Those fifty-one days of fine sailing and intense sobriety had put me in splendid fettle. The alcohol had been worked out of my system, and from the moment the voyage began I had not known the desire for a drink. I doubt if I even thought once about a drink. Often, of course, the talk in the forecastle turned on drink, and the men told of their more exciting or humorous drunks, remembering such passages more keenly, with greater delight, than all the other passages of their adventurous4 lives.
In the forecastle, the oldest man, fat and fifty, was Louis. He was a broken skipper. John Barleycorn had thrown him, and he was winding5 up his career where he had begun it, in the forecastle. His case made quite an impression on me. John Barleycorn did other things beside kill a man. He hadn't killed Louis. He had done much worse. He had robbed him of power and place and comfort, crucified his pride, and condemned6 him to the hardship of the common sailor that would last as long as his healthy breath lasted, which promised to be for a long time.
We completed our run across the Pacific, lifted the volcanic7 peaks, jungle-clad, of the Bonin Islands, sailed in among the reefs to the land-locked harbour, and let our anchor rumble8 down where lay a score or more of sea-gypsies like ourselves. The scents9 of strange vegetation blew off the tropic land. Aborigines, in queer outrigger canoes, and Japanese, in queerer sampans, paddled about the bay and came aboard. It was my first foreign land; I had won to the other side of the world, and I would see all I had read in the books come true. I was wild to get ashore10.
Victor and Axel, a Swede and a Norwegian, and I planned to keep together. (And so well did we, that for the rest of the cruise we were known as the "Three Sports.") Victor pointed11 out a pathway that disappeared up a wild canyon12, emerged on a steep bare lava13 slope, and thereafter appeared and disappeared, ever climbing, among the palms and flowers. We would go over that path, he said, and we agreed, and we would see beautiful scenery, and strange native villages, and find, Heaven alone knew, what adventure at the end. And Axel was keen to go fishing. The three of us agreed to that, too. We would get a sampan, and a couple of Japanese fishermen who knew the fishing grounds, and we would have great sport. As for me, I was keen for anything.
And then, our plans made, we rowed ashore over the banks of living coral and pulled our boat up the white beach of coral sand. We walked across the fringe of beach under the cocoanut-palms and into the little town, and found several hundred riotous14 seamen15 from all the world, drinking prodigiously16, singing prodigiously, dancing prodigiously—and all on the main street to the scandal of a helpless handful of Japanese police.
Victor and Axel said that we'd have a drink before we started on our long walk. Could I decline to drink with these two chesty shipmates? Drinking together, glass in hand, put the seal on comradeship. It was the way of life. Our teetotaler owner-captain was laughed at, and sneered17 at, by all of us because of his teetotalism. I didn't in the least want a drink, but I did want to be a good fellow and a good comrade. Nor did Louis' case deter18 me, as I poured the biting, scorching19 stuff down my throat. John Barleycorn had thrown Louis to a nasty fall, but I was young. My blood ran full and red; I had a constitution of iron; and—well, youth ever grins scornfully at the wreckage20 of age.
Queer, fierce, alcoholic21 stuff it was that we drank. There was no telling where or how it had been manufactured—some native concoction22 most likely. But it was hot as fire, pale as water, and quick as death with its kick. It had been filled into empty "square-face" bottles which had once contained Holland gin, and which still bore the fitting legend "Anchor Brand." It certainly anchored us. We never got out of the town. We never went fishing in the sampan. And though we were there ten days, we never trod that wild path along the lava cliffs and among the flowers.
We met old acquaintances from other schooners24, fellows we had met in the saloons of San Francisco before we sailed. And each meeting meant a drink; and there was much to talk about; and more drinks; and songs to be sung; and pranks25 and antics to be performed, until the maggots of imagination began to crawl, and it all seemed great and wonderful to me, these lusty hard-bitten sea-rovers, of whom I made one, gathered in wassail on a coral strand26. Old lines about knights27 at table in the great banquet halls, and of those above the salt and below the salt, and of Vikings feasting fresh from sea and ripe for battle, came to me; and I knew that the old times were not dead and that we belonged to that selfsame ancient breed.
By mid-afternoon Victor went mad with drink, and wanted to fight everybody and everything. I have since seen lunatics in the violent wards28 of asylums29 that seemed to behave in no wise different from Victor's way, save that perhaps he was more violent. Axel and I interfered30 as peacemakers, were roughed and jostled in the mix-ups, and finally, with infinite precaution and intoxicated32 cunning, succeeded in inveigling33 our chum down to the boat and in rowing him aboard our schooner23.
But no sooner did Victor's feet touch the deck than he began to clean up the ship. He had the strength of several men, and he ran amuck34 with it. I remember especially one man whom he got into the chain-boxes but failed to damage through inability to hit him. The man dodged35 and ducked, and Victor broke all the knuckles36 of both his fists against the huge links of the anchor chain. By the time we dragged him out of that, his madness had shifted to the belief that he was a great swimmer, and the next moment he was overboard and demonstrating his ability by floundering like a sick porpoise37 and swallowing much salt water.
We rescued him, and by the time we got him below, undressed, and into his bunk38, we were wrecks39 ourselves. But Axel and I wanted to see more of shore, and away we went, leaving Victor snoring. It was curious, the judgment40 passed on Victor by his shipmates, drinkers themselves. They shook their heads disapprovingly41 and muttered: "A man like that oughtn't to drink." Now Victor was the smartest sailor and best-tempered shipmate in the forecastle. He was an all-round splendid type of seaman42; his mates recognised his worth, and respected him and liked him. Yet John Barleycorn metamorphosed him into a violent lunatic. And that was the very point these drinkers made. They knew that drink—and drink with a sailor is always excessive—made them mad, but only mildly mad. Violent madness was objectionable because it spoiled the fun of others and often culminated43 in tragedy. From their standpoint, mild madness was all right. But from the standpoint of the whole human race, is not all madness objectionable? And is there a greater maker31 of madness of all sorts than John Barleycorn?
But to return. Ashore, snugly44 ensconced in a Japanese house of entertainment, Axel and I compared bruises45, and over a comfortable drink talked of the afternoon's happenings. We liked the quietness of that drink and took another. A shipmate dropped in, several shipmates dropped in, and we had more quiet drinks. Finally, just as we had engaged a Japanese orchestra, and as the first strains of the samisens and taikos were rising, through the paper-walls came a wild howl from the street. We recognised it. Still howling, disdaining46 doorways48, with blood-shot eyes and wildly waving muscular arms, Victor burst upon us through the fragile walls. The old amuck rage was on him, and he wanted blood, anybody's blood. The orchestra fled; so did we. We went through doorways, and we went through paper-walls—anything to get away.
And after the place was half wrecked49, and we had agreed to pay the damage, leaving Victor partly subdued50 and showing symptoms of lapsing51 into a comatose52 state, Axel and I wandered away in quest of a quieter drinking-place. The main street was a madness. Hundreds of sailors rollicked up and down. Because the chief of police with his small force was helpless, the governor of the colony had issued orders to the captains to have all their men on board by sunset.
What! To be treated in such fashion! As the news spread among the schooners, they were emptied. Everybody came ashore. Men who had had no intention of coming ashore climbed into the boats. The unfortunate governor's ukase had precipitated53 a general debauch54 for all hands. It was hours after sunset, and the men wanted to see anybody try to put them on board. They went around inviting55 the authorities to try to put them on board. In front of the governor's house they were gathered thickest, bawling56 sea-songs, circulating square faces, and dancing uproarious Virginia reels and old-country dances. The police, including the reserves, stood in little forlorn groups, waiting for the command the governor was too wise to issue. And I thought this saturnalia was great. It was like the old days of the Spanish Main come back. It was license57; it was adventure. And I was part of it, a chesty sea-rover along with all these other chesty sea-rovers among the paper houses of Japan.
The governor never issued the order to clear the streets, and Axel and I wandered on from drink to drink. After a time, in some of the antics, getting hazy58 myself, I lost him. I drifted along, making new acquaintances, downing more drinks, getting hazier59 and hazier. I remember, somewhere, sitting in a circle with Japanese fishermen, Kanaka boat-steerers from our own vessels60, and a young Danish sailor fresh from cowboying in the Argentine and with a penchant61 for native customs and ceremonials. And with due and proper and most intricate Japanese ceremonial we of the circle drank saki, pale, mild, and lukewarm, from tiny porcelain62 bowls.
And, later, I remember the runaway63 apprentices64—boys of eighteen and twenty, of middle class English families, who had jumped their ships and apprenticeships in various ports of the world and drifted into the forecastles of the sealing schooners. They were healthy, smooth-skinned, clear-eyed, and they were young—youths like me, learning the way of their feet in the world of men. And they WERE men. No mild saki for them, but square faces illicitly65 refilled with corrosive66 fire that flamed through their veins67 and burst into conflagrations68 in their heads. I remember a melting song they sang, the refrain of which was:
"'Tis but a little golden ring,
I give it to thee with pride,
Wear it for your mother's sake
When you are on the tide."
They wept over it as they sang it, the graceless young scamps who had all broken their mothers' prides, and I sang with them, and wept with them, and luxuriated in the pathos69 and the tragedy of it, and struggled to make glimmering70 inebriated71 generalisations on life and romance. And one last picture I have, standing72 out very clear and bright in the midst of vagueness before and blackness afterward73. We—the apprentices and I—are swaying and clinging to one another under the stars. We are singing a rollicking sea song, all save one who sits on the ground and weeps; and we are marking the rhythm with waving square faces. From up and down the street come far choruses of sea-voices similarly singing, and life is great, and beautiful and romantic, and magnificently mad.
And next, after the blackness, I open my eyes in the early dawn to see a Japanese woman, solicitously74 anxious, bending over me. She is the port pilot's wife and I am lying in her doorway47. I am chilled and shivering, sick with the after-sickness of debauch. And I feel lightly clad. Those rascals75 of runaway apprentices! They have acquired the habit of running away. They have run away with my possessions. My watch is gone. My few dollars are gone. My coat is gone. So is my belt. And yes, my shoes.
And the foregoing is a sample of the ten days I spent in the Bonin Islands. Victor got over his lunacy, rejoined Axel and me, and after that we caroused76 somewhat more discreetly77. And we never climbed that lava path among the flowers. The town and the square faces were all we saw.
One who has been burned by fire must preach about the fire. I might have seen and healthily enjoyed a whole lot more of the Bonin Islands, if I had done what I ought to have done. But, as I see it, it is not a matter of what one ought to do, or ought not to do. It is what one DOES do. That is the everlasting78, irrefragable fact. I did just what I did. I did what all those men did in the Bonin Islands. I did what millions of men over the world were doing at that particular point in time. I did it because the way led to it, because I was only a human boy, a creature of my environment, and neither an anaemic nor a god. I was just human, and I was taking the path in the world that men took—men whom I admired, if you please; full-blooded men, lusty, breedy, chesty men, free spirits and anything but niggards in the way they foamed79 life away.
And the way was open. It was like an uncovered well in a yard where children play. It is small use to tell the brave little boys toddling80 their way along into knowledge of life that they mustn't play near the uncovered well. They'll play near it. Any parent knows that. And we know that a certain percentage of them, the livest and most daring, will fall into the well. The thing to do—we all know it—is to cover up the well. The case is the same with John Barleycorn. All the no-saying and no-preaching in the world will fail to keep men, and youths growing into manhood, away from John Barleycorn when John Barleycorn is everywhere accessible, and where John Barleycorn is everywhere the connotation of manliness81, and daring, and great-spiritedness.
The only rational thing for the twentieth-century folk to do is to cover up the well; to make the twentieth century in truth the twentieth century, and to relegate82 to the nineteenth century and all the preceding centuries the things of those centuries, the witch-burnings, the intolerances, the fetiches, and, not least among such barbarisms, John Barleycorn.
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1
isolated
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| adj.与世隔绝的 | |
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rendezvous
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| n.约会，约会地点，汇合点；vi.汇合，集合；vt.使汇合，使在汇合地点相遇 | |
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harrying
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| v.使苦恼( harry的现在分词 )；不断烦扰；一再袭击；侵扰 | |
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adventurous
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| adj.爱冒险的；惊心动魄的，惊险的，刺激的 | |
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winding
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| n.绕，缠，绕组，线圈 | |
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condemned
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| adj. 被责难的, 被宣告有罪的 动词condemn的过去式和过去分词 | |
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volcanic
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| adj.火山的；象火山的；由火山引起的 | |
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rumble
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| n.隆隆声；吵嚷；v.隆隆响；低沉地说 | |
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scents
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| n.香水( scent的名词复数 )；气味；（动物的）臭迹；（尤指狗的）嗅觉 | |
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ashore
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| adv.在(向)岸上，上岸 | |
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pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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canyon
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| n.峡谷，溪谷 | |
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lava
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| n.熔岩，火山岩 | |
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14
riotous
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| adj.骚乱的；狂欢的 | |
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seamen
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| n.海员 | |
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prodigiously
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| adv.异常地，惊人地，巨大地 | |
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sneered
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| 讥笑，冷笑( sneer的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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18
deter
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| vt.阻止，使不敢，吓住 | |
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scorching
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| adj. 灼热的 | |
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wreckage
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| n.（失事飞机等的）残骸，破坏，毁坏 | |
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alcoholic
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| adj.（含）酒精的，由酒精引起的；n.酗酒者 | |
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concoction
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| n.调配(物)；谎言 | |
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schooner
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| n.纵帆船 | |
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schooners
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| n.（有两个以上桅杆的）纵帆船( schooner的名词复数 ) | |
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pranks
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| n.玩笑，恶作剧( prank的名词复数 ) | |
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strand
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| vt.使（船）搁浅，使（某人）困于（某地） | |
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knights
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| 骑士； （中古时代的）武士( knight的名词复数 )； 骑士； 爵士； （国际象棋中）马 | |
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28
wards
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| 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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29
asylums
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| n.避难所( asylum的名词复数 )；庇护；政治避难；精神病院 | |
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interfered
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| v.干预( interfere的过去式和过去分词 )；调停；妨碍；干涉 | |
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maker
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| n.制造者，制造商 | |
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intoxicated
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| 喝醉的，极其兴奋的 | |
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33
inveigling
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| v.诱骗，引诱( inveigle的现在分词 ) | |
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34
amuck
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| ad.狂乱地 | |
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35
dodged
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| v.闪躲( dodge的过去式和过去分词 )；回避 | |
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36
knuckles
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| n.（指人）指关节( knuckle的名词复数 )；（指动物）膝关节，踝v.（指人）指关节( knuckle的第三人称单数 )；（指动物）膝关节，踝 | |
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porpoise
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| n.鼠海豚 | |
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bunk
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| n.(车、船等倚壁而设的)铺位；废话 | |
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wrecks
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| n.沉船( wreck的名词复数 )；（事故中）遭严重毁坏的汽车（或飞机等）；（身体或精神上）受到严重损伤的人；状况非常糟糕的车辆（或建筑物等）v.毁坏[毁灭]某物( wreck的第三人称单数 )；使（船舶）失事，使遇难，使下沉 | |
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40
judgment
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| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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disapprovingly
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| adv.不以为然地，不赞成地，非难地 | |
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42
seaman
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| n.海员，水手，水兵 | |
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43
culminated
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| v.达到极点( culminate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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snugly
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| adv.紧贴地；贴身地；暖和舒适地；安适地 | |
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45
bruises
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| n.瘀伤，伤痕，擦伤( bruise的名词复数 ) | |
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disdaining
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| 鄙视( disdain的现在分词 )； 不屑于做，不愿意做 | |
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doorway
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| n.门口，(喻)入门；门路，途径 | |
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48
doorways
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| n.门口，门道( doorway的名词复数 ) | |
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49
wrecked
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| adj.失事的，遇难的 | |
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50
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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51
lapsing
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| v.退步( lapse的现在分词 )；陷入；倒退；丧失 | |
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52
comatose
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| adj.昏睡的，昏迷不醒的 | |
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53
precipitated
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| v.（突如其来地）使发生( precipitate的过去式和过去分词 )；促成；猛然摔下；使沉淀 | |
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54
debauch
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| v.使堕落，放纵 | |
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inviting
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| adj.诱人的，引人注目的 | |
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bawling
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| v.大叫，大喊( bawl的现在分词 )；放声大哭；大声叫出；叫卖（货物） | |
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license
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| n.执照，许可证，特许；v.许可，特许 | |
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hazy
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| adj.有薄雾的，朦胧的；不肯定的，模糊的 | |
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hazier
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| 有薄雾的( hazy的比较级 )； 模糊的； 不清楚的； 糊涂的 | |
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vessels
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| n.血管( vessel的名词复数 )；船；容器；（具有特殊品质或接受特殊品质的）人 | |
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61
penchant
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| n.爱好，嗜好；（强烈的）倾向 | |
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porcelain
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| n.瓷；adj.瓷的，瓷制的 | |
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runaway
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| n.逃走的人，逃亡，亡命者；adj.逃亡的，逃走的 | |
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apprentices
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| 学徒，徒弟( apprentice的名词复数 ) | |
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illicitly
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| 违法地，不正地 | |
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corrosive
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| adj.腐蚀性的；有害的；恶毒的 | |
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veins
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| n.纹理；矿脉( vein的名词复数 )；静脉；叶脉；纹理 | |
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conflagrations
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| n.大火（灾）( conflagration的名词复数 ) | |
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pathos
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| n.哀婉，悲怆 | |
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glimmering
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| n.微光，隐约的一瞥adj.薄弱地发光的v.发闪光，发微光( glimmer的现在分词 ) | |
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inebriated
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| adj.酒醉的 | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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73
afterward
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| adv.后来；以后 | |
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solicitously
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| adv.热心地，热切地 | |
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75
rascals
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| 流氓( rascal的名词复数 )； 无赖； （开玩笑说法）淘气的人（尤指小孩）； 恶作剧的人 | |
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caroused
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| v.痛饮，闹饮欢宴( carouse的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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discreetly
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| ad.(言行)审慎地，慎重地 | |
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everlasting
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| adj.永恒的，持久的，无止境的 | |
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79
foamed
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| 泡沫的 | |
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80
toddling
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| v.（幼儿等）东倒西歪地走( toddle的现在分词 )；蹒跚行走；溜达；散步 | |
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81
manliness
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| 刚毅 | |
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relegate
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| v.使降级，流放，移交，委任 | |
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