THE UNEASE WAS not confined to the hospital. It seemed to rise with the turbulent brown river swollen1 by the April rains, and in the evenings lay across the blacked-out city like a mental dusk which the whole country could sense, a quiet and malign2 thickening, inseparable from the cool late spring, well concealed3 within its spreading beneficence. Something was coming to an end. The senior staff, conferring in self-important groups at the corridor intersections4, were nursing a secret. Younger doctors were a little taller, their stride more aggressive, and the consultant5 was distracted on his round, and on one particular morning crossed to the window to gaze out across the river for minutes on end, while behind him the nurses stood to attention by the beds and waited. The elderly porters seemed depressed6 as they pushed the patients to and from the wards8, and seemed to have forgotten their chirpy catchphrases from the wireless9 comedy shows, and it might even have consoled Briony to hear again that line of theirs she so despised—Cheer up love, it might never happen.
But it was about to. The hospital had been emptying slowly, invisibly, for many days. It seemed purely10 chance at first, an epidemic11 of good health that the less intelligent of the trainees12 were tempted13 to put down to their own improving techniques. Only slowly did one detect a design. Empty beds spread across the ward7, and through other wards, like deaths in the night. Briony imagined that retreating footsteps in the wide polished corridors had a muffled14, apologetic sound, where once they had been bright and efficient. The workmen who came to install new drums of fire hose on the landings outside the lifts, and set out new buckets of fire-fighting sand, labored15 all day, without a break, and spoke16 to no one before they left, not even the porters. In the ward, only eight beds out of twenty were occupied, and though the work was even harder than before, a certain disquiet17, an almost superstitious18 dread19, prevented the student nurses from complaining when they were alone together at tea. They were all generally calmer, more accepting. They no longer spread their hands to compare chilblains.
In addition, there was the constant and pervasive20 anxiety the trainees shared about making mistakes. They all lived in fear of Sister Marjorie Drummond, of the menacing meager21 smile and softening22 of manner that preceded her fury. Briony knew she had recently accumulated a string of errors. Four days ago, despite careful instruction, a patient in her care had quaffed23 her carbolic gargle—according to the porter who saw it, down in one like a pint24 of Guinness—and was violently sick across her blankets. Briony was also aware that she had been observed by Sister Drummond carrying only three bedpans at a time, when by now they were expected to go the length of the ward reliably with a pile of six, like a busy waiter in La Coupole. There may have been other errors too, which she would have forgotten in her weariness, or never even known about. She was prone25 to errors of deportment—in moments of abstraction she tended to shift her weight onto one foot in a way that particularly enraged26 her superior. Lapses27 and failures could carelessly accrue28 over several days: a broom improperly29 stowed, a blanket folded with its label facing up, a starched30 collar in infinitesimal disarray31, the bed castors not lined up and pointing inward, walking back down the ward empty-handed—all silently noted32, until capacity was reached and then, if you had not read the signs, the wrath33 would come down as a shock. And just when you thought you were doing well.
But lately, the sister was not casting her mirthless smile in the direction of the probationers, nor speaking to them in the subdued34 voice that gave them such terrors. She hardly bothered with her charges at all. She was preoccupied35, and often stood in the quadrangle by men’s surgical36, in long conferences with her counterpart, or she disappeared for two days at a time.
In another context, a different profession, she would have seemed motherly in her plumpness, or even sensual, for her unpainted lips were rich in natural color and sweetly bowed, and her face with its rounded cheeks and doll’s patches of healthy pink suggested a kindly37 nature. This impression was dispelled38 early on when a probationer in Briony’s year, a large, kindly, slow-moving girl with a cow’s harmless gaze, met the lacerating force of the ward sister’s fury. Nurse Langland had been seconded to the men’s surgical ward, and was asked to help prepare a young soldier for an appendectomy. Left alone with him for a minute or two, she chatted and made reassuring39 remarks about his operation. He must have asked the obvious question, and that was when she broke the hallowed rule. It was set out clearly in the handbook, though no one had guessed how important it was considered to be. Hours later, the soldier came round from his anesthetic40 and muttered the student nurse’s name while the surgical ward sister was standing41 close by. Nurse Langland was sent back to her own ward in disgrace. The others were made to gather round and take careful note. If poor Susan Langland had carelessly or cruelly killed two dozen patients, it could not have been worse for her. By the time Sister Drummond finished telling her that she was an abomination to the traditions of Nightingale nursing to which she aspired42, and should consider herself lucky to be spending the next month sorting soiled linen43, not only Langland but half the girls present were weeping. Briony was not among them, but that night in bed, still a little shivery, she went through the handbook again, to see if there were other points of etiquette44 she might have missed. She reread and committed to memory the commandment: in no circumstances should a nurse communicate to a patient her Christian45 name.
The wards emptied, but the work intensified46. Every morning the beds were pushed into the center so that the probationers could polish the floor with a heavy bumper47 that a girl on her own could barely swing from side to side. The floors were to be swept three times a day. Vacated lockers48 were scrubbed, mattresses49 fumigated50, brass51 coat hooks, doorknobs and keyholes were buffed. The woodwork—doors as well as skirting—was washed down with carbolic solution, and so were the beds themselves, the iron frames as well as springs. The students scoured52, wiped and dried bedpans and bottles till they shone like dinner plates. Army three-ton lorries drew up at the loading bays, bringing yet more beds, filthy53 old ones that needed to be scrubbed down many times before they were carried into the ward and squeezed into the lines, and then carbolized. Between tasks, perhaps a dozen times a day, the students scrubbed their cracked and bleeding chilblained hands under freezing water. The war against germs never ceased. The probationers were initiated54 into the cult55 of hygiene56. They learned that there was nothing so loathsome57 as a wisp of blanket fluff hiding under a bed, concealing58 within its form a battalion59, a whole division, of bacteria. The everyday practice of boiling, scrubbing, buffing and wiping became the badge of the students’ professional pride, to which all personal comfort must be sacrificed.
The porters brought up from the loading bays a great quantity of new supplies which had to be unpacked60, inventoried61 and stowed—dressings, kidney bowls, hypodermics, three new autoclaves and many packages marked “Bunyan Bags” whose use had not yet been explained. An extra medicine cupboard was installed and filled, once it had been scrubbed three times over. It was locked, and the key remained with Sister Drummond, but one morning Briony saw inside rows of bottles labeled morphine. When she was sent on errands, she saw other wards in similar states of preparation. One was already completely empty of patients, and gleamed in spacious63 silence, waiting. But it was not done to ask questions. The year before, just after war was declared, the wards on the top floor had been closed down completely as a protection against bombing. The operating theaters were now in the basement. The ground-floor windows had been sandbagged, and every skylight cemented over.
An army general made a tour of the hospital with half a dozen consultants64 at his side. There was no ceremony, or even silence when they came. Usually on such important visits, so it was said, the nose of every patient had to be in line with the center creasing65 of the top sheet. But there was no time to prepare. The general and his party strode through the ward, murmuring and nodding, and then they were gone.
The unease grew, but there was little opportunity for speculation66, which in any case was officially forbidden. When they were not on their shifts, the probationers were in lessons in their free time, or lectures, or at practical demonstrations67 or studying alone. Their meals and bedtimes were supervised as if they were new girls at Roedean. When Fiona, who slept in the bed next to Briony, pushed her plate away and announced to no one in particular that she was “clinically incapable” of eating vegetables boiled with an Oxo cube, the Nightingale home sister stood over her until she had eaten the last scrap68. Fiona was Briony’s friend, by definition; in the dormitory, on the first night of preliminary training, she asked Briony to cut the fingernails of her right hand, explaining that her left hand couldn’t make the scissors work and that her mother always did it for her. She was ginger-haired and freckled69, which made Briony automatically wary70. But unlike Lola, Fiona was loud and jolly, with dimples on the backs of her hands and an enormous bosom71 which caused the other girls to say that she was bound to be a ward sister one day. Her family lived in Chelsea. She whispered from her bed one night that her father was expecting to be asked to join Churchill’s war cabinet. But when the cabinet was announced, the surnames didn’t match up and nothing was said, and Briony thought it better not to inquire. In those first months after preliminary training, Fiona and Briony had little chance to find out if they actually liked each other. It was convenient for them to assume they did. They were among the few who had no medical background at all. Most of the other girls had done first-aid courses, and some had been VADs already and were familiar with blood and dead bodies, or at least, they said they were.
But friendships were not easy to cultivate. The probationers worked their shifts in the wards, studied three hours a day in their spare time, and slept. Their luxury was teatime, between four and five, when they took down from the wooden slatted shelves their miniature brown teapots inscribed72 with their names and sat together in a little dayroom off the ward. Conversation was stilted73. The home sister was there to supervise and ensure decorum. Besides, as soon as they sat down, tiredness came over them, heavy as three folded blankets. One girl fell asleep with a cup and saucer in her hand and scalded her thigh—a good opportunity, Sister Drummond said when she came in to see what the screaming was about, to practice the treatment of burns.
And she herself was a barrier to friendship. In those early months, Briony often thought that her only relationship was with Sister Drummond. She was always there, one moment at the end of a corridor, approaching with a terrible purpose, the next, at Briony’s shoulder, murmuring in her ear that she had failed to pay attention during preliminary training to the correct procedures for blanket-bathing male patients: only after the second change of washing water should the freshly soaped back flannel74 and back towel be passed to the patient so that he could “finish off for himself.” Briony’s state of mind largely depended on how she stood that hour in the ward sister’s opinion. She felt a coolness in her stomach whenever Sister Drummond’s gaze fell on her. It was impossible to know whether you had done well. Briony dreaded75 her bad opinion. Praise was unheard of. The best one could hope for was indifference76.
In the moments she had to herself, usually in the dark, minutes before falling asleep, Briony contemplated77 a ghostly parallel life in which she was at Girton, reading Milton. She could have been at her sister’s college, rather than her sister’s hospital. Briony had thought she was joining the war effort. In fact, she had narrowed her life to a relationship with a woman fifteen years older who assumed a power over her greater than that of a mother over an infant.
This narrowing, which was above all a stripping away of identity, began weeks before she had even heard of Sister Drummond. On her first day of the two months’ preliminary training, Briony’s humiliation78 in front of the class had been instructive. This was how it was going to be. She had gone up to the sister to point out courteously79 that a mistake had been made with her name badge. She was B. Tallis, not, as it said on the little rectangular brooch, N. Tallis.
The reply was calm. “You are, and will remain, as you have been designated. Your Christian name is of no interest to me. Now kindly sit down, Nurse Tallis.”
The other girls would have laughed if they had dared, for they all had the same initial, but they correctly sensed that permission had not been granted. This was the time of hygiene lectures, and of practicing blanket-baths on life-size models—Mrs. Mackintosh, Lady Chase, and baby George whose blandly80 impaired81 physique allowed him to double as a baby girl. It was the time of adapting to unthinking obedience82, of learning to carry bedpans in a stack, and remembering a fundamental rule: never walk up a ward without bringing something back. Physical discomfort83 helped close down Briony’s mental horizons. The high starched collars rubbed her neck raw. Washing her hands a dozen times a day under stinging cold water with a block of soda84 brought on her first chilblains. The shoes she had to buy with her own money fiercely pinched her toes. The uniform, like all uniforms, eroded85 identity, and the daily attention required—ironing pleats, pinning hats, straightening seams, shoe polishing, especially the heels—began a process by which other concerns were slowly excluded. By the time the girls were ready to start their course as probationers, and to work in the wards (they were never to say “on”) under Sister Drummond, and to submit to the daily routine “from bedpan to Bovril,” their previous lives were becoming indistinct. Their minds had emptied to some extent, their defenses were down, so that they were easily persuaded of the absolute authority of the ward sister. There could be no resistance as she filled their vacated minds.
It was never said, but the model behind this process was military. Miss Nightingale, who was never to be referred to as Florence, had been in the Crimea long enough to see the value of discipline, strong lines of command and well-trained troops. So when she lay in the dark listening to Fiona begin her nightlong snoring—she slept on her back—Briony already sensed that the parallel life, which she could imagine so easily from her visits to Cambridge as a child to see Leon and Cecilia, would soon begin to diverge86 from her own. This was her student life now, these four years, this enveloping87 regime, and she had no will, no freedom to leave. She was abandoning herself to a life of strictures, rules, obedience, housework, and a constant fear of disapproval88. She was one of a batch89 of probationers—there was a new intake90 every few months—and she had no identity beyond her badge. There were no tutorials here, no one losing sleep over the precise course of her intellectual development. She emptied and sluiced91 the bedpans, swept and polished floors, made cocoa and Bovril, fetched and carried—and was delivered from introspection. At some point in the future, she knew from listening to the second-year students, she would begin to take pleasure in her competence92. She had had a taste of it lately, having been entrusted93 with taking a pulse and temperature under supervision94 and marking the readings on a chart. In the way of medical treatments, she had already dabbed95 gentian violet on ringworm, aquaflavine emulsion on a cut, and painted lead lotion96 on a bruise97. But mostly, she was a maid, a skivvy and, in her hours off, a crammer of simple facts. She was happy to have little time to think of anything else. But when she stood on her landing in her dressing62 gown, last thing at night, and she looked across the river at the unlit city, she remembered the unease that was out there in the streets as well as in the wards, and was like the darkness itself. Nothing in her routine, not even Sister Drummond, could protect her from it.
1 swollen | |
adj.肿大的,水涨的;v.使变大,肿胀 | |
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2 malign | |
adj.有害的;恶性的;恶意的;v.诽谤,诬蔑 | |
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3 concealed | |
a.隐藏的,隐蔽的 | |
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4 intersections | |
n.横断( intersection的名词复数 );交叉;交叉点;交集 | |
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5 consultant | |
n.顾问;会诊医师,专科医生 | |
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6 depressed | |
adj.沮丧的,抑郁的,不景气的,萧条的 | |
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7 ward | |
n.守卫,监护,病房,行政区,由监护人或法院保护的人(尤指儿童);vt.守护,躲开 | |
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8 wards | |
区( ward的名词复数 ); 病房; 受监护的未成年者; 被人照顾或控制的状态 | |
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9 wireless | |
adj.无线的;n.无线电 | |
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10 purely | |
adv.纯粹地,完全地 | |
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11 epidemic | |
n.流行病;盛行;adj.流行性的,流传极广的 | |
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12 trainees | |
新兵( trainee的名词复数 ); 练习生; 接受训练的人; 训练中的动物 | |
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13 tempted | |
v.怂恿(某人)干不正当的事;冒…的险(tempt的过去分词) | |
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14 muffled | |
adj.(声音)被隔的;听不太清的;(衣服)裹严的;蒙住的v.压抑,捂住( muffle的过去式和过去分词 );用厚厚的衣帽包着(自己) | |
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15 labored | |
adj.吃力的,谨慎的v.努力争取(for)( labor的过去式和过去分词 );苦干;详细分析;(指引擎)缓慢而困难地运转 | |
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16 spoke | |
n.(车轮的)辐条;轮辐;破坏某人的计划;阻挠某人的行动 v.讲,谈(speak的过去式);说;演说;从某种观点来说 | |
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17 disquiet | |
n.担心,焦虑 | |
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18 superstitious | |
adj.迷信的 | |
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19 dread | |
vt.担忧,忧虑;惧怕,不敢;n.担忧,畏惧 | |
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20 pervasive | |
adj.普遍的;遍布的,(到处)弥漫的;渗透性的 | |
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21 meager | |
adj.缺乏的,不足的,瘦的 | |
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22 softening | |
变软,软化 | |
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23 quaffed | |
v.痛饮( quaff的过去式和过去分词 );畅饮;大口大口将…喝干;一饮而尽 | |
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24 pint | |
n.品脱 | |
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25 prone | |
adj.(to)易于…的,很可能…的;俯卧的 | |
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26 enraged | |
使暴怒( enrage的过去式和过去分词 ); 歜; 激愤 | |
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27 lapses | |
n.失误,过失( lapse的名词复数 );小毛病;行为失检;偏离正道v.退步( lapse的第三人称单数 );陷入;倒退;丧失 | |
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28 accrue | |
v.(利息等)增大,增多 | |
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29 improperly | |
不正确地,不适当地 | |
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30 starched | |
adj.浆硬的,硬挺的,拘泥刻板的v.把(衣服、床单等)浆一浆( starch的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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31 disarray | |
n.混乱,紊乱,凌乱 | |
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32 noted | |
adj.著名的,知名的 | |
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33 wrath | |
n.愤怒,愤慨,暴怒 | |
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34 subdued | |
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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35 preoccupied | |
adj.全神贯注的,入神的;被抢先占有的;心事重重的v.占据(某人)思想,使对…全神贯注,使专心于( preoccupy的过去式) | |
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36 surgical | |
adj.外科的,外科医生的,手术上的 | |
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37 kindly | |
adj.和蔼的,温和的,爽快的;adv.温和地,亲切地 | |
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38 dispelled | |
v.驱散,赶跑( dispel的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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39 reassuring | |
a.使人消除恐惧和疑虑的,使人放心的 | |
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40 anesthetic | |
n.麻醉剂,麻药;adj.麻醉的,失去知觉的 | |
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41 standing | |
n.持续,地位;adj.永久的,不动的,直立的,不流动的 | |
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42 aspired | |
v.渴望,追求( aspire的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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43 linen | |
n.亚麻布,亚麻线,亚麻制品;adj.亚麻布制的,亚麻的 | |
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44 etiquette | |
n.礼仪,礼节;规矩 | |
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45 Christian | |
adj.基督教徒的;n.基督教徒 | |
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46 intensified | |
v.(使)增强, (使)加剧( intensify的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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47 bumper | |
n.(汽车上的)保险杠;adj.特大的,丰盛的 | |
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48 lockers | |
n.寄物柜( locker的名词复数 ) | |
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49 mattresses | |
褥垫,床垫( mattress的名词复数 ) | |
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50 fumigated | |
v.用化学品熏(某物)消毒( fumigate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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51 brass | |
n.黄铜;黄铜器,铜管乐器 | |
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52 scoured | |
走遍(某地)搜寻(人或物)( scour的过去式和过去分词 ); (用力)刷; 擦净; 擦亮 | |
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53 filthy | |
adj.卑劣的;恶劣的,肮脏的 | |
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54 initiated | |
n. 创始人 adj. 新加入的 vt. 开始,创始,启蒙,介绍加入 | |
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55 cult | |
n.异教,邪教;时尚,狂热的崇拜 | |
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56 hygiene | |
n.健康法,卫生学 (a.hygienic) | |
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57 loathsome | |
adj.讨厌的,令人厌恶的 | |
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58 concealing | |
v.隐藏,隐瞒,遮住( conceal的现在分词 ) | |
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59 battalion | |
n.营;部队;大队(的人) | |
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60 unpacked | |
v.从(包裹等)中取出(所装的东西),打开行李取出( unpack的过去式和过去分词 );拆包;解除…的负担;吐露(心事等) | |
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61 inventoried | |
vt.编制…的目录(inventory的过去式与过去分词形式) | |
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62 dressing | |
n.(食物)调料;包扎伤口的用品,敷料 | |
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63 spacious | |
adj.广阔的,宽敞的 | |
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64 consultants | |
顾问( consultant的名词复数 ); 高级顾问医生,会诊医生 | |
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65 creasing | |
(使…)起折痕,弄皱( crease的现在分词 ); (皮肤)皱起,使起皱纹; 挑檐 | |
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66 speculation | |
n.思索,沉思;猜测;投机 | |
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67 demonstrations | |
证明( demonstration的名词复数 ); 表明; 表达; 游行示威 | |
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68 scrap | |
n.碎片;废料;v.废弃,报废 | |
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69 freckled | |
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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70 wary | |
adj.谨慎的,机警的,小心的 | |
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71 bosom | |
n.胸,胸部;胸怀;内心;adj.亲密的 | |
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72 inscribed | |
v.写,刻( inscribe的过去式和过去分词 );内接 | |
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73 stilted | |
adj.虚饰的;夸张的 | |
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74 flannel | |
n.法兰绒;法兰绒衣服 | |
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75 dreaded | |
adj.令人畏惧的;害怕的v.害怕,恐惧,担心( dread的过去式和过去分词) | |
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76 indifference | |
n.不感兴趣,不关心,冷淡,不在乎 | |
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77 contemplated | |
adj. 预期的 动词contemplate的过去分词形式 | |
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78 humiliation | |
n.羞辱 | |
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79 courteously | |
adv.有礼貌地,亲切地 | |
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80 blandly | |
adv.温和地,殷勤地 | |
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81 impaired | |
adj.受损的;出毛病的;有(身体或智力)缺陷的v.损害,削弱( impair的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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82 obedience | |
n.服从,顺从 | |
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83 discomfort | |
n.不舒服,不安,难过,困难,不方便 | |
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84 soda | |
n.苏打水;汽水 | |
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85 eroded | |
adj. 被侵蚀的,有蚀痕的 动词erode的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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86 diverge | |
v.分叉,分歧,离题,使...岔开,使转向 | |
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87 enveloping | |
v.包围,笼罩,包住( envelop的现在分词 ) | |
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88 disapproval | |
n.反对,不赞成 | |
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89 batch | |
n.一批(组,群);一批生产量 | |
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90 intake | |
n.吸入,纳入;进气口,入口 | |
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91 sluiced | |
v.冲洗( sluice的过去式和过去分词 );(指水)喷涌而出;漂净;给…安装水闸 | |
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92 competence | |
n.能力,胜任,称职 | |
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93 entrusted | |
v.委托,托付( entrust的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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94 supervision | |
n.监督,管理 | |
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95 dabbed | |
(用某物)轻触( dab的过去式和过去分词 ); 轻而快地擦掉(或抹掉); 快速擦拭; (用某物)轻而快地涂上(或点上)… | |
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96 lotion | |
n.洗剂 | |
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97 bruise | |
n.青肿,挫伤;伤痕;vt.打青;挫伤 | |
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