round white arms curve into her lap. Rabbit moves a few steps closer to get a less oblique45 view. She has that short puffy little upper lip that is so good in a girl: the way it lifts to let a dab46 of dark come between her lips. There is this readiness about her all over. He feels that she's about to get out of the chair and step forward toward him with a frown on her triangular forehead. Mrs. Smith, returning with a crimson47 glass ball on a stem like a wineglass, sees where he's looking and says, "What I always minded was, Why did he have to make me look so irritable48? I didn't like him a whit44 and he knew it. A slick little Italian. Thought he knew about women. Here." She has crossed to Nelson with the candy glass. "You try one of these. They're old but good like a lot of old things in this world." She takes off the lid, a knobbed hemisphere of translucent49 red glass, and holds it waggling in her hand. Nelson looks over and Rabbit nods at him to go ahead and he chooses a piece wrapped in colored tinfoil50.
"You won't like it," Rabbit tells him. "That's gonna have a cherry inside."
"Shoosh," Mrs. Smith says. "Let the boy have the one he wants." So the poor kid goes ahead and takes it, bewitched by the tinfoil.
"Mrs. Smith," Rabbit begins, "I don't know if Reverend Eccles has told you, but my situation has kind of changed and I have to take another job. I won't be able to help around here any more. I'm sorry."
"Yes, yes," she says, alertly watching Nelson fumble51 at the tinfoil.
"I've really enjoyed it," he goes on. "It was sort oflike Heaven, like that woman said."
"Oh that foolish woman Alma Foster," Mrs. Smith says. "With her lipstick52 halfway53 up to her nose. I'll never forget her, the dear soul. Not a brain in her body. Here, child. Give it to Mrs. Smith." She sets the dish down on a round marble table holding only an oriental vase fizll of peonies and takes the piece of candy from Nelson and with a frantic54 needling motion of her fingers works the paper off. The kid stands there staring up with an open mouth; she thrusts her hand down jerkily and pops the ball of chocolate between his lips. With a crease55 of satisfaction in one cheek she turns, drops the tinfoil on the table, and says to Rabbit, "Well, Harry. At least we brought the rhodies in."
"That's right. We did."
"It pleased Horace, I know, wherever he is."
Nelson bites through to the startling syrup56 of the cherry and his mouth curls open in dismay; a dribble57 of brown creeps out one corner and his eyes dart58 around the immaculate palace room. Rabbit cups a hand at his side and the boy comes over and silently spits the mess into it, bits of chocolate shell and stringy warm syrup and the broken cherry.
Mrs. Smith sees none of this. Her eyes with their transparent59 irises60 of crazed crystal burn into Harry's as she says, "It's been a religious duty to me, to keep Horace's garden up."
"I'm sure you can find somebody else. Vacation's started; it'd be a perfect job for some high?school kid."
"No," she says, "no. I won't think about it. I won't be here next year to see Harry's rhodies come in again. You kept me alive, Harry; it's the truth; you did. All winter I was fighting the grave and then in April I looked out the window and here was this tall young man burning my old stalks and I knew life hadn't left me. That's what you have, Harry: life. It's a strange gift and I don't know how we're supposed to use it but I know it's the only gift we get and it's a good one." Her crystal eyes have filmed with a liquid thicker than tears and she grabs his arms above his elbows with hard brown claws. "Fine strong young man," she murmurs61, and her eyes come back into focus as she adds, "You have a proud son; take care."
She must mean he should be proud of his son and take care of him. He is moved by her embrace; he wants to respond and did moan "No" at her prediction of death. But his right hand is full of melting mashed62 candy, and he stands helpless and rigid63 hearing her quaver, "Goodbye. I wish you well. I wish you well."
In the week that follows this blessing64, he and Nelson are often happy. They go for walks around the town. One day they watch a softball game played on the high?school lot by men with dark creased65 faces like millworkers, dressed in gaudy66 felt?and?flannel67 uniforms, one team bearing the name of a fire hall in Brewer68 and the other the name of the Sunshine Athletic69 Association, the same uniforms, he guesses, that he saw hanging in the attic70 the time he slept in Tothero's bedroom. The number of spectators sitting on the dismantleable bleachers is no greater than the number of players. All around, behind the bleachers and the chicken?wire?and?pipe backstop, kids in sneakers scuffle and run and argue. He and Nelson watch a few innings, while the sun lowers into the trees. It floods Rabbit with an ancient, papery warmth, the oblique sun on his cheeks, the sparse74 inattentive crowd, the snarled75 pepper chatter76, the spurts77 of dust on the yellow infield, the girls in shorts strolling past with chocolate popsicles. Brown adolescent legs thick at the ankle and smooth at the thigh78. They know so much, at least their skins do. Boys their age scrawny sticks in dungarees and Keds arguing frantically79 if Williams was washed up or not. Mantle72 ten thousand times better. Williams ten million times better. Harry and Nelson share an orange soda80 bought from a man in a Boosters' Club apron81 who has established a bin28 in the shade. The smoke of dry ice leaking from the ice?cream section, the ffp of the cap being pulled from the orange. The artificial sweetness fills his heart. Nelson spills some on himself trying to get it to his lips.
Another day they go to the playground. Nelson acts frightened of the swings. Rabbit tells him to hold on and pushes very gently, from the front so the kid can see. Laughs, pleads, "Me out," begins to cry, "me out, me out, Da?dee." Dabbling82 in the sandbox gives Rabbit a small headache. Over at the pavilion the rubber thump83 of roof ball and the click of checkers call to his memory, and the forgotten smell of that narrow plastic ribbon you braid bracelets84 and whistle?chains out of and of glue and of the sweat on the handles on athletic equipment is blown down by a breeze laced with children's murmuring. He feels the truth: the thing that has left his life has left irrevocably; no search would recover it. No flight would reach it. It was here, beneath the town, in these smells and these voices, forever behind him. The fullness ends when we give Nature her ransom85, when we make children for her. Then she is through with us, and we become, first inside, and then outside, junk. Flower stalks.
They visit Mom?mom Springer. The child is delighted; Nelson loves her, and this makes Rabbit like her. Though she tries to pick a fight with him he refuses to fight back, just admits everything; he was a crumb86, a dope, he behaved terribly, he's lucky not to be in jail. Actually there's no real bite in her attack. Nelson is there for one thing, and for another she is relieved he has come back and is afraid of scaring him off. For a third, your wife's parents can't get at you the way your own can. They remain on the outside, no matter how hard they knock, and there's something relaxing and even comic about them. He and the old lady sit on the screened sunporch with iced tea; her bandaged legs are up on a stool and her little groans87 as she shifts' her weight make him smile. It feels like one of those silly girls in high school you kind of liked without there ever being a question of love. Nelson and Billy Fosnacht are inside the house playing quietly. They're too quiet. Mrs. Springer wants to see what's happening but doesn't want to move her legs; in her torment88 she starts to complain about what a crude child little Billy Fosnacht is, and from this shifts over to the kid's mother. Mrs. Springer doesn't much like her, doesn't trust her around the comer; it isn't just the sunglasses, though she thinks that's a ridiculous affectation; it's the girl's whole manner, the way she came cozying around to Janice just because it looked like juicy gossip. "Why, she came around here so much that I had more charge of Nelson than Janice did, with those two off to the movies every day like high?school girls that don't have the responsibility of being mothers." Now Rabbit knows from school that Peggy Fosnacht, then Peggy Gring, wears sunglasses because she is freakishly, humiliatingly89 walleyed. And Eccles has told him that her company was a great comfort to Janice during the trying period now past. But he does not make either of these objections; he listens contentedly90, pleased to be united with Ma Springer, the two of them against the world. The cubes in the iced tea melt, making the beverage91 doubly bland92; his mother?in?law's talk laves his ears like the swirling93 mutter of a brook94. Lulled95, he lets his lids lower and a smile creeps into his face; he sleeps badly at nights, alone, and drowses now on the grassy96 breadth of day, idly blissful, snug97 on the right side at last.
It is quite different at his own parents' home. He and Nelson go there once. His mother is angry about something; her anger hits his nostrils98 as soon as he's in the door, like the smell of age on everything. This house looks shabby and small after the Springers. What ails99 her? He assumes she's always been on his side and tells her in a quick gust100 of confiding101 how terrific the Springers have been; how Mrs. Springer is really quite warmhearted and seems to have forgiven him everything, how Mr. Springer kept up the rent on their apartment and now has promised him a job selling cars in one of his lots. He owns four lots in Brewer and vicinity; Rabbit had no idea he was that much of an operator. He's really kind of a jerk but a successful jerk at least; at any rate he thinks he, Harry Angstrom, has got off pretty easily. His mother's hard arched nose and steamed spectacles glitter bitterly. Her disapproval102 nicks him whenever she turns from the sink. At first he thinks it's that he never got in touch with her but if that's so she should be getting less sore instead of more because he's in touch with her now. Then he thinks it's that she's disgusted he slept with Ruth, and committed adultery, but out of a clear sky she explodes that by asking him abruptly103, "And what's going to happen to this poor girl you lived with in Brewer?"
"Her? Oh, she can take care of herself. She didn't expect anything." But as he says this he tastes the lie in it. Nobody expects nothing. It makes his life seem cramped104, that Ruth can be mentioned out of his mother's mouth.
Her mouth goes thin and she answers with a smug flirt105 of her head, "I'm not saying anything, Harry. I'm not saying one word."
But of course she is saying a great deal only he doesn't know what it is. There's some kind of clue in the way she treats Nelson. She as good as ignores him, doesn't offer him toys or hug him, just says, "Hello, Nelson," with a little nod, her glasses snapping into white circles. After Mrs. Springer's warmth this coolness seems brutal106. Nelson feels it and acts hushed and frightened and leans against his father's legs. Now Rabbit doesn't know what's eating his mother but she certainly shouldn't take it out on a two?yearold kid. He never heard of a grandmother acting107 this way. It's true, just the poor kid's being there keeps them from having the kind of conversation they used to have, where his mother tells him something pretty funny that happened in the neighborhood and they go on to talk about him, the way he used to be as a kid, how he dribbled108 the basketball all afternoon until after dark and was always looking after Mim. Nelson's being half Springer seems to kill all that. For the moment he stops liking109 his mother; it takes a hard heart to snub a tiny kid that just learned to talk. He wants to say to her, What is this, anyway? You act like I've gone over to the other side. Don't you know it's the right side and why don't you praise me?
But he doesn't say this; he has a stubbornness to match hers. He doesn't say much at all to her, after telling her what good sports the Springers are falls flat. He just hangs around, him and Nelson rolling a lemon back and forth110 in the kitchen. Whenever the lemon wobbles over toward his mother's feet he has to get it; Nelson won't. The silence makes Rabbit blush, for himself or for his mother he doesn't know. When his father comes home it isn't much better. The old man isn't angry but he looks at Harry like there isn't anything there. His weary hunch and filthy111 fingernails annoy his son; it's as if he's willfully aging them all. Why doesn't he get false teeth that fit? His mouth works like an old woman's. But one thing at least, his father pays some attention to Nelson, who hopefully rolls the lemon toward him. He rolls it back. "You going to be a ballplayer like your Dad?"
"He can't, Earl," Mom interrupts, and Rabbit is happy to hear her voice, believing the ice has broken, until he hears what she says. "He has those little Springer hands."
"For Chrissake, Mom, lay off," he says, and regrets it, being trapped. It shouldn't matter what size hands Nelson has. Now he discovers it does matter; he doesn't want the boy to have Springer hands, and, if he does ? and if Mom noticed it he probably does ? he likes the kid a little less. He likes the kid a little less, but he hates his mother for making him do it. It's as if she wants to pull down everything, even if it falls on her. And he admires this, her willingness to have him hate her, so long as he gets her message. But he rejects her message: he feels it poking at his mind and rejects it. He doesn't want to hear it. He doesn't want to hear her say another word. He just wants to get out with a little piece of his love of her left.
At the door he asks his father, "Where's MIM?"
"We don't see much of Mim any more," the old man says. His blurred112 eyes sink and he touches the pocket of his shirt, which holds two ballpoint pens and a little soiled packet of cards and papers. just in these last few years his father has been making little bundles of things, cards and lists and receipts and tiny calendars that he wraps rubber bands around and tucks into different pockets with an elderly fussiness113. Rabbit leaves his old home depressed114, with a feeling of his heart having slumped115 off center.
The days go all right as long as Nelson is awake. But when the boy falls asleep, when his face sags116 asleep and his breath drags in and out of helpless lips that deposit spots of spit on the crib sheet and his hair fans in fine tufts and the perfect skin of his fat slack cheeks, drained of animation117, lies sealed under a heavy flush, then a dead place opens in Harry, and he feels fear. The child's sleep is so heavy he fears it might break the membrane118 of life and fall through to oblivion. Sometimes he reaches into the crib and lifts the boy's body out, just to reassure119 himself with its warmth and the responsive fumbling120 protest of the tumbled limp limbs.
He rattles121 around in the apartment, turning on all the lights and television, drinking ginger122 ale and leafing through old Lifes, grabbing anything to stuff into the emptiness. Before going to bed himself he stands Nelson in front of the toilet, running the faucet123 and stroking the taut124 bare bottom until wee?wee springs from the child's irritated sleep and jerkily prinkles into the bowl. Then he wraps a diaper around Nelson's middle and returns him to the crib and braces125 himself to leap the deep gulf126 between here and the moment when in the furry127 slant128 of morning sun the boy will appear, resurrected, in sopping129 diapers, beside the big bed, patting his father's face experimentally. Sometimes he gets into the bed, and then the clammy cold cloth shocking Rabbit's skin is like retouching a wet solid shore. The time in between is of no use to Harry. But the urgency of his wish to glide131 over it balks132 him. He lies in bed, diagonally, so his feet do not hang over, and fights the tipping sensation inside him. Like an unsteered boat, he keeps scraping against the same rocks: his mother's ugly behavior, his father's gaze of desertion, Ruth's silence the last time he saw her, his mother's oppressive not saying a word, what ails her? He rolls over on his stomach and seems to look down into a bottomless sea, down and down, to where crusty crags gesture amid blind depths. Good old Ruth in the swimming pool. That poor jerk Harrison sweating it out Ivy133?League style the ass8?crazy son of a bitch. Margaret's weak little dirty hand flipping134 over into Tothero's mouth and Tothero lying there with his tongue floating around under twittering jellied eyes: No. He doesn't want to think about that. He rolls over on his back in the hot dry bed and the tipping sensation returns severely135. Think of something pleasant. Basketball and cider at that little school down at the end of the county Oriole High but it's too far back he can't remember more than the cider and the way the crowd sat up on the stage. Ruth at the swimming pool; the way she lay in the water without weight, rounded by the water, slipping backwards136 through it, eyes shut and then out of the water with the towel, him looking up her legs at the secret hair and then her face lying beside him huge and burnished137 and mute. No. He must blot138 Tothero and Ruth out of his mind both remind him of death. They make on one side this vacuum of death and on the other side the threat of Janice coming home grows: that's what makes him feel tipped, lopsided. Though he's lying there alone he feels crowded, all these people troubling about him not so much their faces or words as their mute dense139 presences, pushing in the dark like crags under water and under everything like a faint high hum Eccles' wife's wink140. That wink. What was it? Just a little joke in the tangle141 at the door, the kid coming down in her underpants and maybe she conscious of him looking at her toenails, a little click of the eye saying On your way Good luck or was it a chink of light in a dark hall saying Come in? Funny wise freckled142 piece he ought to have nailed her, that wink bothering him ever since, she wanted him to really nail her. The shadow of her bra. Tipped bumps, in a room full of light slips down the shorts over the child?skin thighs143 sassy butt144 two globes hanging of white in the light Freud in the white?painted parlor hung with watercolors of canals; come here you primitive father what a nice chest you have and here and here and here. He rolls over and the dry sheet is the touch of her anxious hands, himself tapering145 tall up from his fur, ridges146 through which the thick vein147 strains, and he does what he must with a tight knowing hand to stop the high hum and make himself slack for sleep. A woman's sweet froth. Nails her. Passes through the diamond standing148 on his head and comes out on the other side wet. How silly. He feels sorry. Queer where the wet is, nowhere near where you'd think, on the top sheet instead of the bottom. He puts his cheek on a fresh patch of pillow. He tips less, Lucy undone149. Her white lines drift off like unraveled string. He must sleep; the thought of the far shore approaching makes a stubborn lump in his glide. Think of things pleasant. Out of all his remembered life the one place that comes forward where he can stand without the ground turning into faces he is treading on is that lot outside the diner in West Virginia after he went in and had a cup of coffee the night he drove down there. He remembers the mountains around him like a ring of cutouts against the moon?bleached150 blue of the night sky. He remembers the diner, with its golden windows like the windows of the trolley151 cars that used to run from Mt. Judge into Brewer when he was a kid, and the air, cold but alive with the beginnings of spring. He hears the footsteps tapping behind him on the asphalt, and sees the couple running toward their car, hands linked. One of the red?haired girls that sat inside with her hair hanging down like wiggly seaweed. And it seems right here that he made the mistaken turning, that he should have followed, that they meant to lead him and he should have followed, and it seems to him in his disintegrating152 state that he did follow, that he is following, like a musical note that all the while it is being held seems to travel though it stays in the same place. On this note he carries into sleep.
But awakes before dawn being tipped again, frightened on the empty bed, with the fear that Nelson has died. He tries to sneak73 back into the dream he was having but his nightmare fear dilates153 and he at last gets up and goes to hear the boy breathe and then urinates with slight pain from having come and returns to a bed whose wrinkles the first stirrings of light are etching into black lines. On this net he lies down and steals the hour left before the boy comes to him, hungry and cold.
On Friday Janice comes home. For the first days the presence of the baby fills the apartment as a little casket of incense154 fills a chapel155. Rebecca June lies in a bassinet of plaited rushes painted white and mounted on a trundle. When Rabbit goes over to look at her, to reassure himself that she is there, he sees her somehow dimly, as if the baby has not gathered to herself the force that makes a silhouette156. Her averted157 cheek, drained of the bright red he glimpsed at the hospital, is mottled gray, yellow, and blue, marbled like the palms of his hands when he is queasy158; when Janice suckles Rebecca, yellow spots well up on her breast as if in answer to the fainter shadows of this color in the baby's skin. The union of breast and baby's face makes a globular symmetry to which both he and Nelson want to attach themselves. When Rebecca nurses, Nelson becomes agitated159, climbs against them, pokes160 his fingers into the seam between the baby's lips and his mother's udder and, scolded and pushed away, wanders around the bed intoning, a promise he has heard on television; "Mighty161 Mouse is on the way." Rabbit himself loves to lie beside them watching Janice manipulate her swollen162 breasts, the white skin shiny from fullness. She thrusts the thick nipples like a weapon into the blind blistered163 mouth, that opens and grips with birdy quickness. "Ow!" Janice winces164, and then the nerves within the baby's lips begin to work in tune165 with her milk?making glands166; the symmetry is established; her face relaxes into a downward smile. She holds a diaper against the other breast, mopping the waste milk it exudes167 in sympathy. Those first days, full of rest and hospital health, she has more milk than the baby takes. Between feedings she leaks, the bodices of all her nighties bear two stiff stains. When he sees her naked, naked all but for the elastic168 belt that holds her Modess pad in place, her belly169 shaved and puffed170 and marked with the vertical171 brown line only mothers have, his whole stomach stirs at the fierce sight of her breasts, braced172 high by the tension of their milk, jutting173 from her slim body like glossy174 green?veined fruit with coarse purple tips. Top?heavy, bandaged, Janice moves gingerly, as if she might spill, jarred. Though with the baby her breasts are used without shame, tools like her hands, before his eyes she is still shy, and quick to cover herself if he watches too openly. But he feels a difference between now and when they first loved, lying side by side on the borrowed bed, his eyes closed, together making the filmy sideways descent into one another. Now, she is intermittently175 careless, walks out of the bathroom naked, lets her straps176 hang down while she burps the baby, seems to accept herself with casual gratitude177 as a machine, a white, pliant178 machine for fucking, hatching, feeding. He, too, leaks; thick sweet love burdens his chest, and he wants her ?just a touch, he knows she's a bleeding wound, but just a touch, just enough to get rid of his milk, to give it to her. Though in her ether trance she spoke179 of making love, she turns away from him in bed, and sleeps with a forbidding heaviness. He is too grateful, too proud of her, to disobey. He in a way, this week, worships her.
Eccles comes calling and says he hopes to see them in church. Their debt to him is such that they agree it would be nice of them, at least one of them, to go. The one must be Harry. Janice can't; she has been, by this Sunday, out of the hospital nine days and, with Harry off at his new job since Monday, is beginning to feel worn?out, weak, and abused. Harry is happy to go to Eccles' church. Not merely out of uneasy affection for Eccles, though there's that; but because he considers himself happy, lucky, blessed, forgiven, and wants to give thanks. His feeling that there is an unseen world is instinctive, and more of his actions than anyone suspects constitute transactions with it. He dresses in his new pale?gray suit to sell cars in and steps out at quarter of eleven into a broad blue Sunday morning a day before the summer solstice. He always enjoyed those people parading into church across from Ruth's place and now he is one of them. Ahead of him is the first hour in over a week when he won't be with a Springer, either Janice at home or her father at work. The job at the lot is easy enough, if it isn't any work for you to bend the truth. He feels exhausted180 by midafternoon. You see these clunkers come in with 80,000 miles on them and the pistons181 so loose the oil just pours through and they get a washing and the speedometer tweaked back and you hear yourself saying this represents a real bargain. He'll ask forgiveness.
He hates all the people on the street in dirty everyday clothes, advertising182 their belief that the world arches over a pit, that death is final, that the wandering thread of his feelings leads nowhere. Correspondingly he loves the ones dressed for church: the pressed business suits of portly men give substance and respectability to his furtive183 sensations of the invisible, the flowers in the hats of their wives seem to begin to make it visible; and their daughters are themselves whole flowers, their bodies each a single flower, petaled in gauze and frills, a bloom of faith, so that even the plainest walk in Rabbit's eyes glowing with beauty, the beauty of belief. He could kiss their feet in gratitude, they release him from fear. By the time he enters the church he is too elevated with hap-piness to ask forgiveness. As he kneels in the pew on a red stool that is padded but not enough to keep his weight from pinching his knees painfully, his head buzzes with joy, his blood leaps in his skull184, and the few words he frames, God, Rebecca, thank you bob inconsecutively among senseless eddies185 of gladness. People who know God rustle186 and stir about him, upholding him in the dark. When he sinks back into sitting position the head in front of him takes his eye. A woman in a wide straw hat. She is smaller than average with narrow freckled shoulders, probably young, though women tend to look young from the back. The wide hat gra-ciously broadcasts the gentlest tilt187 of her head and turns the twist of blond hair at the nape of her neck into a kind of peeping secret he alone knows. Her neck and shoulders are given a faint, shifting lambency by their coat of fine white hairs, invisible except where the grain lies with the light. He smiles, remembering Tothero talking about women being covered all over with hair. He won-ders if Tothero is dead now and quickly prays not. He becomes impatient for the woman to turn so he can see her profile under the rim of the hat, a great woven sun?wheel, garnished188 with an arc of paper violets. She turns to look down at something beside her; his breath catches; the thinnest crescent of cheek gleams, and is eclipsed again. Something in a pink ribbon pops up beside her shoulder. He stares into the inquisitive189 tan face of little Joyce Eccles. His fingers fumble for the hymnal as the organ heaves into the service; it is Eccles' wife rising within reach of his arm.
Eccles comes down the aisle191 shuffling192 behind a flood of acolytes193 and choristers. Up behind the altar rail he looks absentminded and grouchy194, remote and insubstantial and stiff, like a Japanese doll in his vestments. The affected195 voice, nasal?pious196, in which he intones prayers affects Rabbit disagreeably; there is something disagreeable about the whole Episcopal service, with its strenuous197 ups and downs, its canned petitions, its cursory198 little chants. He has trou-ble with the kneeling pad; the small of his back aches; he hooks his elbows over the back of the pew in front of him to keep from falling backward. He misses the familiar Lutheran liturgy199, scratched into his heart like a weathered inscription200. In this service he blunders absurdly, balked201 by what seem willful dislocations of worship. He feels too much is made of collecting the money. He scarcely listens to the sermon at all.
It concerns the forty days in the Wilderness202 and Christ's con-versation with the Devil. Does this story have any relevance203 to us, here, now? In the twentieth century, in the United States of America? Yes. There exists a sense in which all Christians204 must have conversations with the Devil, must learn his ways, must hear his voice. The tradition behind this legend is very ancient, was passed from mouth to mouth among the early Christians. Its larger significance, its greater meaning, Eccles takes to be this: suffering, deprivation205, barrenness, hardship, lack are all an indis-pensable part of the education, the initiation206, as it were, of any of those who would follow Jesus Christ. Eccles wrestles207 in the pulpit with the squeak208 in his voice: His eyebrows209 jiggle as if on fishhooks. It is an unpleasant and strained performance, contorted, somehow; he drives his car with an easier piety210. In his robes he seems a sinister211 man?woman. Harry has no taste for the dark, tan-gled, visceral aspect of Christianity, the going through quality of it, the passage into death and suffering that redeems212 and inverts213 these things, like an umbrella blowing inside out. He lacks the mindful will to walk the straight line of a paradox214. His eyes turn toward the light however it catches his retinas.
Lucy Eccles' bright cheek ducks in and out of view under its shield of straw. The child, hidden ? all but her ribbon ? behind the back of the pew, whispers to her, presumably that the naughty man is behind them. Yet the woman never turns her head dir-ectly to see. This needless snub excites him. The most he gets is her profile; the soft tuck of doubleness in her chin deepens as she frowns down at the child beside her. She wears a dress whose narrow blue stripes meet at the seams at sharp angles. There is something sexed in her stillness in the church, in her obedience215 to its man?centered, rigid procedure. Rabbit flatters himself that her true attention radiates backward at him. Against the dour216 patchwork217 of subdued218 heads, stained glass, yellowing memorial plaques219 on the wall, and laboriously220 knobbed and beaded woodwork, her hair and skin and hat glow singly, their differences in tint39 like the shades of brilliance221 within one flame.
So that when the sermon yields to a hymn190, and her bright nape bows to receive the benediction222, and the nervous moment of silence passes, and she stands and faces him, it is anticlimactic223 to see her face, with its pointed224 collection of dots ? eyes and nostrils and freckles225 and the tight faint dimples that bring a sarcastic226 tension to the corners of her mouth. That she wears a facial expression at all shocks him slightly; the luminous227 view he had enjoyed for an hour did not seem capable ofbeing so swiftly narrowed into one small person.
"Hey. Hi," he says.
"Hello," she says. "You're the last person I ever expected to see here."
"Why?" He is pleased that she thinks of him as an ultimate.
"I don't know. You just don't seem the institutional type."
He watches her eyes for another wink. He has lost belief in that first one, weeks ago. She returns his gaze until his eyes drop. "Hello, Joyce," he says. "How are you?"
The little girl halts and hides behind her mother, who continues to maneuver228 down the aisle, walking with small smooth steps while distributing smiles to the faces of the sheep. He has to admire her social coordination229.
At the door Eccles clasps Harry's hand with his broad grip, a warm grip that tightens230 at the moment it should loosen. "It's exhilarating to see you here," he says, hanging on. Rabbit feels the whole line behind him bunch and push.
"Nice to be here," he says. "Nifty sermon."
Eccles, who has been peering at him with a feverish231 smile and a blush that seems apologetic, laughs; the roof of his mouth glimmers232 a second and he lets go.
Harry hears him tell Lucy, "In about an hour."
"The roast's in now. Do you want it cold or overdone233?"
"Overdone," he says. He solemnly takes Joyce's tiny hand and says, "How do you do, Mrs. Pettigrew? How splendid you look this morning!"
Startled, Rabbit turns and sees that the fat lady next in line is startled also. His wife is right, Eccles is indiscreet. Lucy, Joyce behind her, walks up beside him. Her straw hat comes up to his shoulder. "Do you have a car?"
"No. Do you?"
"No. Walk along with us."
"O.K." Her proposition is so bold there must be nothing in it; nevertheless the harpstring in his chest tuned234 to her starts trembling. Sunshine quivers through the trees; in the streets and along unshaded sections of the pavement it leans down with a broad dry weight. It has lost the grainy milkiness235 of morning sun. Mica236 fragments in the pavement glitter; the hoods237 and windows of hurrying cars smear238 the air with white reflections. Lucy pulls off her hat and shakes her hair. The church crowd thins behind them. The waxy239 leaves, freshly thick, of the maples240 planted between the pavement and curb241 embower them rhythmically242; in the broad gaps of sun her face, his shirt, feel white, white; the rush of motors, the squeak of a tricycle, the touch of a cup and saucer inside a house are sounds conveyed to him as if along a bright steel bar. As they walk along he trembles in light that seems her light.
"How are your wife and baby?" she asks.
"Fine. They're just fine."
"Good. Do you like your new job?"
"Not much."
"Oh. That's a bad sign, isn't it?"
"I don't know. I don't suppose you're supposed to like your job. If you did, then it wouldn't be a job."
"Then it's not a job."
"That's what he says. He says it's not a job, which is the way I'd treat it. But I'm sure you know his line as well as I do."
He knows she's needling him, but he doesn't feel it, tingling244 all over anyway. "He and I in some ways I guess are alike," he says.
"I know. I know." Her odd quickness in saying this sets his heart ticking quicker. She adds, "But naturally it's the differences that I notice." Her voice curls dryly into the end of this sentence; her lower lip goes sideways.
What is this? He has a sensation of touching130 glass. He doesn't know if they are talking about nothing or making code for the deepest meanings. He doesn't know if she's a conscious or unconscious flirt. He always thinks when they meet again he will speak firmly, and tell her he loves her, or something as blunt, and lay the truth bare; but in her presence he is numb71; his breath fogs the glass and he has trouble thinking of anything to say and what he does say is stupid. He knows only this: underneath245 everything, under their minds and their situations, he possesses, like an inherited lien246 on a distant piece of land, a dominance over her, and that in her grain, in the lie of her hair and nerves and fine veins247, she is prepared for this dominance. But between that preparedness and him everything reasonable intervenes. He asks, "Like what?"
"Oh ? like the fact that you're not afraid of women."
"Who is?"
"Jack."
"You think?"
"Of course. The old ones, and the teenagers, he's fine with; the ones who see him in his collar. But the others he's very leery of he doesn't like them. He doesn't really think they even ought to come to church. They bring a smell of babies and bed into it. That's not just in Jack; that's in Christianity. It's really a very neurotic248 religion."
Somehow, when she fetches out her psychology249, it seems so foolish to Harry that his own feeling of foolishness leaves him. Stepping down off a high curb, he takes her arm. Mt. Judge, built on its hillside, is full of high curbs250 difficult for little women to negotiate gracefully251. Her bare arm remains252 cool in his fingers.
"Don't tell that to the parishioners," he says.
"See? You sound just like Jack."
"Is that good or bad?" There. This seems to him to test her bluff253: She must say either good or bad, and that will be the fork in the road.
But she says nothing. He feels the effort of self?control this takes; she is accustomed to making replies. They mount the opposite curb and he lets go of her arm awkwardly. Though he is awkward, there is still this sense of being nestled against a receptive grain, of fitting.
"Mommy?" Joyce asks.
"What?"
"What's rottic?"
"Rottic. Oh. Neurotic. It's when you're a little bit sick in the head."
"Like a cold in the head?"
"Well yes, in a way. It's about that serious. Don't worry about it, sweetie. It's something most everybody is. Except our friend Mr. Angstrom."
The little girl looks up at him across her mother's thighs with a spreading smile of self?conscious impudence254. "He's naughty," she says.
"Not extraordinarily," her mother says.
At the end of the rectory's brick wall a blue tricycle has been abandoned and Joyce runs ahead and mounts it and rides away in her aqua Sunday coat and pink hair ribbon, metal squeaking255, spinning ventriloquistic threads of noise into the air. Together they watch the child a moment. Then Lucy asks, "Do you want to come in?" In waiting for his reply, she contemplates256 his shoulder; her eyelashes from his angle hide her eyes. Her lips are parted and her tongue, a movement in her jaw257 tells him, touches the roof of her mouth. In the noon sun her features show sharp and her lipstick looks cracked. He can see the inner lining258 of her lower lip wet against her teeth. A delayed gust of the sermon, a whining259 exhortation260 like a dusty breeze off the desert, sweeps through him, accompanied grotesquely261 by a vision of Janice's breasts green?veined, tender. This wicked snip262 wants to pluck him from them.
"No thanks, really. I can't."
"Oh come on. You've been to church, have a reward. Have some coffee."
"No, look." His words come out soft but somehow big. "You're a doll, but I got this wife now." And his hands, rising from his sides in vague explanation, cause her to take a quick step backward.
"I beg your pardon."
He is conscious of nothing but the little speckled section of her green irises like torn tissue paper around her black pupil?dots; then he is watching her tight round butt jounce up the walk. "But thanks, anyway," he calls in a hollowed, gutless voice. He hates being disliked. She slams the door behind her so hard the fishshaped knocker clacks by itself on the empty porch.
He walks home blind to the sunlight. Was she mad because he had turned down a proposition, or because he had shown that he thought she had made one? Or was it a mixture of these opposites, that had somehow exposed her to herself? His mother, suddenly caught in some confusion of her own, would turn on the heat that way. In either case, he feels tall and elegant and potent263 striding along under the trees in his Sunday suit. Whether spurned264 or misunderstood, Eccles' wife has jazzed him up, and he reaches his apartment clever and cold with lust265.
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hunch
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| n.预感，直觉 | |
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harry
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| vt.掠夺，蹂躏，使苦恼 | |
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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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entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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instinctive
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| adj.(出于)本能的；直觉的；(出于)天性的 | |
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holders
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| 支持物( holder的名词复数 )； 持有者； （支票等）持有人； 支托（或握持）…之物 | |
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sullen
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| adj.愠怒的，闷闷不乐的，(天气等)阴沉的 | |
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ass
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| n.驴；傻瓜，蠢笨的人 | |
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mesh
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| n.网孔，网丝，陷阱；vt.以网捕捉，啮合，匹配；vi.适合； [计算机]网络 | |
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rubble
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| n.（一堆）碎石，瓦砾 | |
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flakes
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| 小薄片( flake的名词复数 )； （尤指）碎片； 雪花； 古怪的人 | |
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hooded
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| adj.戴头巾的；有罩盖的；颈部因肋骨运动而膨胀的 | |
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brink
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| n.(悬崖、河流等的)边缘，边沿 | |
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rugged
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| adj.高低不平的，粗糙的，粗壮的，强健的 | |
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tenements
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| n.房屋，住户，租房子( tenement的名词复数 ) | |
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primitive
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| adj.原始的；简单的；n.原(始)人，原始事物 | |
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rim
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| n.(圆物的)边，轮缘；边界 | |
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ridge
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| n.山脊；鼻梁；分水岭 | |
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farmhouses
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| n.农舍，农场的主要住房( farmhouse的名词复数 ) | |
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cemetery
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| n.坟墓，墓地，坟场 | |
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gravel
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| n.砂跞；砂砾层；结石 | |
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ranch
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| n.大牧场，大农场 | |
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ERECTED
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| adj. 直立的，竖立的，笔直的 vt. 使 ... 直立，建立 | |
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gutter
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| n.沟，街沟，水槽，檐槽，贫民窟 | |
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blemished
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| v.有损…的完美，玷污( blemish的过去式 ) | |
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scatter
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| vt.撒，驱散，散开；散布/播；vi.分散，消散 | |
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crevice
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| n.(岩石、墙等)裂缝；缺口 | |
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bin
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| n.箱柜；vt.放入箱内；[计算机] DOS文件名:二进制目标文件 | |
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hop
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| n.单脚跳，跳跃；vi.单脚跳，跳跃；着手做某事；vt.跳跃，跃过 | |
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crunching
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| v.嘎吱嘎吱地咬嚼( crunch的现在分词 )；嘎吱作响；（快速大量地）处理信息；数字捣弄 | |
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withered
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| adj. 枯萎的，干瘪的，（人身体的部分器官）因病萎缩的或未发育良好的 动词wither的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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competence
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| n.能力，胜任，称职 | |
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whatsoever
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| adv.（用于否定句中以加强语气）任何；pron.无论什么 | |
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totters
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| v.走得或动得不稳( totter的第三人称单数 )；踉跄；蹒跚；摇摇欲坠 | |
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poking
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| n. 刺，戳，袋 vt. 拨开，刺，戳 vi. 戳，刺，捅，搜索，伸出，行动散慢 | |
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parlor
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| n.店铺，营业室；会客室，客厅 | |
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panes
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| 窗玻璃( pane的名词复数 ) | |
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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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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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hemlocks
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| 由毒芹提取的毒药( hemlock的名词复数 ) | |
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apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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flailing
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| v.鞭打( flail的现在分词 )；用连枷脱粒；（臂或腿）无法控制地乱动；扫雷坦克 | |
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triangular
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| adj.三角（形）的，三者间的 | |
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whit
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| n.一点，丝毫 | |
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oblique
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| adj.斜的，倾斜的，无诚意的，不坦率的 | |
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dab
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| v.轻触，轻拍，轻涂；n.(颜料等的)轻涂 | |
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crimson
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| n./adj.深(绯)红色(的)；vi.脸变绯红色 | |
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irritable
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| adj.急躁的；过敏的；易怒的 | |
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translucent
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| adj.半透明的；透明的 | |
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tinfoil
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| n.锡纸，锡箔 | |
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fumble
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| vi.笨拙地用手摸、弄、接等，摸索 | |
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lipstick
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| n.口红，唇膏 | |
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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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frantic
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| adj.狂乱的，错乱的，激昂的 | |
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55
crease
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| n.折缝，褶痕，皱褶；v.(使)起皱 | |
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56
syrup
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| n.糖浆，糖水 | |
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57
dribble
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| v.点滴留下，流口水；n.口水 | |
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58
dart
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| v.猛冲，投掷；n.飞镖，猛冲 | |
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59
transparent
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| adj.明显的，无疑的；透明的 | |
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60
irises
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| n.虹( iris的名词复数 )；虹膜；虹彩；鸢尾（花） | |
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61
murmurs
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| n.低沉、连续而不清的声音( murmur的名词复数 )；低语声；怨言；嘀咕 | |
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62
mashed
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| a.捣烂的 | |
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63
rigid
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| adj.严格的，死板的；刚硬的，僵硬的 | |
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64
blessing
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| n.祈神赐福；祷告；祝福，祝愿 | |
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65
creased
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| （使…）起折痕，弄皱( crease的过去式和过去分词 )； （皮肤）皱起，使起皱纹； 皱皱巴巴 | |
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66
gaudy
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| adj.华而不实的；俗丽的 | |
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67
flannel
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| n.法兰绒；法兰绒衣服 | |
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68
brewer
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| n. 啤酒制造者 | |
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69
athletic
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| adj.擅长运动的，强健的；活跃的，体格健壮的 | |
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70
attic
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| n.顶楼，屋顶室 | |
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71
numb
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| adj.麻木的，失去感觉的；v.使麻木 | |
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72
mantle
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| n.斗篷，覆罩之物，罩子；v.罩住，覆盖，脸红 | |
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73
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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74
sparse
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| adj.稀疏的，稀稀落落的，薄的 | |
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75
snarled
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| v.（指狗）吠，嗥叫， （人）咆哮( snarl的过去式和过去分词 )；咆哮着说，厉声地说 | |
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76
chatter
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| vi.／n.喋喋不休；短促尖叫；(牙齿)打战 | |
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77
spurts
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| 短暂而突然的活动或努力( spurt的名词复数 )； 突然奋起 | |
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78
thigh
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| n.大腿；股骨 | |
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79
frantically
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| ad.发狂地, 发疯地 | |
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80
soda
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| n.苏打水；汽水 | |
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81
apron
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| n.围裙；工作裙 | |
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82
dabbling
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| v.涉猎( dabble的现在分词 )；涉足；浅尝；少量投资 | |
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83
thump
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| v.重击，砰然地响；n.重击，重击声 | |
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84
bracelets
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| n.手镯，臂镯( bracelet的名词复数 ) | |
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85
ransom
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| n.赎金，赎身；v.赎回，解救 | |
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86
crumb
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| n.饼屑，面包屑，小量 | |
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87
groans
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| n.呻吟，叹息( groan的名词复数 )；呻吟般的声音v.呻吟( groan的第三人称单数 )；发牢骚；抱怨；受苦 | |
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88
torment
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| n.折磨；令人痛苦的东西(人)；vt.折磨；纠缠 | |
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89
humiliatingly
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90
contentedly
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| adv.心满意足地 | |
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91
beverage
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| n.(水，酒等之外的)饮料 | |
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92
bland
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| adj.淡而无味的，温和的，无刺激性的 | |
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93
swirling
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| v.旋转，打旋( swirl的现在分词 ) | |
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94
brook
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| n.小河，溪；v.忍受，容让 | |
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95
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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96
grassy
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| adj.盖满草的；长满草的 | |
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97
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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98
nostrils
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| 鼻孔( nostril的名词复数 ) | |
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99
ails
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| v.生病( ail的第三人称单数 )；感到不舒服；处境困难；境况不佳 | |
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100
gust
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| n.阵风，突然一阵（雨、烟等），（感情的）迸发 | |
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101
confiding
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|
| adj.相信人的，易于相信的v.吐露（秘密，心事等）( confide的现在分词 )；（向某人）吐露（隐私、秘密等） | |
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102
disapproval
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| n.反对，不赞成 | |
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103
abruptly
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| adv.突然地，出其不意地 | |
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104
cramped
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| a.狭窄的 | |
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105
flirt
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| v.调情，挑逗，调戏；n.调情者，卖俏者 | |
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106
brutal
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| adj.残忍的，野蛮的，不讲理的 | |
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107
acting
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| n.演戏，行为，假装；adj.代理的，临时的，演出用的 | |
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108
dribbled
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| v.流口水( dribble的过去式和过去分词 )；（使液体）滴下或作细流；运球，带球 | |
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109
liking
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| n.爱好；嗜好；喜欢 | |
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110
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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111
filthy
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| adj.卑劣的；恶劣的，肮脏的 | |
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112
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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113
fussiness
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| [医]易激怒 | |
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114
depressed
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| adj.沮丧的，抑郁的，不景气的，萧条的 | |
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115
slumped
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| 大幅度下降，暴跌( slump的过去式和过去分词 )； 沉重或突然地落下[倒下] | |
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116
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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117
animation
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| n.活泼，兴奋，卡通片／动画片的制作 | |
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118
membrane
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| n.薄膜，膜皮，羊皮纸 | |
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119
reassure
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| v.使放心，使消除疑虑 | |
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120
fumbling
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| n. 摸索,漏接 v. 摸索,摸弄,笨拙的处理 | |
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121
rattles
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| （使）发出格格的响声， （使）作嘎嘎声( rattle的第三人称单数 )； 喋喋不休地说话； 迅速而嘎嘎作响地移动，堕下或走动； 使紧张，使恐惧 | |
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122
ginger
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| n.姜，精力，淡赤黄色；adj.淡赤黄色的；vt.使活泼，使有生气 | |
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123
faucet
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| n.水龙头 | |
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124
taut
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| adj.拉紧的，绷紧的，紧张的 | |
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125
braces
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| n.吊带，背带；托架( brace的名词复数 )；箍子；括弧；（儿童）牙箍v.支住( brace的第三人称单数 )；撑牢；使自己站稳；振作起来 | |
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126
gulf
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| n.海湾；深渊，鸿沟；分歧，隔阂 | |
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127
furry
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| adj.毛皮的；似毛皮的；毛皮制的 | |
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128
slant
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| v.倾斜，倾向性地编写或报道；n.斜面，倾向 | |
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129
sopping
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| adj. 浑身湿透的 动词sop的现在分词形式 | |
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130
touching
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| adj.动人的，使人感伤的 | |
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131
glide
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| n./v.溜，滑行；(时间)消逝 | |
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132
balks
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| v.畏缩不前，犹豫( balk的第三人称单数 )；（指马）不肯跑 | |
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133
ivy
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| n.常青藤，常春藤 | |
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134
flipping
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| 讨厌之极的 | |
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135
severely
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| adv.严格地；严厉地；非常恶劣地 | |
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136
backwards
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| adv.往回地，向原处，倒，相反，前后倒置地 | |
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137
burnished
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| adj.抛光的，光亮的v.擦亮（金属等），磨光( burnish的过去式和过去分词 )；被擦亮，磨光 | |
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138
blot
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| vt.弄脏（用吸墨纸）吸干；n.污点，污渍 | |
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139
dense
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| a.密集的，稠密的，浓密的；密度大的 | |
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140
wink
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| n.眨眼，使眼色，瞬间；v.眨眼，使眼色，闪烁 | |
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141
tangle
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| n.纠缠；缠结；混乱；v.(使)缠绕；变乱 | |
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142
freckled
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|
| adj.雀斑；斑点；晒斑；（使）生雀斑v.雀斑，斑点( freckle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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143
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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144
butt
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| n.笑柄；烟蒂；枪托；臀部；v.用头撞或顶 | |
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145
tapering
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| adj.尖端细的 | |
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146
ridges
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| n.脊( ridge的名词复数 )；山脊；脊状突起；大气层的)高压脊 | |
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147
vein
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| n.血管，静脉；叶脉，纹理；情绪；vt.使成脉络 | |
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148
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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149
undone
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| a.未做完的，未完成的 | |
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150
bleached
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| 漂白的，晒白的，颜色变浅的 | |
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151
trolley
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| n.手推车，台车；无轨电车；有轨电车 | |
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152
disintegrating
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| v.（使）破裂[分裂，粉碎]，（使）崩溃( disintegrate的现在分词 ) | |
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153
dilates
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| v.（使某物）扩大，膨胀，张大( dilate的第三人称单数 ) | |
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154
incense
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| v.激怒；n.香，焚香时的烟，香气 | |
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155
chapel
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| n.小教堂，殡仪馆 | |
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156
silhouette
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| n.黑色半身侧面影，影子，轮廓；v.描绘成侧面影，照出影子来，仅仅显出轮廓 | |
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157
averted
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| 防止，避免( avert的过去式和过去分词 )； 转移 | |
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158
queasy
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| adj.易呕的 | |
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159
agitated
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| adj.被鼓动的，不安的 | |
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160
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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161
mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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162
swollen
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| adj.肿大的，水涨的；v.使变大，肿胀 | |
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163
blistered
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|
| adj.水疮状的，泡状的v.（使）起水泡( blister的过去式和过去分词 )；（使表皮等）涨破，爆裂 | |
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164
winces
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| 避开，畏缩( wince的名词复数 ) | |
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165
tune
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| n.调子；和谐，协调；v.调音，调节，调整 | |
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166
glands
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| n.腺( gland的名词复数 ) | |
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167
exudes
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| v.缓慢流出，渗出，分泌出( exude的第三人称单数 )；流露出对（某物）的神态或感情 | |
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168
elastic
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| n.橡皮圈，松紧带；adj.有弹性的；灵活的 | |
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169
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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170
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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171
vertical
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| adj.垂直的，顶点的，纵向的；n.垂直物，垂直的位置 | |
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172
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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173
jutting
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| v.（使）突出( jut的现在分词 )；伸出；（从…）突出；高出 | |
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174
glossy
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| adj.平滑的；有光泽的 | |
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175
intermittently
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| adv.间歇地；断断续续 | |
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176
straps
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| n.带子( strap的名词复数 )；挎带；肩带；背带v.用皮带捆扎( strap的第三人称单数 )；用皮带抽打；包扎；给…打绷带 | |
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177
gratitude
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| adj.感激，感谢 | |
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178
pliant
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| adj.顺从的；可弯曲的 | |
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179
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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180
exhausted
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| adj.极其疲惫的，精疲力尽的 | |
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181
pistons
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| 活塞( piston的名词复数 ) | |
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182
advertising
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| n.广告业；广告活动 a.广告的；广告业务的 | |
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183
furtive
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| adj.鬼鬼崇崇的，偷偷摸摸的 | |
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184
skull
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| n.头骨；颅骨 | |
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185
eddies
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| （水、烟等的）漩涡，涡流( eddy的名词复数 ) | |
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186
rustle
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| v.沙沙作响；偷盗(牛、马等)；n.沙沙声声 | |
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187
tilt
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| v.(使)倾侧；(使)倾斜；n.倾侧；倾斜 | |
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188
garnished
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| v.给（上餐桌的食物）加装饰( garnish的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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189
inquisitive
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| adj.求知欲强的，好奇的，好寻根究底的 | |
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190
hymn
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| n.赞美诗，圣歌，颂歌 | |
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191
aisle
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| n.（教堂、教室、戏院等里的）过道，通道 | |
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192
shuffling
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| adj. 慢慢移动的, 滑移的 动词shuffle的现在分词形式 | |
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193
acolytes
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| n.助手( acolyte的名词复数 )；随从；新手；（天主教）侍祭 | |
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194
grouchy
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| adj.好抱怨的；愠怒的 | |
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195
affected
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| adj.不自然的，假装的 | |
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196
pious
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| adj.虔诚的；道貌岸然的 | |
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197
strenuous
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| adj.奋发的，使劲的；紧张的；热烈的，狂热的 | |
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198
cursory
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| adj.粗略的；草率的；匆促的 | |
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199
liturgy
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| n.礼拜仪式 | |
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200
inscription
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| n.（尤指石块上的）刻印文字，铭文，碑文 | |
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201
balked
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| v.畏缩不前，犹豫( balk的过去式和过去分词 )；（指马）不肯跑 | |
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202
wilderness
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| n.杳无人烟的一片陆地、水等，荒漠 | |
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203
relevance
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| n.中肯，适当，关联，相关性 | |
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204
Christians
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| n.基督教徒( Christian的名词复数 ) | |
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205
deprivation
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| n.匮乏；丧失；夺去，贫困 | |
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206
initiation
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| n.开始 | |
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207
wrestles
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| v.（与某人）搏斗( wrestle的第三人称单数 )；扭成一团；扭打；（与…）摔跤 | |
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208
squeak
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| n.吱吱声，逃脱；v.（发出）吱吱叫，侥幸通过；（俚）告密 | |
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209
eyebrows
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| 眉毛( eyebrow的名词复数 ) | |
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210
piety
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| n.虔诚，虔敬 | |
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211
sinister
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| adj.不吉利的，凶恶的，左边的 | |
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212
redeems
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| 补偿( redeem的第三人称单数 )； 实践； 解救； 使…免受责难 | |
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213
inverts
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| v.使倒置，使反转( invert的第三人称单数 ) | |
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214
paradox
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| n.似乎矛盾却正确的说法；自相矛盾的人(物) | |
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215
obedience
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| n.服从，顺从 | |
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216
dour
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| adj.冷酷的，严厉的；（岩石）嶙峋的；顽强不屈 | |
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217
patchwork
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| n.混杂物；拼缝物 | |
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218
subdued
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| adj. 屈服的，柔和的，减弱的 动词subdue的过去式和过去分词 | |
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219
plaques
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| （纪念性的）匾牌( plaque的名词复数 )； 纪念匾； 牙斑； 空斑 | |
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220
laboriously
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| adv.艰苦地；费力地；辛勤地；（文体等）佶屈聱牙地 | |
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221
brilliance
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| n.光辉，辉煌，壮丽，（卓越的）才华，才智 | |
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222
benediction
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| n.祝福；恩赐 | |
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223
anticlimactic
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| adj. 渐降法的, 虎头蛇尾的 | |
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224
pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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225
freckles
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| n.雀斑，斑点( freckle的名词复数 ) | |
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226
sarcastic
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| adj.讥讽的，讽刺的，嘲弄的 | |
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227
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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228
maneuver
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| n.策略[pl.]演习；v.(巧妙)控制；用策略 | |
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229
coordination
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| n.协调，协作 | |
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230
tightens
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| 收紧( tighten的第三人称单数 )； （使）变紧； （使）绷紧； 加紧 | |
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231
feverish
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| adj.发烧的，狂热的，兴奋的 | |
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232
glimmers
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| 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 ) | |
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233
overdone
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| v.做得过分( overdo的过去分词 )；太夸张；把…煮得太久；（工作等）过度 | |
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234
tuned
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| 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 | |
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235
milkiness
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| 乳状； 乳白色； 浑浊； 软弱 | |
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236
mica
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| n.云母 | |
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237
hoods
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| n.兜帽( hood的名词复数 )；头巾；（汽车、童车等的）折合式车篷；汽车发动机罩v.兜帽( hood的第三人称单数 )；头巾；（汽车、童车等的）折合式车篷；汽车发动机罩 | |
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238
smear
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| v.涂抹；诽谤，玷污；n.污点；诽谤，污蔑 | |
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239
waxy
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| adj.苍白的；光滑的 | |
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240
maples
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| 槭树，枫树( maple的名词复数 )； 槭木 | |
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241
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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242
rhythmically
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| adv.有节奏地 | |
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243
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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244
tingling
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| v.有刺痛感( tingle的现在分词 ) | |
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245
underneath
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| adj.在...下面，在...底下；adv.在下面 | |
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246
lien
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| n.扣押权，留置权 | |
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247
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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248
neurotic
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| adj.神经病的，神经过敏的；n.神经过敏者，神经病患者 | |
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249
psychology
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| n.心理，心理学，心理状态 | |
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250
curbs
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| v.限制，克制，抑制( curb的第三人称单数 ) | |
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251
gracefully
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| ad.大大方方地；优美地 | |
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252
remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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253
bluff
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| v.虚张声势，用假象骗人；n.虚张声势，欺骗 | |
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254
impudence
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| n.厚颜无耻；冒失；无礼 | |
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255
squeaking
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| v.短促地尖叫( squeak的现在分词 )；吱吱叫；告密；充当告密者 | |
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256
contemplates
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| 深思，细想，仔细考虑( contemplate的第三人称单数 )； 注视，凝视； 考虑接受（发生某事的可能性）； 深思熟虑，沉思，苦思冥想 | |
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257
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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258
lining
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| n.衬里，衬料 | |
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259
whining
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| n. 抱怨，牢骚 v. 哭诉，发牢骚 | |
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260
exhortation
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| n.劝告，规劝 | |
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261
grotesquely
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| adv. 奇异地,荒诞地 | |
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262
snip
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| n.便宜货，廉价货，剪，剪断 | |
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263
potent
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| adj.强有力的，有权势的；有效力的 | |
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264
spurned
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| v.一脚踢开，拒绝接受( spurn的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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265
lust
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| n.性(淫)欲；渴(欲)望；vi.对…有强烈的欲望 | |
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