Mrs. Anderson Brant
At Home on February 20th at 4 o’clock
Mme. de Dolmetsch will sing
For the benefit of the “Friends of French Art Committee”
Tickets 100 francs
Enclosed was the circular of the sub-committee in aid of Musicians at the Front, with which Campton was not directly associated. It bore the names of Mrs. Talkett, Mme. Beausite and a number of other French and American ladies.
Campton tossed the card away. He was not annoyed by the invitation: he knew that Miss Anthony and Mlle. Davril were getting up a series of drawing-room 196entertainments for that branch of the charity, and that the card had been sent to him as a member of the Honorary Committee. But any reminder3 of the sort always gave a sharp twitch4 to the Brant nerve in him. He turned to George’s letter.
It was no longer than usual; but in other respects it was unlike his son’s previous communications. Campton read it over two or three times.
“Dear Dad, thanks for yours of the tenth, which must have come to me on skis, the snow here is so deep.” (There had, in fact, been a heavy snow-fall in the Argonne). “Sorry mother is bothering about things again; as you’ve often reminded me, they always have a way of ‘being as they will be,’ and even war doesn’t seem to change it. Nothing to worry her in my case—but you can’t expect her to believe that, can you? Neither you nor I can help it, I suppose.
“There’s one thing that might help, though; and that is, your letting her feel that you’re a little nearer to her. War makes a lot of things look differently, especially this sedentary kind of war: it’s rather like going over all the old odds-and-ends in one’s cupboards. And some of them do look so foolish.
“I wish you’d see her now and then—just naturally, as if it had happened. You know you’ve got one Inexhaustible Topic between you. The said I. T. is doing well, and has nothing new to communicate up to now 197except a change of address. Hereafter please write to my Base instead of directing here, as there’s some chance of a shift of H.Q. The precaution is probably just a new twist of the old red tape, signifying nothing; but Base will always reach me if we are shifted. Let mother know, and explain, please; otherwise she’ll think the unthinkable.
“Interrupted by big drive—quill-drive, of course!
“As ever
“Georgius Scriblerius.
“No. 2.—I had thought of leave; but perhaps you’re right about that.”
It was the first time George had written in that way of his mother. His smiling policy had always been to let things alone, and go on impartially6 dividing his devotion between his parents, since they refused to share even that common blessing7. But war gave everything a new look; and he had evidently, as he put it, been turning over the old things in his cupboards. How was it possible, Campton wondered, that after such a turning over he was still content to write “Nothing new to communicate,” and to make jokes about another big quill-drive? Glancing at the date of the letter, Campton saw that it had been written on the day after the first ineffectual infantry8 assault on Vauquois. And George was sitting a few miles off, safe 198in headquarters at Sainte Menehould, with a stout9 roof over his head and a beautiful brown gloss10 on his boots, scribbling11 punning letters while his comrades fell back from that bloody12 summit....
Suddenly Campton’s eyes filled. No; George had not written that letter for the sake of the joke: the joke was meant to cover what went before it. Ah, how young the boy was to imagine that his father would not see! Yes, as he said, war made so many of the old things look foolish....
Campton set out for the Palais Royal. He felt happier than for a long time past: the tone of his boy’s letter seemed to correspond with his own secret change of spirit. He knew the futility13 of attempting to bring the Brants and himself together, but was glad that George had made the suggestion. He resolved to see Julia that afternoon.
At the Palais Royal he found the indefatigable14 Boylston busy with an exhibition of paintings sent home from the front, and Mlle. Davril helping15 to catalogue them. Lamentable16 pensioners17 came and went, bringing fresh tales of death, fresh details of savagery18; the air was dark with poverty and sorrow. In the background Mme. Beausite flitted about, tragic19 and ineffectual. Boylston had not been able to extract a penny from Beausite for his secretary and the latter’s left-handed family; but Mme. Beausite had discovered a newly-organized charity which lent money to “temporarily 199embarrassed” war-victims; and with an artless self-satisfaction she had contrived20 to obtain a small loan for the victim of her own thrift21. “For what other purpose are such charities founded?” she said, gently disclaiming22 in advance the praise which Miss Anthony and Boylston had no thought of offering her. Whenever Campton came in she effaced23 herself behind a desk, where she bent24 her beautiful white head over a card-catalogue without any perceptible results.
The telephone rang. Boylston, after a moment, looked up from the receiver.
“Mr. Campton!”
The painter glanced apprehensively25 at the instrument, which still seemed to him charged with explosives.
“Take the message, do. The thing always snaps at me.”
There was a listening pause: then Boylston said: “It’s about Upsher——”
Campton started up. “Killed——?”
“Not sure. It’s Mr. Brant. The news was wired to the bank; they want you to break it to Mr. Mayhew.”
“Oh, Lord,” the painter groaned26, the boy’s face suddenly rising before his blurred27 eyes. Miss Anthony was not at the office that morning, or he would have turned to her; at least she might have gone with him on his quest. He could not ask Boylston to leave the office, and he felt that curious incapacity to deal 200with the raw fact of sorrow which had often given an elfin unreality to the most poignant28 moments of his life. It was as though experience had to enter into the very substance of his soul before he could even feel it.
“Other people,” he thought, “would know what to say, and I shan’t....”
Some one, meanwhile, had fetched a cab, and he drove to the Nouveau Luxe, though with little hope of finding Mr. Mayhew. But Mr. Mayhew had grown two secretaries, and turned the shrimp-pink drawing-room into an office. One of the secretaries was there, hammering at a typewriter. She was a competent young woman, who instantly extracted from her pocket-diary the fact that her chief was at Mrs. Anderson Brant’s, rehearsing.
“Rehearsing——?”
“Why, yes; he’s to speak at Mrs. Brant’s next week on Atrocities,” she said, surprised at Campton’s ignorance.
She suggested telephoning; but in the shrunken households of the rich, where but one or two servants remained, telephoning had become as difficult as in the understaffed hotels; and after one or two vain attempts Campton decided29 to go to the Avenue Marigny. He felt that to get hold of Mayhew as soon as possible might still in some vague way help poor Benny—since it was not yet sure that he was dead. “Or else it’s just the need to rush about,” he thought, 201conscious that the only way he had yet found of dealing30 with calamity31 was a kind of ant-like agitation32.
On the way the round pink face of Benny Upsher continued to float before him in its very substance, with the tangibility33 that only a painter’s visions wear. “I want to be in this thing,” he heard the boy repeating, as if impelled34 by some blind instinct flowing down through centuries and centuries of persistent35 childish minds.
“If he or his forebears had ever thought things out he probably would have been alive and safe to-day,” Campton mused36, “like George.... The average person is always just obeying impulses stored up thousands of years ago, and never re-examined since.” But this consideration, though drawn37 from George’s own philosophy, did not greatly comfort his father.
At the Brants’ a bewildered concierge38 admitted him and rang a bell which no one answered. The vestibule and the stairs were piled with bales of sheeting, bulging39 jute-bags, stacked-up hospital supplies. A boy in scout’s uniform swung inadequate40 legs from the lofty porter’s armchair beside the table with its monumental bronze inkstand. Finally, from above, a maid called to Campton to ascend41.
In the drawing-room pictures and tapestries42, bronzes and pâtes tendres, had vanished, and a plain moquette replaced the priceless Savonnerie across whose pompous43 garlands Campton had walked on the day of his last visit.
202The maid led him to the ball-room. Through double doors of glass Mr. Mayhew’s oratorical44 accents, accompanied by faint chords on the piano, reached Campton’s ears: he paused and looked. At the far end of the great gilded45 room, on a platform backed by velvet46 draperies, stood Mr. Mayhew, a perfect pearl in his tie and a perfect crease47 in his trousers. Beside him was a stage-property tripod surmounted48 by a classical perfume-burner; and on it Mme. de Dolmetsch, swathed in black, leaned in an attitude of affliction.
Beneath the platform a bushy-headed pianist struck an occasional chord from Chopin’s Dead March; and near the door three or four Red Cross nurses perched on bales of blankets and listened. Under one of their coifs Campton recognized Mrs. Talkett. She saw him and made a sign to the lady nearest her; and the latter, turning, revealed the astonished eyes of Julia Brant.
Campton’s first impression, while they shook hands under cover of Mr. Mayhew’s rolling periods, was of his former wife’s gift of adaptation. She had made herself a nurse’s face; not a theatrical49 imitation of it like Mme. de Dolmetsch’s, nor yet the face of a nurse on a war-poster, like Mrs. Talkett’s. Her lovely hair smoothed away under her strict coif, her chin devoutly50 framed in linen51, Mrs. Brant looked serious, tender and efficient. Was it possible that she had found her vocation52?
203She gave him a glance of alarm, but his eyes must have told her that he had not come about George, for with a reassured53 smile she laid a finger on her lip and pointed54 to the platform; Campton noticed that her nails were as beautifully polished as ever.
Mr. Mayhew was saying: “All that I have to give, yes, all that is most precious to me, I am ready to surrender, to offer up, to lay down in the Great Struggle which is to save the world from barbarism. I, who was one of the first Victims of that barbarism....”
He paused and looked impressively at the bales of blankets. The piano filled in the pause, and Mme. de Dolmetsch, without changing her attitude, almost without moving her lips, sang a few notes of lamentation55.
“Of that hideous56 barbarism——” Mr. Mayhew began again. “I repeat that I stand here ready to give up everything I hold most dear——”
“Do stop him,” Campton whispered to Mrs. Brant.
Little Mrs. Talkett, with the quick intuition he had noted57 in her, sprang up and threaded her way to the stage. Mme. de Dolmetsch flowed from one widowed pose into another, and Mr. Mayhew, majestically59 descending60, approached Mrs. Brant.
“You agree with me, I hope? You feel that anything more than Mme. de Dolmetsch’s beautiful voice—anything in the way of a choral accompaniment—would only weaken my effect? Where the facts are so overwhelming it is enough to state them; that is,” Mr. 204Mayhew added modestly, “if they are stated vigorously and tersely—as I hope they are.”
Mme. de Dolmetsch, with the gesture of a marble mourner torn from her cenotaph, glided61 up behind him and laid her hand in Campton’s.
“Dear friend, you’ve heard?... You remember our talk? I am Cassandra, cursed with the hideous gift of divination62.” Tears rained down her cheeks, washing off the paint like mud swept by a shower. “My only comfort,” she added, fixing her perfect eyes on Mr. Mayhew, “is to help our great good friend in this crusade against the assassins of my Ladislas.”
Mrs. Talkett had said a word to Mr. Mayhew. Campton saw his complacent63 face go to pieces as if it had been vitrioled.
“Benny—Benny——” he screamed, “Benny hurt? My Benny? It’s some mistake! What makes you think——?” His eyes met Campton’s. “Oh, my God! Why, he’s my sister’s child!” he cried, plunging64 his face into his soft manicured hands.
In the cab to which Campton led him, he continued to sob65 with the full-throated sobs66 of a large invertebrate67 distress68, beating his breast for an unfindable handkerchief, and, when he found it, immediately weeping it into pulp69.
Campton had meant to leave him at the bank; but when the taxi stopped Mr. Mayhew was in too pitiful a plight70 for the painter to resist his entreaty71.
205“It was you who saw Benny last—you can’t leave me!” the poor man implored72; and Campton followed him up the majestic58 stairway.
Their names were taken in to Mr. Brant, and with a motion of wonder at the unaccountable humours of fate, Campton found himself for the first time entering the banker’s private office.
Mr. Brant was elsewhere in the great glazed73 labyrinth74, and while the visitors waited, the painter’s registering eye took in the details of the room, from the Barye cire-perdue on a peach-coloured marble mantel to the blue morocco armchairs about a giant writing-table. On the table was an electric lamp in a celadon vase, and just the right number of neatly75 folded papers lay under a paper-weight of Chinese crystal. The room was as tidy as an expensive stage-setting or the cage of a well-kept canary: the only object marring its order was a telegram lying open on the desk.
Mr. Brant, grey and glossy76, slipped in on noiseless patent leather. He shook hands with Mr. Mayhew, bowed stiffly but deprecatingly to Campton, gave his usual cough, and said: “This is terrible.”
And suddenly, as the three men sat there, so impressive and important and powerless, with that fatal telegram marring the tidiness of the desk, Campton murmured to himself: “If this thing were to happen to me I couldn’t bear it.... I simply couldn’t bear it....”
206Benny Upsher was not dead—at least his death was not certain. He had been seen to fall in a surprise attack near Neuve Chapelle; the telegram, from his commanding officer, reported him as “wounded and missing.”
The words had taken on a hideous significance in the last months. Freezing to death between the lines, mutilation and torture, or weeks of slow agony in German hospitals: these were the alternative visions associated with the now familiar formula. Mr. Mayhew had spent a part of his time collecting details about the treatment of those who had fallen, alive but wounded, into German hands; and Campton guessed that as he sat there every one of these details, cruel, sanguinary, remorseless, had started to life, and that all their victims wore the face of Benny.
The wretched man sat speechless, so unhinged and swinging loose in his grief that Mr. Brant and Campton could only look on, following the thoughts he was thinking, seeing the sights he was seeing, and each avoiding the other’s eye lest they should betray to one another the secret of their shared exultation77 at George’s safety.
Finally Mr. Mayhew was put in charge of a confidential78 clerk, who was to go with him to the English Military Mission in the hope of getting farther information. He went away, small and shrunken, with the deprecating smile of a man who seeks to ward79 off a blow; as he left the room Campton heard him say 207timidly to the clerk: “No doubt you speak French, sir? The words I want don’t seem to come to me.”
Campton had meant to leave at the same time; but some vague impulse held him back. He remembered George’s postscript80: “Don’t be too savage to Uncle Andy,” and wished he could think of some friendly phrase to ease off his leave-taking. Mr. Brant seemed to have the same wish. He stood, erect81 and tightly buttoned, one small hand resting on the arm of his desk-chair, as though he were posing for a cabinet size, with the photographer telling him to look natural. His lids twitched82 behind his protective glasses, and his upper lip, which was as straight as a ruler, detached itself by a hair’s breadth from the lower; but no word came.
“There was no reason on earth,” he said, “why poor young Upsher should ever have been in this thing.”
Mr. Brant bowed.
“This sort of crazy impulse to rush into other people’s rows,” Campton continued with rising vehemence85, “is of no more use to a civilized86 state than any other unreasoned instinct. At bottom it’s nothing but what George calls the baseball spirit: just an ignorant passion for fisticuffs.”
Mr. Brant looked at him intently. “When did—George say that?” he asked, with his usual cough before the name.
208Campton coloured. “Oh—er—some time ago: in the very beginning, I think. It was the view of most thoughtful young fellows at that time.”
“Quite so,” said Mr. Brant, cautiously stroking his moustache.
Campton’s eyes again wandered about the room.
“Now, of course——”
“Ah—now....”
The two men looked at each other, and Campton held out his hand. Mr. Brant, growing pink about the forehead, extended his dry fingers, and they shook hands in silence.
点击收听单词发音
1 engraved | |
v.在(硬物)上雕刻(字,画等)( engrave的过去式和过去分词 );将某事物深深印在(记忆或头脑中) | |
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2 captivity | |
n.囚禁;被俘;束缚 | |
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3 reminder | |
n.提醒物,纪念品;暗示,提示 | |
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4 twitch | |
v.急拉,抽动,痉挛,抽搐;n.扯,阵痛,痉挛 | |
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5 savage | |
adj.野蛮的;凶恶的,残暴的;n.未开化的人 | |
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6 impartially | |
adv.公平地,无私地 | |
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7 blessing | |
n.祈神赐福;祷告;祝福,祝愿 | |
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8 infantry | |
n.[总称]步兵(部队) | |
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10 gloss | |
n.光泽,光滑;虚饰;注释;vt.加光泽于;掩饰 | |
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11 scribbling | |
n.乱涂[写]胡[乱]写的文章[作品]v.潦草的书写( scribble的现在分词 );乱画;草草地写;匆匆记下 | |
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12 bloody | |
adj.非常的的;流血的;残忍的;adv.很;vt.血染 | |
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13 futility | |
n.无用 | |
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14 indefatigable | |
adj.不知疲倦的,不屈不挠的 | |
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15 helping | |
n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的,辅助的 | |
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16 lamentable | |
adj.令人惋惜的,悔恨的 | |
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17 pensioners | |
n.领取退休、养老金或抚恤金的人( pensioner的名词复数 ) | |
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18 savagery | |
n.野性 | |
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19 tragic | |
adj.悲剧的,悲剧性的,悲惨的 | |
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20 contrived | |
adj.不自然的,做作的;虚构的 | |
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21 thrift | |
adj.节约,节俭;n.节俭,节约 | |
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22 disclaiming | |
v.否认( disclaim的现在分词 ) | |
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23 effaced | |
v.擦掉( efface的过去式和过去分词 );抹去;超越;使黯然失色 | |
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24 bent | |
n.爱好,癖好;adj.弯的;决心的,一心的 | |
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25 apprehensively | |
adv.担心地 | |
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26 groaned | |
v.呻吟( groan的过去式和过去分词 );发牢骚;抱怨;受苦 | |
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27 blurred | |
v.(使)变模糊( blur的过去式和过去分词 );(使)难以区分;模模糊糊;迷离 | |
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28 poignant | |
adj.令人痛苦的,辛酸的,惨痛的 | |
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29 decided | |
adj.决定了的,坚决的;明显的,明确的 | |
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30 dealing | |
n.经商方法,待人态度 | |
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31 calamity | |
n.灾害,祸患,不幸事件 | |
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32 agitation | |
n.搅动;搅拌;鼓动,煽动 | |
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33 tangibility | |
n.确切性 | |
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34 impelled | |
v.推动、推进或敦促某人做某事( impel的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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35 persistent | |
adj.坚持不懈的,执意的;持续的 | |
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36 mused | |
v.沉思,冥想( muse的过去式和过去分词 );沉思自语说(某事) | |
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37 drawn | |
v.拖,拉,拔出;adj.憔悴的,紧张的 | |
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38 concierge | |
n.管理员;门房 | |
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39 bulging | |
膨胀; 凸出(部); 打气; 折皱 | |
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40 inadequate | |
adj.(for,to)不充足的,不适当的 | |
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41 ascend | |
vi.渐渐上升,升高;vt.攀登,登上 | |
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42 tapestries | |
n.挂毯( tapestry的名词复数 );绣帷,织锦v.用挂毯(或绣帷)装饰( tapestry的第三人称单数 ) | |
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43 pompous | |
adj.傲慢的,自大的;夸大的;豪华的 | |
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44 oratorical | |
adj.演说的,雄辩的 | |
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45 gilded | |
a.镀金的,富有的 | |
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46 velvet | |
n.丝绒,天鹅绒;adj.丝绒制的,柔软的 | |
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47 crease | |
n.折缝,褶痕,皱褶;v.(使)起皱 | |
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48 surmounted | |
战胜( surmount的过去式和过去分词 ); 克服(困难); 居于…之上; 在…顶上 | |
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49 theatrical | |
adj.剧场的,演戏的;做戏似的,做作的 | |
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50 devoutly | |
adv.虔诚地,虔敬地,衷心地 | |
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51 linen | |
n.亚麻布,亚麻线,亚麻制品;adj.亚麻布制的,亚麻的 | |
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52 vocation | |
n.职业,行业 | |
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53 reassured | |
adj.使消除疑虑的;使放心的v.再保证,恢复信心( reassure的过去式和过去分词) | |
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54 pointed | |
adj.尖的,直截了当的 | |
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55 lamentation | |
n.悲叹,哀悼 | |
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56 hideous | |
adj.丑陋的,可憎的,可怕的,恐怖的 | |
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57 noted | |
adj.著名的,知名的 | |
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58 majestic | |
adj.雄伟的,壮丽的,庄严的,威严的,崇高的 | |
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59 majestically | |
雄伟地; 庄重地; 威严地; 崇高地 | |
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60 descending | |
n. 下行 adj. 下降的 | |
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61 glided | |
v.滑动( glide的过去式和过去分词 );掠过;(鸟或飞机 ) 滑翔 | |
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62 divination | |
n.占卜,预测 | |
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63 complacent | |
adj.自满的;自鸣得意的 | |
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64 plunging | |
adj.跳进的,突进的v.颠簸( plunge的现在分词 );暴跌;骤降;突降 | |
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65 sob | |
n.空间轨道的轰炸机;呜咽,哭泣 | |
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66 sobs | |
啜泣(声),呜咽(声)( sob的名词复数 ) | |
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67 invertebrate | |
n.无脊椎动物 | |
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68 distress | |
n.苦恼,痛苦,不舒适;不幸;vt.使悲痛 | |
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69 pulp | |
n.果肉,纸浆;v.化成纸浆,除去...果肉,制成纸浆 | |
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70 plight | |
n.困境,境况,誓约,艰难;vt.宣誓,保证,约定 | |
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71 entreaty | |
n.恳求,哀求 | |
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72 implored | |
恳求或乞求(某人)( implore的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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73 glazed | |
adj.光滑的,像玻璃的;上过釉的;呆滞无神的v.装玻璃( glaze的过去式);上釉于,上光;(目光)变得呆滞无神 | |
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74 labyrinth | |
n.迷宫;难解的事物;迷路 | |
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75 neatly | |
adv.整洁地,干净地,灵巧地,熟练地 | |
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76 glossy | |
adj.平滑的;有光泽的 | |
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77 exultation | |
n.狂喜,得意 | |
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78 confidential | |
adj.秘(机)密的,表示信任的,担任机密工作的 | |
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79 ward | |
n.守卫,监护,病房,行政区,由监护人或法院保护的人(尤指儿童);vt.守护,躲开 | |
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80 postscript | |
n.附言,又及;(正文后的)补充说明 | |
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81 erect | |
n./v.树立,建立,使竖立;adj.直立的,垂直的 | |
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82 twitched | |
vt.& vi.(使)抽动,(使)颤动(twitch的过去式与过去分词形式) | |
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83 spoke | |
n.(车轮的)辐条;轮辐;破坏某人的计划;阻挠某人的行动 v.讲,谈(speak的过去式);说;演说;从某种观点来说 | |
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84 abruptly | |
adv.突然地,出其不意地 | |
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85 vehemence | |
n.热切;激烈;愤怒 | |
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86 civilized | |
a.有教养的,文雅的 | |
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