Inclined to long pauses and slow approaches herself, Euphemia was a great sitter at the feet of breathless volubility, and there were moments when she fairly hung upon the lips of Mademoiselle Marie de Mauves. Her intimacy28 with this chosen schoolmate was founded on the perception—all her own—that their differences were just the right ones. Mademoiselle de Mauves was very positive, very shrewd, very ironical29, very French—everything that Euphemia felt herself unpardonable for not being. During her Sundays en ville she had examined the world and judged it, and she imparted her impressions to our attentive30 heroine with an agreeable mixture of enthusiasm and scepticism. She was moreover a handsome and well-grown person, on whom Euphemia’s ribbons and trinkets had a trick of looking better than on their slender proprietress. She had finally the supreme31 merit of being a rigorous example of the virtue32 of exalted33 birth, having, as she did, ancestors honourably34 mentioned by Joinville and Commines, and a stately grandmother with a hooked nose who came up with her after the holidays from a veritable castel in Auvergne. It seemed to our own young woman that these attributes made her friend more at home in the world than if she had been the daughter of even the most prosperous grocer. A certain aristocratic impudence35 Mademoiselle de Mauves abundantly possessed36, and her raids among her friend’s finery were quite in the spirit of her baronial ancestors in the twelfth century—a spirit regarded by Euphemia but as a large way of understanding friendship, a freedom from conformities38 without style, and one that would sooner or later express itself in acts of surprising magnanimity. There doubtless prevailed in the breast of Mademoiselle de Mauves herself a dimmer vision of the large securities that Euphemia envied her. She was to become later in life so accomplished39 a schemer that her sense of having further heights to scale might well have waked up early. The especially fine appearance made by our heroine’s ribbons and trinkets as her friend wore them ministered to pleasure on both sides, and the spell was not of a nature to be menaced by the young American’s general gentleness. The concluding motive40 of Marie’s writing to her grandmamma to invite Euphemia for a three weeks’ holiday to the castel in Auvergne involved, however, the subtlest considerations. Mademoiselle de Mauves indeed, at this time seventeen years of age and capable of views as wide as her wants, was as proper a figure as could possibly have been found for the foreground of a scene artfully designed; and Euphemia, whose years were of like number, asked herself if a right harmony with such a place mightn’t come by humble41 prayer. It is a proof of the sincerity42 of the latter’s aspirations43 that the castel was not a shock to her faith. It was neither a cheerful nor a luxurious44 abode45, but it was as full of wonders as a box of old heirlooms or objects “willed.” It had battered46 towers and an empty moat, a rusty47 drawbridge and a court paved with crooked48 grass-grown slabs49 over which the antique coach-wheels of the lady with the hooked nose seemed to awaken50 the echoes of the seventeenth century. Euphemia was not frightened out of her dream; she had the pleasure of seeing all the easier passages translated into truth, as the learner of a language begins with the common words. She had a taste for old servants, old anecdotes51, old furniture, faded household colours and sweetly stale odours—musty treasures in which the Chateau52 de Mauves abounded53. She made a dozen sketches54 in water-colours after her conventual pattern; but sentimentally55, as one may say, she was for ever sketching56 with a freer hand.
Old Madame de Mauves had nothing severe but her nose, and she seemed to Euphemia—what indeed she had every claim to pass for—the very image and pattern of an “historical character.” Belonging to a great order of things, she patronised the young stranger who was ready to sit all day at her feet and listen to anecdotes of the bon temps and quotations57 from the family chronicles. Madame de Mauves was a very honest old woman; she uttered her thoughts with ancient plainness. One day after pushing back Euphemia’s shining locks and blinking with some tenderness from behind an immense face-a-main that acted as for the relegation58 of the girl herself to the glass case of a museum, she declared with an energetic shake of the head that she didn’t know what to make of such a little person. And in answer to the little person’s evident wonder, “I should like to advise you,” she said, “but you seem to me so all of a piece that I’m afraid that if I advise you I shall spoil you. It’s easy to see you’re not one of us. I don’t know whether you’re better, but you seem to me to have been wound up by some key that isn’t kept by your governess or your confessor or even your mother, but that you wear by a fine black ribbon round your own neck. Little persons in my day—when they were stupid they were very docile59, but when they were clever they were very sly! You’re clever enough, I imagine, and yet if I guessed all your secrets at this moment is there one I should have to frown at? I can tell you a wickeder one than any you’ve discovered for yourself. If you wish to live at ease in the doux pays de France don’t trouble too much about the key of your conscience or even about your conscience itself—I mean your own particular one. You’ll fancy it saying things it won’t help your case to hear. They’ll make you sad, and when you’re sad you’ll grow plain, and when you’re plain you’ll grow bitter, and when you’re bitter you’ll be peu aimable. I was brought up to think that a woman’s first duty is to be infinitely60 so, and the happiest women I’ve known have been in fact those who performed this duty faithfully. As you’re not a Catholic I suppose you can’t be a devote; and if you don’t take life as a fifty years’ mass the only way to take it’s as a game of skill. Listen to this. Not to lose at the game of life you must—I don’t say cheat, but not be too sure your neighbour won’t, and not be shocked out of your self-possession if he does. Don’t lose, my dear—I beseech61 you don’t lose. Be neither suspicious nor credulous62, and if you find your neighbour peeping don’t cry out; only very politely wait your own chance. I’ve had my revenge more than once in my day, but I really think the sweetest I could take, en somme, against the past I’ve known, would be to have your blest innocence63 profit by my experience.”
This was rather bewildering advice, but Euphemia understood it too little to be either edified64 or frightened. She sat listening to it very much as she would have listened to the speeches of an old lady in a comedy whose diction should strikingly correspond to the form of her high-backed armchair and the fashion of her coif. Her indifference65 was doubly dangerous, for Madame de Mauves spoke11 at the instance of coming events, and her words were the result of a worry of scruples—scruples in the light of which Euphemia was on the one hand too tender a victim to be sacrificed to an ambition and the prosperity of her own house on the other too precious a heritage to be sacrificed to an hesitation66. The prosperity in question had suffered repeated and grievous breaches67 and the menaced institution been overmuch pervaded68 by that cold comfort in which people are obliged to balance dinner-table allusions69 to feudal ancestors against the absence of side-dishes; a state of things the sorrier as the family was now mainly represented by a gentleman whose appetite was large and who justly maintained that its historic glories hadn’t been established by underfed heroes.
Three days after Euphemia’s arrival Richard de Mauves, coming down from Paris to pay his respects to his grandmother, treated our heroine to her first encounter with a gentilhomme in the flesh. On appearing he kissed his grandmother’s hand with a smile which caused her to draw it away with dignity, and set Euphemia, who was standing37 by, to ask herself what could have happened between them. Her unanswered wonder was but the beginning of a long chain of puzzlements, but the reader is free to know that the smile of M. de Mauves was a reply to a postscript70 affixed71 by the old lady to a letter addressed to him by her granddaughter as soon as the girl had been admitted to justify72 the latter’s promises. Mademoiselle de Mauves brought her letter to her grandmother for approval, but obtained no more than was expressed in a frigid73 nod. The old lady watched her with this coldness while she proceeded to seal the letter, then suddenly bade her open it again and bring her a pen.
“Your sister’s flatteries are all nonsense,” she wrote; “the young lady’s far too good for you, mauvais sujet beyond redemption. If you’ve a particle of conscience you’ll not come and disturb the repose75 of an angel of innocence.”
The other relative of the subject of this warning, who had read these lines, made up a little face as she freshly indited76 the address; but she laid down her pen with a confident nod which might have denoted that by her judgement her brother was appealed to on the ground of a principle that didn’t exist in him. And “if you meant what you said,” the young man on his side observed to his grandmother on his first private opportunity, “it would have been simpler not to have sent the letter.”
Put out of humour perhaps by this gross impugnment77 of her sincerity, the head of the family kept her room on pretexts78 during a greater part of Euphemia’s stay, so that the latter’s angelic innocence was left all to her grandson’s mercy. It suffered no worse mischance, however, than to be prompted to intenser communion with itself. Richard de Mauves was the hero of the young girl’s romance made real, and so completely accordant with this creature of her imagination that she felt afraid of him almost as she would have been of a figure in a framed picture who should have stepped down from the wall. He was now thirty-three—young enough to suggest possibilities of ardent79 activity and old enough to have formed opinions that a simple woman might deem it an intellectual privilege to listen to. He was perhaps a trifle handsomer than Euphemia’s rather grim Quixotic ideal, but a very few days reconciled her to his good looks as effectually they would have reconciled her to a characterised want of them. He was quiet, grave, eminently80 distinguished81. He spoke little, but his remarks, without being sententious, had a nobleness of tone that caused them to re-echo in the young girl’s ears at the end of the day. He paid her very little direct attention, but his chance words—when he only asked her if she objected to his cigarette—were accompanied by a smile of extraordinary kindness.
It happened that shortly after his arrival, riding an unruly horse which Euphemia had with shy admiration82 watched him mount in the castle-yard, he was thrown with a violence which, without disparaging83 his skill, made him for a fortnight an interesting invalid84 lounging in the library with a bandaged knee. To beguile85 his confinement86 the accomplished young stranger was repeatedly induced to sing for him, which she did with a small natural tremor87 that might have passed for the finish of vocal88 art. He never overwhelmed her with compliments, but he listened with unfailing attention, remembered all her melodies and would sit humming them to himself. While his imprisonment89 lasted indeed he passed hours in her company, making her feel not unlike some unfriended artist who has suddenly gained the opportunity to devote a fortnight to the study of a great model. Euphemia studied with noiseless diligence what she supposed to be the “character” of M. de Mauves, and the more she looked the more fine lights and shades she seemed to behold90 in this masterpiece of nature. M. de Mauves’s character indeed, whether from a sense of being so generously and intensely taken for granted, or for reasons which bid graceful91 defiance92 to analysis, had never been so much on show, even to the very casual critic lodged93, as might be said, in an out-of-the-way corner of it; it seemed really to reflect the purity of Euphemia’s pious94 opinion. There had been nothing especially to admire in the state of mind in which he left Paris—a settled resolve to marry a young person whose charms might or might not justify his sister’s account of them, but who was mistress, at the worst, of a couple of hundred thousand francs a year. He had not counted out sentiment—if she pleased him so much the better; but he had left a meagre margin95 for it and would hardly have admitted that so excellent a match could be improved by it. He was a robust96 and serene97 sceptic, and it was a singular fate for a man who believed in nothing to be so tenderly believed in. What his original faith had been he could hardly have told you, for as he came back to his childhood’s home to mend his fortunes by pretending to fall in love he was a thoroughly98 perverse99 creature and overlaid with more corruptions100 than a summer day’s questioning of his conscience would have put to flight. Ten years’ pursuit of pleasure, which a bureau full of unpaid101 bills was all he had to show for, had pretty well stifled the natural lad whose violent will and generous temper might have been shaped by a different pressure to some such showing as would have justified102 a romantic faith. So should he have exhaled103 the natural fragrance104 of a late-blooming flower of hereditary105 honour. His violence indeed had been subdued106 and he had learned to be irreproachably107 polite; but he had lost the fineness of his generosity108, and his politeness, which in the long run society paid for, was hardly more than a form of luxurious egotism, like his fondness for ciphered pocket-handkerchiefs, lavender gloves and other fopperies by which shopkeepers remained out of pocket. In after-years he was terribly polite to his wife. He had formed himself, as the phrase was, and the form prescribed to him by the society into which his birth and his tastes had introduced him was marked by some peculiar109 features. That which mainly concerns us is its classification of the fairer half of humanity as objects not essentially different—say from those very lavender gloves that are soiled in an evening and thrown away. To do M. de Mauves justice, he had in the course of time encountered in the feminine character such plentiful110 evidence of its pliant111 softness and fine adjustability that idealism naturally seemed to him a losing game.
Euphemia, as he lay on his sofa, struck him as by no means contradictory112; she simply reminded him that very young women are generally innocent and that this is on the whole the most potent113 source of their attraction. Her innocence moved him to perfect consideration, and it seemed to him that if he shortly became her husband it would be exposed to a danger the less. Old Madame de Mauves, who flattered herself that in this whole matter she was very laudably rigid74, might almost have taken a lesson from the delicacy he practised. For two or three weeks her grandson was well-nigh a blushing boy again. He watched from behind the Figaro, he admired and desired and held his tongue. He found himself not in the least moved to a flirtation114; he had no wish to trouble the waters he proposed to transfuse115 into the golden cup of matrimony. Sometimes a word, a look, a gesture of Euphemia’s gave him the oddest sense of being, or of seeming at least, almost bashful; for she had a way of not dropping her eyes according to the mysterious virginal mechanism116, of not fluttering out of the room when she found him there alone, of treating him rather as a glorious than as a pernicious influence—a radiant frankness of demeanour in fine, despite an infinite natural reserve, which it seemed at once graceless not to be complimentary117 about and indelicate not to take for granted. In this way had been wrought118 in the young man’s mind a vague unwonted resonance119 of soft impressions, as we may call it, which resembled the happy stir of the change from dreaming pleasantly to waking happily. His imagination was touched; he was very fond of music and he now seemed to give easy ear to some of the sweetest he had ever heard. In spite of the bore of being laid up with a lame120 knee he was in better humour than he had known for months; he lay smoking cigarettes and listening to the nightingales with the satisfied smile of one of his country neighbours whose big ox should have taken the prize at a fair. Every now and then, with an impatient suspicion of the resemblance, he declared himself pitifully bete; but he was under a charm that braved even the supreme penalty of seeming ridiculous. One morning he had half an hour’s tete-a-tete with his grandmother’s confessor, a soft-voiced old Abbe whom, for reasons of her own, Madame de Mauves had suddenly summoned and had left waiting in the drawing-room while she rearranged her curls. His reverence121, going up to the old lady, assured her that M. le Comte was in a most edifying122 state of mind and the likeliest subject for the operation of grace. This was a theological interpretation123 of the count’s unusual equanimity124. He had always lazily wondered what priests were good for, and he now remembered, with a sense of especial obligation to the Abbe, that they were excellent for marrying people.
A day or two after this he left off his bandages and tried to walk. He made his way into the garden and hobbled successfully along one of the alleys125, but in the midst of his progress was pulled up by a spasm126 of pain which forced him to stop and call for help. In an instant Euphemia came tripping along the path and offered him her arm with the frankest solicitude127.
“Not to the house,” he said, taking it; “further on, to the bosquet.” This choice was prompted by her having immediately confessed that she had seen him leave the house, had feared an accident and had followed him on tiptoe.
“Why didn’t you join me?” he had asked, giving her a look in which admiration was no longer disguised and yet felt itself half at the mercy of her replying that a jeune fille shouldn’t be seen following a gentleman. But it drew a breath which filled its lungs for a long time afterwards when she replied simply that if she had overtaken him he might have accepted her arm out of politeness, whereas she wished to have the pleasure of seeing him walk alone.
The bosquet was covered with an odorous tangle128 of blossoming creepers, and a nightingale overhead was shaking out love-notes with a profusion129 that made the Count feel his own conduct the last word of propriety130. “I’ve always heard that in America, when a man wishes to marry a young girl, he offers himself simply face to face and without ceremony—without parents and uncles and aunts and cousins sitting round in a circle.”
“Why I believe so,” said Euphemia, staring and too surprised to be alarmed.
“Very well then—suppose our arbour here to be your great sensible country. I offer you my hand a l’Americaine. It will make me intensely happy to feel you accept it.”
Whether Euphemia’s acceptance was in the American manner is more than I can say; I incline to think that for fluttering grateful trustful softly-amazed young hearts there is only one manner all over the world.
That evening, in the massive turret131 chamber132 it was her happiness to inhabit, she wrote a dutiful letter to her mamma, and had just sealed it when she was sent for by Madame de Mauves. She found this ancient lady seated in her boudoir in a lavender satin gown and with her candles all lighted as for the keeping of some fete. “Are you very happy?” the old woman demanded, making Euphemia sit down before her.
“I’m almost afraid to say so, lest I should wake myself up.”
“May you never wake up, belle133 enfant,” Madame de Mauves grandly returned. “This is the first marriage ever made in our family in this way—by a Comte de Mauves proposing to a young girl in an arbour like Jeannot and Jeannette. It has not been our way of doing things, and people may say it wants frankness. My grandson tells me he regards it—for the conditions—as the perfection of good taste. Very well. I’m a very old woman, and if your differences should ever be as marked as your agreements I shouldn’t care to see them. But I should be sorry to die and think you were going to be unhappy. You can’t be, my dear, beyond a certain point; because, though in this world the Lord sometimes makes light of our expectations he never altogether ignores our deserts. But you’re very young and innocent and easy to dazzle. There never was a man in the world—among the saints themselves—as good as you believe my grandson. But he’s a galant homme and a gentleman, and I’ve been talking to him to-night. To you I want to say this—that you’re to forget the worldly rubbish I talked the other day about the happiness of frivolous134 women. It’s not the kind of happiness that would suit you, ma toute-belle. Whatever befalls you, promise me this: to be, to remain, your own sincere little self only, charming in your own serious little way. The Comtesse de Mauves will be none the worse for it. Your brave little self, understand, in spite of everything—bad precepts135 and bad examples, bad fortune and even bad usage. Be persistently136 and patiently just what the good God has made you, and even one of us—and one of those who is most what we ARE—will do you justice!”
Euphemia remembered this speech in after-years, and more than once, wearily closing her eyes, she seemed to see the old woman sitting upright in her faded finery and smiling grimly like one of the Fates who sees the wheel of fortune turning up her favourite event. But at the moment it had for her simply the proper gravity of the occasion: this was the way, she supposed, in which lucky young girls were addressed on their engagement by wise old women of quality.
At her convent, to which she immediately returned, she found a letter from her mother which disconcerted her far more than the remarks of Madame de Mauves. Who were these people, Mrs. Cleve demanded, who had presumed to talk to her daughter of marriage without asking her leave? Questionable137 gentlefolk plainly; the best French people never did such things. Euphemia would return straightway to her convent, shut herself up and await her own arrival. It took Mrs. Cleve three weeks to travel from Nice to Paris, and during this time the young girl had no communication with her lover beyond accepting a bouquet of violets marked with his initials and left by a female friend. “I’ve not brought you up with such devoted138 care,” she declared to her daughter at their first interview, “to marry a presumptuous139 and penniless Frenchman. I shall take you straight home and you’ll please forget M. de Mauves.”
Mrs. Cleve received that evening at her hotel a visit from this personage which softened140 her wrath141 but failed to modify her decision. He had very good manners, but she was sure he had horrible morals; and the lady, who had been a good-natured censor142 on her own account, felt a deep and real need to sacrifice her daughter to propriety. She belonged to that large class of Americans who make light of their native land in familiar discourse143 but are startled back into a sense of having blasphemed when they find Europeans taking them at their word. “I know the type, my dear,” she said to her daughter with a competent nod. “He won’t beat you. Sometimes you’ll wish he would.”
Euphemia remained solemnly silent, for the only answer she felt capable of making was that her mother’s mind was too small a measure of things and her lover’s type an historic, a social masterpiece that it took some mystic illumination to appreciate. A person who confounded him with the common throng144 of her watering-place acquaintance was not a person to argue with. It struck the girl she had simply no cause to plead; her cause was in the Lord’s hands and in those of M. de Mauves.
This agent of Providence145 had been irritated and mortified146 by Mrs. Cleve’s opposition147, and hardly knew how to handle an adversary148 who failed to perceive that a member of his family gave of necessity more than he received. But he had obtained information on his return to Paris which exalted the uses of humility149. Euphemia’s fortune, wonderful to say, was greater than its fame, and in view of such a prize, even a member of his family could afford to take a snubbing.
The young man’s tact150, his deference151, his urbane152 insistence153, won a concession154 from Mrs. Cleve. The engagement was to be put off and her daughter was to return home, be brought out and receive the homage155 she was entitled to and which might well take a form representing peril156 to the suit of this first headlong aspirant157. They were to exchange neither letters nor mementoes nor messages; but if at the end of two years Euphemia had refused offers enough to attest9 the permanence of her attachment158 he should receive an invitation to address her again. This decision was promulgated159 in the presence of the parties interested. The Count bore himself gallantly160, looking at his young friend as if he expected some tender protestation. But she only looked at him silently in return, neither weeping nor smiling nor putting out her hand. On this they separated, and as M. de Mauves walked away he declared to himself that in spite of the confounded two years he was one of the luckiest of men—to have a fiancee who to several millions of francs added such strangely beautiful eyes.
How many offers Euphemia refused but scantily161 concerns us—and how the young man wore his two years away. He found he required pastimes, and as pastimes were expensive he added heavily to the list of debts to be cancelled by Euphemia’s fortune. Sometimes, in the thick of what he had once called pleasure with a keener conviction than now, he put to himself the case of their failing him after all; and then he remembered that last mute assurance of her pale face and drew a long breath of such confidence as he felt in nothing else in the world save his own punctuality in an affair of honour.
At last, one morning, he took the express to Havre with a letter of Mrs. Cleve’s in his pocket, and ten days later made his bow to mother and daughter in New York. His stay was brief, and he was apparently162 unable to bring himself to view what Euphemia’s uncle, Mr. Butterworth, who gave her away at the altar, called our great experiment of democratic self-government, in a serious light. He smiled at everything and seemed to regard the New World as a colossal163 plaisanterie. It is true that a perpetual smile was the most natural expression of countenance164 for a man about to marry Euphemia Cleve.
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bouquet
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| n.花束，酒香 | |
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precocious
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| adj.早熟的；较早显出的 | |
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enjoyment
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| n.乐趣；享有；享用 | |
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delicacy
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| n.精致，细微，微妙，精良；美味，佳肴 | |
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essentially
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conceit
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bosom
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| n.胸，胸部；胸怀；内心；adj.亲密的 | |
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fables
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| n.寓言( fable的名词复数 )；神话，传说 | |
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attest
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| vt.证明，证实；表明 | |
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sordid
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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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extravagant
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perusal
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duels
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confession
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scent
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depicted
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shrouded
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amber
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sufficiently
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apathy
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expressive
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eloquent
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soften
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feudal
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stifled
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conspired
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intimacy
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ironical
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attentive
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| adj.注意的，专心的；关心(别人)的，殷勤的 | |
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supreme
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| adj.极度的，最重要的；至高的，最高的 | |
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32
virtue
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| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
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33
exalted
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| adj.(地位等)高的，崇高的；尊贵的，高尚的 | |
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34
honourably
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| adv.可尊敬地，光荣地，体面地 | |
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35
impudence
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| n.厚颜无耻；冒失；无礼 | |
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36
possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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37
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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38
conformities
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| n.符合（conformity的复数形式） | |
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39
accomplished
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| adj.有才艺的；有造诣的；达到了的 | |
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40
motive
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| n.动机，目的；adv.发动的，运动的 | |
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41
humble
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| adj.谦卑的，恭顺的；地位低下的；v.降低，贬低 | |
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42
sincerity
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| n.真诚，诚意；真实 | |
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43
aspirations
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| 强烈的愿望( aspiration的名词复数 )； 志向； 发送气音； 发 h 音 | |
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44
luxurious
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| adj.精美而昂贵的；豪华的 | |
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45
abode
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| n.住处，住所 | |
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46
battered
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| adj.磨损的；v.连续猛击；磨损 | |
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47
rusty
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| adj.生锈的；锈色的；荒废了的 | |
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48
crooked
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| adj.弯曲的；不诚实的，狡猾的，不正当的 | |
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49
slabs
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| n.厚板，平板，厚片( slab的名词复数 )；厚胶片 | |
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50
awaken
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| vi.醒，觉醒；vt.唤醒，使觉醒，唤起，激起 | |
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51
anecdotes
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| n.掌故，趣闻，轶事( anecdote的名词复数 ) | |
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52
chateau
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| n.城堡，别墅 | |
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53
abounded
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| v.大量存在，充满，富于( abound的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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54
sketches
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| n.草图( sketch的名词复数 )；素描；速写；梗概 | |
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55
sentimentally
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| adv.富情感地 | |
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56
sketching
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| n.草图 | |
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57
quotations
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| n.引用( quotation的名词复数 )；[商业]行情（报告）；（货物或股票的）市价；时价 | |
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58
relegation
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|
| n.驱逐，贬黜；降级 | |
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59
docile
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| adj.驯服的，易控制的，容易教的 | |
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60
infinitely
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| adv.无限地，无穷地 | |
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61
beseech
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| v.祈求，恳求 | |
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62
credulous
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| adj.轻信的，易信的 | |
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63
innocence
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| n.无罪；天真；无害 | |
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64
edified
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| v.开导，启发( edify的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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65
indifference
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| n.不感兴趣，不关心，冷淡，不在乎 | |
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66
hesitation
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| n.犹豫，踌躇 | |
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67
breaches
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| 破坏( breach的名词复数 )； 破裂； 缺口； 违背 | |
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68
pervaded
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| v.遍及，弥漫( pervade的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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69
allusions
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| 暗指，间接提到( allusion的名词复数 ) | |
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70
postscript
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| n.附言，又及；(正文后的)补充说明 | |
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71
affixed
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|
| adj.[医]附着的，附着的v.附加( affix的过去式和过去分词 )；粘贴；加以；盖（印章） | |
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72
justify
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|
| vt.证明…正当(或有理)，为…辩护 | |
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73
frigid
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| adj.寒冷的，凛冽的；冷淡的；拘禁的 | |
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74
rigid
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| adj.严格的，死板的；刚硬的，僵硬的 | |
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75
repose
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| v.(使)休息；n.安息 | |
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76
indited
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| v.写（文章，信等）创作，赋诗，创作( indite的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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77
impugnment
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| n.责难，攻击 | |
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78
pretexts
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| n.借口，托辞( pretext的名词复数 ) | |
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79
ardent
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| adj.热情的，热烈的，强烈的，烈性的 | |
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80
eminently
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|
| adv.突出地；显著地；不寻常地 | |
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81
distinguished
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|
| adj.卓越的，杰出的，著名的 | |
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82
admiration
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| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
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83
disparaging
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|
| adj.轻蔑的，毁谤的v.轻视( disparage的现在分词 )；贬低；批评；非难 | |
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84
invalid
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| n.病人，伤残人；adj.有病的，伤残的；无效的 | |
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85
beguile
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| vt.欺骗，消遣 | |
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86
confinement
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|
| n.幽禁，拘留，监禁；分娩；限制，局限 | |
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87
tremor
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|
| n.震动，颤动，战栗，兴奋，地震 | |
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88
vocal
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| adj.直言不讳的；嗓音的；n.[pl.]声乐节目 | |
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89
imprisonment
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| n.关押，监禁，坐牢 | |
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90
behold
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| v.看，注视，看到 | |
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91
graceful
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|
| adj.优美的，优雅的；得体的 | |
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92
defiance
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|
| n.挑战，挑衅，蔑视，违抗 | |
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93
lodged
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|
| v.存放( lodge的过去式和过去分词 )；暂住；埋入；（权利、权威等）归属 | |
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94
pious
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|
| adj.虔诚的；道貌岸然的 | |
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95
margin
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| n.页边空白；差额；余地，余裕；边，边缘 | |
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96
robust
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|
| adj.强壮的，强健的，粗野的，需要体力的，浓的 | |
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97
serene
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|
| adj. 安详的，宁静的，平静的 | |
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98
thoroughly
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|
| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
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99
perverse
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|
| adj.刚愎的；坚持错误的，行为反常的 | |
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100
corruptions
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|
| n.堕落( corruption的名词复数 )；腐化；腐败；贿赂 | |
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101
unpaid
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|
| adj.未付款的，无报酬的 | |
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102
justified
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| a.正当的，有理的 | |
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103
exhaled
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|
| v.呼出，发散出( exhale的过去式和过去分词 )；吐出（肺中的空气、烟等），呼气 | |
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104
fragrance
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| n.芬芳，香味，香气 | |
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105
hereditary
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| adj.遗传的，遗传性的，可继承的，世袭的 | |
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106
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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107
irreproachably
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| adv.不可非难地，无过失地 | |
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108
generosity
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| n.大度，慷慨，慷慨的行为 | |
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109
peculiar
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|
| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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110
plentiful
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| adj.富裕的，丰富的 | |
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111
pliant
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| adj.顺从的；可弯曲的 | |
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112
contradictory
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|
| adj.反驳的，反对的，抗辩的；n.正反对，矛盾对立 | |
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113
potent
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| adj.强有力的，有权势的；有效力的 | |
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114
flirtation
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| n.调情，调戏，挑逗 | |
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115
transfuse
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| v.渗入；灌输；输血 | |
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116
mechanism
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| n.机械装置；机构，结构 | |
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117
complimentary
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| adj.赠送的，免费的，赞美的，恭维的 | |
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118
wrought
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| v.引起；以…原料制作；运转；adj.制造的 | |
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119
resonance
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| n.洪亮；共鸣；共振 | |
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120
lame
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| adj.跛的，(辩解、论据等)无说服力的 | |
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121
reverence
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| n.敬畏，尊敬，尊严；Reverence:对某些基督教神职人员的尊称；v.尊敬，敬畏，崇敬 | |
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122
edifying
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| adj.有教训意味的，教训性的，有益的v.开导，启发( edify的现在分词 ) | |
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123
interpretation
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| n.解释，说明，描述；艺术处理 | |
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124
equanimity
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| n.沉着，镇定 | |
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125
alleys
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| 胡同，小巷( alley的名词复数 )； 小径 | |
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126
spasm
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| n.痉挛，抽搐；一阵发作 | |
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127
solicitude
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| n.焦虑 | |
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128
tangle
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| n.纠缠；缠结；混乱；v.(使)缠绕；变乱 | |
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129
profusion
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| n.挥霍；丰富 | |
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130
propriety
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| n.正当行为；正当；适当 | |
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131
turret
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| n.塔楼，角塔 | |
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132
chamber
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| n.房间，寝室；会议厅；议院；会所 | |
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133
belle
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| n.靓女 | |
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134
frivolous
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| adj.轻薄的；轻率的 | |
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135
precepts
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| n.规诫，戒律，箴言( precept的名词复数 ) | |
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136
persistently
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| ad.坚持地；固执地 | |
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137
questionable
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| adj.可疑的，有问题的 | |
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138
devoted
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| adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的 | |
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139
presumptuous
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| adj.胆大妄为的，放肆的，冒昧的，冒失的 | |
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140
softened
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| （使）变软( soften的过去式和过去分词 )； 缓解打击； 缓和； 安慰 | |
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141
wrath
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| n.愤怒，愤慨，暴怒 | |
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142
censor
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| n./vt.审查，审查员；删改 | |
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143
discourse
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| n.论文，演说；谈话；话语；vi.讲述，著述 | |
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144
throng
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| n.人群，群众；v.拥挤，群集 | |
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145
providence
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| n.深谋远虑，天道，天意；远见；节约；上帝 | |
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146
mortified
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|
| v.使受辱( mortify的过去式和过去分词 )；伤害（人的感情）；克制；抑制（肉体、情感等） | |
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147
opposition
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| n.反对，敌对 | |
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148
adversary
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| adj.敌手，对手 | |
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149
humility
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| n.谦逊，谦恭 | |
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150
tact
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| n.机敏，圆滑，得体 | |
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151
deference
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| n.尊重，顺从；敬意 | |
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152
urbane
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| adj.温文尔雅的，懂礼的 | |
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153
insistence
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| n.坚持；强调；坚决主张 | |
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154
concession
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| n.让步，妥协；特许(权) | |
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155
homage
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| n.尊敬，敬意，崇敬 | |
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156
peril
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| n.(严重的)危险；危险的事物 | |
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157
aspirant
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| n.热望者；adj.渴望的 | |
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158
attachment
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| n.附属物，附件；依恋；依附 | |
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159
promulgated
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|
| v.宣扬（某事物）( promulgate的过去式和过去分词 )；传播；公布；颁布（法令、新法律等） | |
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160
gallantly
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| adv. 漂亮地，勇敢地，献殷勤地 | |
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161
scantily
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| adv.缺乏地；不充足地；吝啬地；狭窄地 | |
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162
apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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163
colossal
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| adj.异常的，庞大的 | |
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164
countenance
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| n.脸色，面容；面部表情；vt.支持，赞同 | |
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