We returned to the station just in time to secure comfortable seats, and at 5.10 steamed out upon our fifteen hours’ run to Munich. From Bonn to Mayence the line keeps by the side of the Rhine nearly the whole of the way, and we had a splendid view of the river, with the old-world towns and villages that cluster round its bank, the misty2 mountains that make early twilight3 upon its swiftly rolling waves, the castled crags and precipices5 that rise up sheer and majestic6 from its margin7, the wooded rocks that hang with threatening frown above its sombre depths, the ruined towers and turrets8 that cap each point along its shores, the pleasant isles9 that stud like gems10 its broad expanse of waters.
Few things in this world come up to expectation, especially those things of which one has been led to expect much, and about which one has heard a good deal. With this philosophy running in my head, I was prepared to find the Rhine a much over-rated river.
I was pleasantly disappointed. The panorama11 which unfolded itself before our eyes, as we sped along through the quiet twilight that was deepening into starry12 night, was wonderfully beautiful, entrancing and expressive13.
I do not intend to describe it to you. To do justice to the theme, I should have to be even a more brilliant and powerful writer than I am. To attempt the subject, without doing it justice, would be a waste of your time, sweet reader, and of mine—a still more important matter.
I confess it was not my original intention to let you off so easily. I started with the idea of giving you a rapid but glowing and eloquent14 word-picture of the valley of the Rhine from Cologne to Mayence. For background, I thought I would sketch15 in the historical and legendary16 events connected with the district, and against this, for a foreground, I would draw, in vivid colours, the modern aspect of the scene, with remarks and observations thereon.
Here are my rough notes, made for the purpose:—
Mems. for Chapter on Rhine: “Constantine the Great used to come here—so did Agrippa. (N.B.—Try and find out something about Agrippa.) Cæsar had a good deal to do with the Rhine—also Nero’s mother.”
(To the reader.—The brevity of these memoranda17 renders their import, at times, confusing. For instance, this means that Cæsar and Nero’s mother both had a good deal to do with the Rhine; not that Cæsar had a good deal to do with Nero’s mother. I explain this because I should be sorry to convey any false impression concerning either the lady or Cæsar. Scandal is a thing abhorrent18 to my nature.)
Notes continued: “The Ubii did something on the right bank of the Rhine at an early period, and afterwards were found on the other side. (Expect the Ubii were a tribe; but make sure of this, as they might be something in the fossil line.) Cologne was the cradle of German art. Talk about art and the old masters. Treat them in a kindly19 and gentle spirit. They are dead now. Saint Ursula was murdered at Cologne, with eleven thousand virgin20 attendants. There must have been quite a party of them. Draw powerful and pathetic imaginary picture of the slaughter21. (N.B.—Find out who murdered them all.) Say something about the Emperor Maximilian. Call him ‘the mighty22 Maximilian.’ Mention Charlemagne (a good deal should be made out of Charlemagne) and the Franks. (Find out all about the Franks, and where they lived, and what has become of them.) Sketch the various contests between the Romans and the Goths. (Read up ‘Gibbon’ for this, unless you can get enough out of Mangnall’s Questions.) Give picturesque23 account—with comments—of the battles between the citizens of Cologne and their haughty24 archbishops. (N.B.—Let them fight on a bridge over the Rhine, unless it is distinctly stated somewhere that they didn’t.) Bring in the Minne-singers, especially Walter von Vogelweid; make him sing under a castle-wall somewhere, and let the girl die. Talk about Albert Dürer. Criticise25 his style. Say it’s flat. (If possible, find out if it is flat.) “The rat tower on the Rhine,” near Bingen. Describe the place and tell the whole story. Don’t spin it out too long, because everybody knows it. “The Brothers of Bornhofen,” story connected with the twin castles of Sterrenberg and Liebenstein, Conrad and Heinrich—brothers—both love Hildegarde. She was very beautiful. Heinrich generously refuses to marry the beautiful Hildegarde, and goes away to the Crusades, leaving her to his brother Conrad. Conrad considers over the matter for a year or two, and then he decides that he won’t marry her either, but will leave her for his brother Heinrich, and he goes off to the Crusades, from whence he returns, a few years later on, with a Grecian bride. The beautiful H., muddled26 up between the pair of them, and the victim of too much generosity27, gets sulky (don’t blame her), and shuts herself up in a lonely part of the castle, and won’t see anybody for years. Chivalrous28 Heinrich returns, and is wild that his brother C. has not married the beautiful H. It does not occur to him to marry the girl even then. The feverish29 yearning30 displayed by each of these two brothers, that the other one should marry the beloved Hildegarde, is very touching31. Heinrich draws his sword, and throws himself upon his brother C. to kill him. The beautiful Hildegarde, however, throws herself between them and reconciliates them, and then, convinced that neither of them means business, and naturally disgusted with the whole affair, retires into a nunnery. Conrad’s Grecian bride subsequently throws herself away on another man, upon which Conrad throws himself on his brother H.’s breast, and they swear eternal friendship. (Make it pathetic. Pretend you have sat amid the ruins in the moonlight, and give the scene—with ghosts.) “Rolandseck,” near Bonn. Tell the story of Roland and Hildegunde (see Baedeker, p. 66). Don’t make it too long, because it is so much like the other. Describe the funeral? The “Watch Tower on the Rhine” below Audernach. Query32, isn’t there a song about this? If so, put it in. Coblentz and Ehrenbreitstein. Great fortresses33. Call them “the Frowning Sentinels of the State.” Make reflections on the German army, also on war generally. Chat about Frederick the Great. (Read Carlyle’s history of him, and pick out the interesting bits.) The Drachenfels. Quote Byron. Moralise about ruined castles generally, and describe the middle ages, with your views and opinions on same.”
There is much more of it, but that is sufficient to let you see the scheme I had in my head. I have not carried out my scheme, because, when I came to reflect upon the matter, it seemed to me that the idea would develop into something that would be more in the nature of a history of Europe than a chapter in a tourist’s diary, and I determined34 not to waste my time upon it, until there arose a greater public demand for a new History of Europe than there appears to exist at present.
“Besides,” I argued to myself, “such a work would be just the very thing with which to beguile35 the tedium36 of a long imprisonment37. At some future time I may be glad of a labour of this magnitude to occupy a period of involuntary inaction.”
“This is the sort of thing,” I said to myself, “to save up for Holloway or Pentonville.”
It would have been a very enjoyable ride altogether, that evening’s spin along the banks of the Rhine, if I had not been haunted at the time by the idea that I should have to write an account of it next day in my diary. As it was, I enjoyed it as a man enjoys a dinner when he has got to make a speech after it, or as a critic enjoys a play.
We passed such odd little villages every here and there. Little places so crowded up between the railway and the river that there was no room in them for any streets. All the houses were jumbled38 up together just anyhow, and how any man who lived in the middle could get home without climbing over half the other houses in the place I could not make out. They were the sort of villages where a man’s mother-in-law, coming to pay him a visit, might wander around all day, hearing him, and even now and then seeing him, yet never being able to get at him in consequence of not knowing the way in.
A drunken man, living in one of these villages, could never hope to get home. He would have to sit down outside, and wait till his head was clear.
We witnessed the opening scenes of a very amusing little comedy at one of the towns where the train drew up. The chief characters were played by an active young goat, a small boy, an elderly man and a woman, parents of the small boy and owners of the goat, and a dog.
First we heard a yell, and then, from out a cottage opposite the station, bounded an innocent and happy goat, and gambolled39 around. A long rope, one end of which was fastened to his neck, trailed behind him. After the goat (in the double sense of the phrase) came a child. The child tried to catch the goat by means of the rope, caught itself in the rope instead, and went down with a bump and a screech40. Whereupon a stout41 woman, the boy’s mother apparently42, ran out from the cottage, and also made for the goat. The goat flew down the road, and the woman flew after it. At the first corner, the woman trod on the rope, and then she went down with a bump and a screech. Then the goat turned and ran up the street, and, as it passed the cottage, the father ran out and tried to stop it. He was an old man, but still seemed to have plenty of vigour43 in him. He evidently guessed how his wife and child had gone down, and he endeavoured to avoid the rope and to skip over it when it came near him. But the goat’s movements were too erratic44 for him. His turn came, and he trod on the rope, and went down in the middle of the road, opposite his own door, with a thud that shook us all up against each other as we stood looking out of the carriage-window, and sat there and cursed the goat. Then out ran a dog, barking furiously, and he went for the goat, and got the end of the rope in his teeth and held on to it like grim death. Away went the goat, at his end of the rope, and, with him, the dog at the other end. Between them, they kept the rope about six inches above the ground, and with it they remorselessly mowed45 down every living thing they came across in that once peaceful village. In the course of less than half a minute we counted fourteen persons sitting down in the middle of the road. Eight of them were cursing the goat, four were cursing the dog, and two of them were cursing the old man for keeping the goat, one of these two, and the more violent one, being the man’s own wife.
The train left at this juncture46. We entreated47 the railway officials to let us stop and see the show out. The play was becoming quite interesting. It was so full of movement. But they said that we were half-an-hour late as it was, and that they dared not.
We leaned out of the window, and watched for as long as we could; and after the village was lost to view in the distance, we could still, by listening carefully, hear the thuds, as one after another of the inhabitants sat down and began to swear.
At about eleven o’clock we had some beer—you can generally obtain such light refreshment48 as bottled beer and coffee and rolls from the guard on a through long-distance train in Germany—took off our boots, and saying “Good-night” to each other, made a great show of going to sleep. But we never succeeded in getting there. They wanted to see one’s ticket too often for one to get fairly off.
Every few minutes, so it seemed to me, though in reality the intervals49 may perhaps have been longer, a ghostly face would appear at the carriage-window, and ask to see our tickets.
Whenever a German railway-guard feels lonesome, and does not know what else to do with himself, he takes a walk round the train, and gets the passengers to show him their tickets, after which he returns to his box cheered and refreshed. Some people rave50 about sunsets and mountains and old masters; but to the German railway-guard the world can show nothing more satisfying, more inspiring, than the sight of a railway-ticket.
Nearly all the German railway officials have this same craving51 for tickets. If only they get somebody to show them a railway-ticket, they are happy. It seemed a harmless weakness of theirs, and B. and I decided52 that it would be only kind to humour them in it during our stay.
Accordingly, whenever we saw a German railway official standing53 about, looking sad and weary, we went up to him and showed him our tickets. The sight was like a ray of sunshine to him; and all his care was immediately forgotten. If we had not a ticket with us at the time, we went and bought one. A mere54 single third to the next station would gladden him sufficiently55 in most cases; but if the poor fellow appeared very woe-begone, and as if he wanted more than ordinary cheering up, we got him a second-class return.
For the purpose of our journey to Ober-Ammergau and back, we each carried with us a folio containing some ten or twelve first-class tickets between different towns, covering in all a distance of some thousand miles; and one afternoon, at Munich, seeing a railway official, a cloak-room keeper, who they told us had lately lost his aunt, and who looked exceptionally dejected, I proposed to B. that we should take this man into a quiet corner, and both of us show him all our tickets at once—the whole twenty or twenty-four of them—and let him take them in his hand and look at them for as long as he liked. I wanted to comfort him.
B., however, advised against the suggestion. He said that even if it did not turn the man’s head (and it was more than probable that it would), so much jealousy56 would be created against him among the other railway people throughout Germany, that his life would be made a misery57 to him.
So we bought and showed him a first-class return to the next station but one; and it was quite pathetic to watch the poor fellow’s face brighten up at the sight, and to see the faint smile creep back to the lips from which it had so long been absent.
But at times, one wishes that the German railway official would control his passion for tickets—or, at least, keep it within due bounds.
Even the most kindly-hearted man grows tired of showing his ticket all day and night long, and the middle of a wearisome journey is not the proper time for a man to come to the carriage-window and clamour to see your “billet.”
You are weary and sleepy. You do not know where your ticket is. You are not quite sure that you have got a ticket; or if you ever had one, somebody has taken it away from you. You have put it by very carefully, thinking that it would not be wanted for hours, and have forgotten where.
There are eleven pockets in the suit you have on, and five more in the overcoat on the rack. Maybe, it is in one of those pockets. If not, it is possibly in one of the bags—somewhere, or in your pocket-book, if you only knew where that was, or your purse.
You begin a search. You stand up and shake yourself. Then you have another feel all over. You look round in the course of the proceedings58; and the sight of the crowd of curious faces watching you, and of the man in uniform waiting with his eye fixed59 severely60 upon you, convey to you, in your then state of confusion, the momentary61 idea that this is a police-court scene, and that if the ticket is found upon you, you will probably get five years.
“I tell you I haven’t got it!” you exclaim;—“never seen the gentleman’s ticket. You let me go! I—”
Here the surprise of your fellow-passengers recalls you to yourself, and you proceed on your exploration. You overhaul64 the bags, turning everything out on to the floor, muttering curses on the whole railway system of Germany as you do so. Then you feel in your boots. You make everybody near you stand up to see if they are sitting upon it, and you go down on your knees and grovel65 for it under the seat.
“You didn’t throw it out of the window with your sandwiches, did you?” asks your friend.
On going systematically67 over yourself for about the twentieth time, you discover it in your waistcoat pocket, and for the next half-hour you sit and wonder how you came to miss it on the previous nineteen occasions.
Meanwhile, during this trying scene, the conduct of the guard has certainly not tended to allay68 your anxiety and nervousness. All the time that you have been looking for your ticket, he has been doing silly tricks on the step outside, imperilling his life by every means that experience and ingenuity69 can suggest.
The train is going at the rate of thirty miles an hour, the express speed in Germany, and a bridge comes in sight crossing over the line. On seeing this bridge, the guard, holding on by the window, leans his body as far back as ever it will go. You look at him, and then at the rapidly-nearing bridge, and calculate that the arch will just take his head off without injuring any other part of him whatever, and you wonder whether the head will be jerked into the carriage or will fall outside.
When he is three inches off the bridge, he pulls himself up straight, and the brickwork, as the train dashes through, kills a fly that was trespassing70 on the upper part of his right ear.
Then, when the bridge is passed, and the train is skirting the very edge of a precipice4, so that a stone dropped just outside the window would tumble straight down 300 feet, he suddenly lets go, and, balancing himself on the foot-board without holding on to anything, commences to dance a sort of Teutonic cellar-flap, and to warm his body by flinging his arms about in the manner of cabmen on a cold day.
The first essential to comfortable railway travelling in Germany is to make up your mind not to care a rap whether the guard gets killed in the course of the journey or not. Any tender feeling towards the guard makes railway travelling in the Fatherland a simple torture.
At five a.m. (how fair and sweet and fresh the earth looks in the early morning! Those lazy people who lie in bed till eight or nine miss half the beauty of the day, if they but knew it. It is only we who rise early that really enjoy Nature properly) I gave up trying to get to sleep, and made my way to the dressing-room at the end of the car, and had a wash.
It is difficult to wash in these little places, because the cars shake so; and when you have got both your hands and half your head in the basin, and are unable to protect yourself, the sides of the room, and the water-tap and the soap-dish, and other cowardly things, take a mean advantage of your helplessness to punch you as hard as ever they can; and when you back away from these, the door swings open and slaps you from behind.
I succeeded, however, in getting myself fairly wet all over, even if I did nothing else, and then I looked about for a towel. Of course, there was no towel. That is the trick. The idea of the railway authorities is to lure71 the passenger, by providing him with soap and water and a basin, into getting himself thoroughly72 soaked, and then to let it dawn upon him that there is no towel. That is their notion of fun!
I thought of the handkerchiefs in my bag, but to get to them I should have to pass compartments73 containing ladies, and I was only in early morning dress.
So I had to wipe myself with a newspaper which I happened to have in my pocket, and a more unsatisfactory thing to dry oneself upon I cannot conceive.
I woke up B. when I got back to the carriage, and persuaded him to go and have a wash; and in listening to the distant sound of his remarks when he likewise discovered that there was no towel, the recollection of my own discomfiture74 passed gently away.
Ah! how true it is, as good people tell us, that in thinking of the sorrows of others, we learn to forget our own!
For fifty miles before one reaches Munich, the land is flat, stale, and apparently very unprofitable, and there is little to interest the looker-out. He sits straining his eyes towards the horizon, eagerly longing75 for some sign of the city to come in sight.
It lies very low, however, and does all it can to escape observation; and it is not until he is almost within its streets that he discovers it.
点击收听单词发音
1 diffuse | |
v.扩散;传播;adj.冗长的;四散的,弥漫的 | |
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2 misty | |
adj.雾蒙蒙的,有雾的 | |
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3 twilight | |
n.暮光,黄昏;暮年,晚期,衰落时期 | |
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4 precipice | |
n.悬崖,危急的处境 | |
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5 precipices | |
n.悬崖,峭壁( precipice的名词复数 ) | |
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6 majestic | |
adj.雄伟的,壮丽的,庄严的,威严的,崇高的 | |
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7 margin | |
n.页边空白;差额;余地,余裕;边,边缘 | |
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8 turrets | |
(六角)转台( turret的名词复数 ); (战舰和坦克等上的)转动炮塔; (摄影机等上的)镜头转台; (旧时攻城用的)塔车 | |
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9 isles | |
岛( isle的名词复数 ) | |
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10 gems | |
growth; economy; management; and customer satisfaction 增长 | |
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11 panorama | |
n.全景,全景画,全景摄影,全景照片[装置] | |
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12 starry | |
adj.星光照耀的, 闪亮的 | |
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13 expressive | |
adj.表现的,表达…的,富于表情的 | |
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14 eloquent | |
adj.雄辩的,口才流利的;明白显示出的 | |
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15 sketch | |
n.草图;梗概;素描;v.素描;概述 | |
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16 legendary | |
adj.传奇(中)的,闻名遐迩的;n.传奇(文学) | |
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17 memoranda | |
n. 备忘录, 便条 名词memorandum的复数形式 | |
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18 abhorrent | |
adj.可恶的,可恨的,讨厌的 | |
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19 kindly | |
adj.和蔼的,温和的,爽快的;adv.温和地,亲切地 | |
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20 virgin | |
n.处女,未婚女子;adj.未经使用的;未经开发的 | |
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21 slaughter | |
n.屠杀,屠宰;vt.屠杀,宰杀 | |
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22 mighty | |
adj.强有力的;巨大的 | |
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23 picturesque | |
adj.美丽如画的,(语言)生动的,绘声绘色的 | |
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24 haughty | |
adj.傲慢的,高傲的 | |
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25 criticise | |
v.批评,评论;非难 | |
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26 muddled | |
adj.混乱的;糊涂的;头脑昏昏然的v.弄乱,弄糟( muddle的过去式);使糊涂;对付,混日子 | |
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27 generosity | |
n.大度,慷慨,慷慨的行为 | |
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28 chivalrous | |
adj.武士精神的;对女人彬彬有礼的 | |
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29 feverish | |
adj.发烧的,狂热的,兴奋的 | |
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30 yearning | |
a.渴望的;向往的;怀念的 | |
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31 touching | |
adj.动人的,使人感伤的 | |
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32 query | |
n.疑问,问号,质问;vt.询问,表示怀疑 | |
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33 fortresses | |
堡垒,要塞( fortress的名词复数 ) | |
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34 determined | |
adj.坚定的;有决心的 | |
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35 beguile | |
vt.欺骗,消遣 | |
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36 tedium | |
n.单调;烦闷 | |
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37 imprisonment | |
n.关押,监禁,坐牢 | |
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38 jumbled | |
adj.混乱的;杂乱的 | |
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39 gambolled | |
v.蹦跳,跳跃,嬉戏( gambol的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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40 screech | |
n./v.尖叫;(发出)刺耳的声音 | |
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42 apparently | |
adv.显然地;表面上,似乎 | |
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43 vigour | |
(=vigor)n.智力,体力,精力 | |
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44 erratic | |
adj.古怪的,反复无常的,不稳定的 | |
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45 mowed | |
v.刈,割( mow的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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46 juncture | |
n.时刻,关键时刻,紧要关头 | |
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47 entreated | |
恳求,乞求( entreat的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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48 refreshment | |
n.恢复,精神爽快,提神之事物;(复数)refreshments:点心,茶点 | |
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49 intervals | |
n.[军事]间隔( interval的名词复数 );间隔时间;[数学]区间;(戏剧、电影或音乐会的)幕间休息 | |
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50 rave | |
vi.胡言乱语;热衷谈论;n.热情赞扬 | |
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51 craving | |
n.渴望,热望 | |
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52 decided | |
adj.决定了的,坚决的;明显的,明确的 | |
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53 standing | |
n.持续,地位;adj.永久的,不动的,直立的,不流动的 | |
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54 mere | |
adj.纯粹的;仅仅,只不过 | |
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55 sufficiently | |
adv.足够地,充分地 | |
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56 jealousy | |
n.妒忌,嫉妒,猜忌 | |
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57 misery | |
n.痛苦,苦恼,苦难;悲惨的境遇,贫苦 | |
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58 proceedings | |
n.进程,过程,议程;诉讼(程序);公报 | |
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59 fixed | |
adj.固定的,不变的,准备好的;(计算机)固定的 | |
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60 severely | |
adv.严格地;严厉地;非常恶劣地 | |
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61 momentary | |
adj.片刻的,瞬息的;短暂的 | |
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62 vehemently | |
adv. 热烈地 | |
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63 innocence | |
n.无罪;天真;无害 | |
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64 overhaul | |
v./n.大修,仔细检查 | |
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65 grovel | |
vi.卑躬屈膝,奴颜婢膝 | |
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66 irritably | |
ad.易生气地 | |
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67 systematically | |
adv.有系统地 | |
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68 allay | |
v.消除,减轻(恐惧、怀疑等) | |
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69 ingenuity | |
n.别出心裁;善于发明创造 | |
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70 trespassing | |
[法]非法入侵 | |
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71 lure | |
n.吸引人的东西,诱惑物;vt.引诱,吸引 | |
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72 thoroughly | |
adv.完全地,彻底地,十足地 | |
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73 compartments | |
n.间隔( compartment的名词复数 );(列车车厢的)隔间;(家具或设备等的)分隔间;隔层 | |
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74 discomfiture | |
n.崩溃;大败;挫败;困惑 | |
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75 longing | |
n.(for)渴望 | |
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