The old Art Institute, which preceded the present impressive structure, was located at Michigan Avenue and Monroe Street, and presented an atmosphere of distinction which was not present in most of the structures representing the public taste of the period. It was a large six storey building of brown stone, and contained a number of studios for painters, sculptors5, and music teachers, besides the exhibition rooms and the rooms for the classes. There were both day and evening classes, and even at that time a large number of students. The western soul, to a certain extent, was fired by the wonder of art. There was so little of it in the life of the people—the fame of those who could accomplish things in this field and live in a more refined atmosphere was great. To go to Paris! To be a student in any one of the great ateliers of that city! Or of Munich or Rome, to know the character of the artistic6 treasures of Europe—the life of the Art quarter—that was something. There was what might have been termed a wild desire in the breast of many an untutored boy and girl to get out of the ranks of the commonplace; to assume the character and the habiliments of the artistic temperament7 as they were then supposed to be; to have a refined, semi-languorous, semi-indifferent manner; to live in a studio, to have a certain freedom in morals and temperament not accorded to the ordinary person—these were the great things to do and be. Of course, art composition was a part of this. You were supposed ultimately to paint great pictures or do noble sculptures, but in the meanwhile you could and should live the life of the artist. And that was beautiful and wonderful and free.
Eugene had long had some sense of this. He was aware that there were studios in Chicago; that certain men were supposed to be doing good work—he saw it in the papers. There were mentions now and then of exhibitions, mostly free, which the public attended but sparingly. Once there was an exhibition of some of the war pictures of Verestchagin, a great Russian painter who had come West for some purpose. Eugene saw them one Sunday afternoon, and was enthralled8 by the magnificence of their grasp of the elements of battle; the wonder of color; the truth of character; the dramatic quality; the sense of force and danger and horror and suffering which was somehow around and in and through everything that was shown. This man had virility9 and insight; stupendous imagination and temperament. Eugene stood and stared, wondering how such things could be done. Ever afterward10 the name of Verestchagin was like a great call to his imagination; that was the kind of an artist to be if you were going to be one.
Another picture came there once, which appealed to another side of his nature, although primarily the basis of its appeal was artistic. It was a great, warm tinted11 nude12 by Bouguereau, a French artist who was startling his day with his daring portrayal13 of the nude. The types he depicted14 were not namby-pamby little slim-bodied women with spindling qualities of strength and passion, but great, full-blown women whose voluptuous15 contour of neck and arms and torso and hip16 and thigh17 was enough to set the blood of youth at fever heat. The man obviously understood and had passion, love of form, love of desire, love of beauty. He painted with a sense of the bridal bed in the background; of motherhood and of fat, growing babies, joyously18 nursed. These women stood up big in their sense of beauty and magnetism19, the soft lure20 of desire in their eyes, their full lips parted, their cheeks flushed with the blood of health. As such they were anathema21 to the conservative and puritanical22 in mind, the religious in temperament, the cautious in training or taste. The very bringing of this picture to Chicago as a product for sale was enough to create a furore of objection. Such pictures should not be painted, was the cry of the press; or if painted, not exhibited. Bouguereau was conceived of by many as one of those dastards of art who were endeavoring to corrupt23 by their talent the morals of the world; there was a cry raised that the thing should be suppressed; and as is always the case in all such outbursts of special class opposition24, the interest of the general public was aroused.
Eugene was one of those who noted25 the discussion. He had never seen a picture by Bouguereau or, indeed, an original nude by any other artist. Being usually at liberty after three o'clock, he was free to visit some of these things, and having found it possible to do his work in good clothes he had come to wear his best suit every day. He was a fairly presentable youth with a solemn mien26, and his request to be shown anything in any art store would have aroused no surprise. He looked as though he belonged to the intellectual and artistic classes.
Not being sure of what reception would be accorded one so young—he was now nearing twenty—he nevertheless ventured to stop at the gallery where the Bouguereau was being exhibited and ask to see it. The attendant in charge eyed him curiously27, but led him back to a room hung in dark red, and turning on a burst of incandescent28 bulbs set in the ceiling of a red plush hung cabinet, pulled back the curtain revealing the picture. Eugene had never seen such a figure and face. It was a dream of beauty—his ideal come to life. He studied the face and neck, the soft mass of brown, sensuous29 hair massed at the back of the head, the flowerlike lips and soft cheeks. He marveled at the suggestion of the breasts and the abdomen30, that potentiality of motherhood that is so firing to the male. He could have stood there hours dreaming, luxuriating, but the attendant who had left him alone with it for a few minutes returned.
"What is the price of this?" Eugene asked.
"Ten thousand dollars," was the reply.
He smiled solemnly. "It's a wonderful thing," he said, and turned to go. The attendant put out the light.
This picture, like those of Verestchagin, made a sharp impression on him. Curiously he had no longing31 to paint anything of this kind. He only rejoiced to look at it. It spoke32 to him of his present ideal of womanhood—physical beauty, and he longed with all his heart to find a creature like that who would look on him with favor.
There were other exhibitions—one containing a genuine Rembrandt—which impressed him, but none like these that had definitely stirred him. His interest in art was becoming eager. He wanted to find out all about it—to do something himself. One day he ventured to call at the Art Institute building and consult the secretary, who explained to him what the charges were. He learned from her, for she was a woman of a practical, clerical turn, that the classes ran from October to May, that he could enter a life or antique class or both, though the antique alone was advisable for the time, and a class in illustration, where costumes of different periods were presented on different models. He found that each class had an instructor33 of supposed note, whom it was not necessary for him to see. Each class had a monitor and each student was supposed to work faithfully for his own benefit. Eugene did not get to see the class rooms, but he gained a sense of the art of it all, nevertheless, for the halls and offices were decorated in an artistic way, and there were many plaster casts of arms, legs, busts34, and thighs35 and heads. It was as though one stood in an open doorway36 and looked out upon a new world. The one thing that gratified him was that he could study pen and ink or brush in the illustration class, and that he could also join a sketch37 class from five to six every afternoon without extra charges if he preferred to devote his evening hours to studying drawing in the life class. He was a little astonished to learn from a printed prospectus38 given him that the life class meant nude models to work from—both men and women. He was surely approaching a different world now. It seemed necessary and natural enough, and yet there was an aloof39 atmosphere about it, something that suggested the inner precincts of a shrine40, to which only talent was admitted. Was he talented? Wait! He would show the world, even if he was a raw country boy.
The classes which he decided to enter were first a life class which convened41 Monday, Wednesday and Friday evenings at seven in one of the study rooms and remained in session until ten o'clock, and second a sketch class which met from five to six every afternoon. Eugene felt that he knew little or nothing about figure and anatomy42 and had better work at that. Costume and illustration would have to wait, and as for the landscapes, or rather city-scapes, of which he was so fond, he could afford to defer44 those until he learned something of the fundamentals of art.
Heretofore he had rarely attempted the drawing of a face or figure except in miniature and as details of a larger scene. Now he was confronted with the necessity of sketching45 in charcoal46 the head or body of a living person, and it frightened him a little. He knew that he would be in a class with fifteen or twenty other male students. They would be able to see and comment on what he was doing. Twice a week an instructor would come around and pass upon his work. There were honors for those who did the best work during any one month, he learned from the prospectus, namely: first choice of seats around the model at the beginning of each new pose. The class instructors47 must be of considerable significance in the American art world, he thought, for they were N. A.'s, and that meant National Academicians. He little knew with what contempt this honor was received in some quarters, or he would not have attached so much significance to it.
One Monday evening in October, armed with the several sheets of paper which he had been told to purchase by his all-informing prospectus, he began his work. He was a little nervous at sight of the brightly lighted halls and class rooms, and the moving crowd of young men and women did not tend to allay48 his fears. He was struck at once with the quality of gaiety, determination and easy grace which marked the different members of this company. The boys struck him as interesting, virile49, in many cases good looking; the girls as graceful50, rather dashing and confident. One or two whom he noted were beautiful in a dark way. This was a wonderful world.
The rooms too, were exceptional. They were old enough in use to be almost completely covered, as to the walls, with the accumulation of paint scraped from the palettes. There were no easels or other paraphernalia51, but simply chairs and little stools—the former, as Eugene learned, to be turned upside down for easels, the latter for the students to sit on. In the center of the room was a platform, the height of an ordinary table, for the model to pose on, and in one corner a screen which constituted a dressing52 room. There were no pictures or statuary—just the bare walls—but curiously, in one corner, a piano. Out in the halls and in the general lounging center were pictures of nude figures or parts of figures posed in all sorts of ways which Eugene, in his raw, youthful way, thought suggestive. He secretly rejoiced to look at them but he felt that he must not say anything about what he thought. An art student, he felt sure, must appear to be indifferent to such suggestion—to be above such desire. They were here to work, not to dream of women.
When the time came for the classes to assemble there was a scurrying53 to and fro, conferring between different students, and then the men found themselves in one set of rooms and the women in another. Eugene saw a young girl in his room, sitting up near the screen, idly gazing about. She was pretty, of a slightly Irish cast of countenance54, with black hair and black eyes. She wore a cap that was an imitation of the Polish national head-dress, and a red cape43. Eugene assumed her to be the class model and secretly wondered if he was really to see her in the nude. In a few minutes all the students were gathered, and then there was a stir as there strolled in a rather vigorous and picturesque55 man of thirty-six or thereabouts, who sauntered to the front of the room and called the class to order. He was clad in a shabby suit of grey tweed and crowned with a little brown hat, shoved rakishly over one ear, which he did not trouble to take off. He wore a soft blue hickory shirt without collar or tie, and looked immensely self-sufficient. He was tall and lean and raw-boned, with a face which was long and narrow; his eyes were large and wide set, his mouth big and firm in its lines; he had big hands and feet, and an almost rolling gait. Eugene assumed instinctively56 that this was Mr. Temple Boyle, N. A., the class instructor, and he imagined there would be an opening address of some kind. But the instructor merely announced that Mr. William Ray had been appointed monitor and that he hoped that there would be no disorder57 or wasting of time. There would be regular criticism days by him—Wednesdays and Fridays. He hoped that each pupil would be able to show marked improvement. The class would now begin work. Then he strolled out.
Eugene soon learned from one of the students that this really was Mr. Boyle. The young Irish girl had gone behind the screen. Eugene could see partially58, from where he was sitting, that she was disrobing. It shocked him a little, but he kept his courage and his countenance because of the presence of so many others. He turned a chair upside down as he saw the others do, and sat down on a stool. His charcoal was lying in a little box beside him. He straightened his paper on its board and fidgeted, keeping as still as he could. Some of the students were talking. Suddenly he saw the girl divest59 herself of a thin, gauze shirt, and the next moment she came out, naked and composed, to step upon the platform and stand perfectly60 erect61, her arms by her side, her head thrown back. Eugene tingled62 and blushed and was almost afraid to look directly at her. Then he took a stick of charcoal and began sketching feebly, attempting to convey something of this personality and this pose to paper. It seemed a wonderful thing for him to be doing—to be in this room, to see this girl posing so; in short, to be an art student. So this was what it was, a world absolutely different from anything he had ever known. And he was self-called to be a member of it.
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1
landlady
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| n.女房东，女地主 | |
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2
looming
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| n.上现蜃景（光通过低层大气发生异常折射形成的一种海市蜃楼）v.隐约出现，阴森地逼近( loom的现在分词 )；隐约出现，阴森地逼近 | |
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3
advancement
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| n.前进，促进，提升 | |
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4
decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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sculptors
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| 雕刻家，雕塑家( sculptor的名词复数 )； [天]玉夫座 | |
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artistic
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| adj.艺术(家)的，美术(家)的；善于艺术创作的 | |
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7
temperament
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| n.气质，性格，性情 | |
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enthralled
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| 迷住，吸引住( enthrall的过去式和过去分词 )； 使感到非常愉快 | |
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9
virility
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| n.雄劲，丈夫气 | |
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10
afterward
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| adv.后来；以后 | |
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11
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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12
nude
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| adj.裸体的；n.裸体者，裸体艺术品 | |
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13
portrayal
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| n.饰演；描画 | |
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14
depicted
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| 描绘，描画( depict的过去式和过去分词 )； 描述 | |
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15
voluptuous
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| adj.肉欲的，骄奢淫逸的 | |
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16
hip
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| n.臀部，髋；屋脊 | |
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thigh
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| n.大腿；股骨 | |
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18
joyously
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| ad.快乐地, 高兴地 | |
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19
magnetism
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| n.磁性，吸引力，磁学 | |
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20
lure
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| n.吸引人的东西，诱惑物；vt.引诱，吸引 | |
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21
anathema
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| n.诅咒；被诅咒的人(物)，十分讨厌的人(物) | |
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22
puritanical
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| adj.极端拘谨的；道德严格的 | |
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23
corrupt
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| v.贿赂，收买；adj.腐败的，贪污的 | |
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24
opposition
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| n.反对，敌对 | |
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25
noted
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| adj.著名的，知名的 | |
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mien
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| n.风采；态度 | |
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curiously
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| adv.有求知欲地；好问地；奇特地 | |
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28
incandescent
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| adj.遇热发光的， 白炽的，感情强烈的 | |
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29
sensuous
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| adj.激发美感的；感官的，感觉上的 | |
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30
abdomen
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| n.腹，下腹(胸部到腿部的部分) | |
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31
longing
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| n.（for）渴望 | |
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32
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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33
instructor
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| n.指导者，教员，教练 | |
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34
busts
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| 半身雕塑像( bust的名词复数 )； 妇女的胸部； 胸围； 突击搜捕 | |
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35
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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36
doorway
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| n.门口，(喻)入门；门路，途径 | |
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37
sketch
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| n.草图；梗概；素描；v.素描；概述 | |
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38
prospectus
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| n.计划书；说明书；慕股书 | |
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39
aloof
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| adj.远离的；冷淡的，漠不关心的 | |
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40
shrine
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| n.圣地，神龛，庙；v.将...置于神龛内，把...奉为神圣 | |
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41
convened
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| 召开( convene的过去式 )； 召集； （为正式会议而）聚集； 集合 | |
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42
anatomy
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| n.解剖学，解剖；功能，结构，组织 | |
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43
cape
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| n.海角，岬；披肩，短披风 | |
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44
defer
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| vt.推迟，拖延；vi.(to)遵从，听从，服从 | |
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45
sketching
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| n.草图 | |
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46
charcoal
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| n.炭，木炭，生物炭 | |
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47
instructors
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| 指导者，教师( instructor的名词复数 ) | |
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48
allay
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| v.消除，减轻(恐惧、怀疑等) | |
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49
virile
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| adj.男性的；有男性生殖力的；有男子气概的；强有力的 | |
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50
graceful
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| adj.优美的，优雅的；得体的 | |
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51
paraphernalia
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| n.装备；随身用品 | |
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52
dressing
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| n.(食物)调料；包扎伤口的用品，敷料 | |
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53
scurrying
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| v.急匆匆地走( scurry的现在分词 ) | |
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54
countenance
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| n.脸色，面容；面部表情；vt.支持，赞同 | |
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55
picturesque
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| adj.美丽如画的，（语言）生动的，绘声绘色的 | |
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56
instinctively
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| adv.本能地 | |
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57
disorder
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| n.紊乱，混乱；骚动，骚乱；疾病，失调 | |
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58
partially
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| adv.部分地，从某些方面讲 | |
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59
divest
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| v.脱去，剥除 | |
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perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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61
erect
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| n./v.树立，建立，使竖立；adj.直立的，垂直的 | |
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62
tingled
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| v.有刺痛感( tingle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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