Chapter 13

myna corbett and the responsibilities of beauty were to occupy me on and off for the rest of the year. I don't know exactly what it was I felt for her, or thought about her, or expected to give or receive. There are a thousand kinds of love. The simplest thing to say is that she made me feel comfortable. She created a private balance of nature, a sense of things being right, or almost right, both in themselves and against a larger requirement. So this love in a way was ecological¹; she made me feel at peace with my environment and maybe on my better days I did the same for her. Since my examinations of life sometimes ended in oblique² forms of selfmockery, and since my investigative projects often manifested themselves as parodies³ of hunger or grief or exile, it was refreshing⁴ to seek in this woman a perfect circle whose reality overpowered the examiner's talent for reducing in size and meaning whatever variety of experience he was currently engaged in sampling.

Myna owned half a million dollars and membership in a sciencefiction book club. There, by most standards, her attraction ended. She weighed about 165 pounds. Her face had several blotches⁵ of varying size and her hair hung in limp tangled⁶ clusters. She bit her nails, she waddled⁷, she never shut up. We had two classes together, Mexican geography and a sort of introduction to exobiology. Myna was the only female in the geography class (traditionally a course for football players) and seemed quite serious about the layout of Mexico. We got along well from the very beginning. I enjoyed listening to her talk and I liked the total liberty of her clothing. There was a sense of cavalcade⁸ to the way she dressed. Any number of fashion eras were likely to be represented at a given time. The feeling was warm, colorabundant, distinctly antihistorical.

We had mock picnics behind the Quonset hut— chopped almonds and Gatorade. Myna would usually bring along a sciencefiction novel. She'd eat and read simultaneously⁹, bouncing slightly on the brown grass when she reached a particularly invigorating passage. It was during our third or fourth picnic, on an unseasonably cool day, that we got involved for the first time in the responsibilities of beauty. Myna wore a carved plastic bracelet¹⁰, meshed¹¹ gold chains around her neck, and a handembroidered? Victorian shawl over a silk gypsy blouse and floorlength patchwork¹² skirt. Her boots were studded with blue stars."I've just realized what's really curious about you," I said. "Somehow you don't transmit any sense of a personal future."

"I'm a now person, Gary."

"That's good because I'm a then person."

"I know," she said. "That's why I like you. I need some perspective in my life."

"You'll hate me for saying this, Myna, but I think you're one of the prettiest girls I've ever known. Man or boy. Pound for pound."

"People are always telling me that. What a pretty face I have. It's just a thing you say to fat girls. It's supposed to make us guilty so we'll lose weight."

"But it's true," I said.

"I know it's true. All I have to do is lose fifty pounds and go to a skin doctor. But I like myself the way I am. I don't want to be beautiful or desirable. I don't have the strength for that. There are too many responsibilities. Things to live up to. I feel like I'm consistently myself. So many people have someone else stuck inside them. Like inside that big large body of yours there's a scrawny kid with thick glasses. Inside my father there's a vicious police dog, a fascist¹³ killer¹⁴ animal. Almost everybody has something stuck inside them. Inside me there's a sloppy¹⁵ emotional overweight girl. I'm the same, Gary, inside and out. It's hard to be beautiful. You have an obligation to people. You almost become public property. You can lose yourself and get almost mentally disturbed on just the public nature of being beautiful. Don't think I haven't thought about it. You can get completely lost in that whole dumb mess. And anyway who's to say what's beautiful and what's ugly?"

"There are standards."

"Whose?"

"I don't know. The Greeks. The Etruscans. You can't escape some things. History forces you to listen and to see."

"You have to balance history with science fiction," she said. "It's the only way to keep sane¹⁶."

"We'll have another picnic tomorrow "

"Jesus, can we?"

"We can do anything we want, Myna."

"Can we bring something besides chopped almonds? Can we bring vegetable pancakes and maybe brownies?"

"We can bring anything we want as long as it's humble¹⁷ and meatless."

"Can we not bring this blanket? Can we bring a different blanket? I don't like this one. It makes me think of dead baby rabbits."

"It's been in my family for generations."

"The way you say some things. I actually believe you. I think you're serious. Then it hits me that something's not right. Can I bring my book again?"

"Of course."

"Can I wear my orange dress that you like so much?"

"You look like an explosion over the desert. Yes, you can wear it."

"Can I bring my tarot cards with me?"

"Of course you can. Absolutely. It's a picnic."

"Thank you, Gary."

1 ecological   

adj.生态的，生态学的

参考例句：

• The region has been declared an ecological disaster zone.这个地区已经宣布为生态灾难区。
• Each animal has its ecological niche.每种动物都有自己的生态位.

2 oblique   

adj.斜的，倾斜的，无诚意的，不坦率的

参考例句：

• He made oblique references to her lack of experience.他拐弯抹角地说她缺乏经验。
• She gave an oblique look to one side.她向旁边斜看了一眼。

3 parodies   

n.拙劣的模仿( parody的名词复数 )；恶搞；滑稽的模仿诗文；表面上模仿得笨拙但充满了机智用来嘲弄别人作品的作品v.滑稽地模仿，拙劣地模仿( parody的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• Later, however, they delight in parodies of nursery rhymes. 可要不了多久，他们便乐于对它进行窜改。 来自英汉非文学 - 民俗
• Most parodies are little more than literary teases. 大多数讽刺的模仿诗文只能算上是文学上的揶揄。 来自辞典例句

4 refreshing   

adj.使精神振作的，使人清爽的，使人喜欢的

参考例句：

• I find it'so refreshing to work with young people in this department.我发现和这一部门的青年一起工作令人精神振奋。
• The water was cold and wonderfully refreshing.水很涼，特别解乏提神。

5 blotches   

n.（皮肤上的）红斑，疹块( blotch的名词复数 )；大滴 [大片]（墨水或颜色的）污渍

参考例句：

• His skin was covered with unsightly blotches. 他的皮肤上长满了难看的疹块。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• His face was covered in red blotches, seemingly a nasty case of acne. 他满脸红斑，像是起了很严重的粉刺。 来自辞典例句

6 tangled   

adj. 纠缠的，紊乱的 动词tangle的过去式和过去分词

参考例句：

• Your hair's so tangled that I can't comb it. 你的头发太乱了，我梳不动。
• A movement caught his eye in the tangled undergrowth. 乱灌木丛里的晃动引起了他的注意。

7 waddled   

v.（像鸭子一样）摇摇摆摆地走( waddle的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• A family of ducks waddled along the river bank. 一群鸭子沿河岸摇摇摆摆地走。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The stout old man waddled across the road. 那肥胖的老人一跩一跩地穿过马路。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

8 cavalcade   

n.车队等的行列

参考例句：

• A cavalcade processed through town.马车队列队从城里经过。
• The cavalcade drew together in silence.马队在静默中靠拢在一起。

9 simultaneously   

adv.同时发生地，同时进行地

参考例句：

• The radar beam can track a number of targets almost simultaneously.雷达波几乎可以同时追着多个目标。
• The Windows allow a computer user to execute multiple programs simultaneously.Windows允许计算机用户同时运行多个程序。

10 bracelet   

n.手镯，臂镯

参考例句：

• The jeweler charges lots of money to set diamonds in a bracelet.珠宝匠要很多钱才肯把钻石镶在手镯上。
• She left her gold bracelet as a pledge.她留下她的金手镯作抵押品。

11 meshed   

有孔的，有孔眼的，啮合的

参考例句：

• The wheels meshed well. 机轮啮合良好。
• Their senses of humor meshed perfectly. 他们的幽默感配合得天衣无缝。

12 patchwork   

n.混杂物；拼缝物

参考例句：

• That proposal is nothing else other than a patchwork.那个建议只是一个大杂烩而已。
• She patched new cloth to the old coat,so It'seemed mere patchwork. 她把新布初到那件旧上衣上，所以那件衣服看上去就象拼凑起来的东西。

13 fascist   

adj.法西斯主义的；法西斯党的；n.法西斯主义者，法西斯分子

参考例句：

• The strikers were roughed up by the fascist cops.罢工工人遭到法西斯警察的殴打。
• They succeeded in overthrowing the fascist dictatorship.他们成功推翻了法西斯独裁统治。

14 killer   

n.杀人者，杀人犯，杀手，屠杀者

参考例句：

• Heart attacks have become Britain's No.1 killer disease.心脏病已成为英国的头号致命疾病。
• The bulk of the evidence points to him as her killer.大量证据证明是他杀死她的。

15 sloppy   

adj.邋遢的，不整洁的

参考例句：

• If you do such sloppy work again,I promise I'll fail you.要是下次作业你再马马虎虎，我话说在头里，可要给你打不及格了。
• Mother constantly picked at him for being sloppy.母亲不断地批评他懒散。

16 sane   

adj.心智健全的，神志清醒的，明智的，稳健的

参考例句：

• He was sane at the time of the murder.在凶杀案发生时他的神志是清醒的。
• He is a very sane person.他是一个很有头脑的人。

17 humble   

adj.谦卑的，恭顺的；地位低下的；v.降低，贬低

参考例句：

• In my humble opinion,he will win the election.依我拙见，他将在选举中获胜。
• Defeat and failure make people humble.挫折与失败会使人谦卑。