Fame did not bring the social advancement2 which the Babbitts deserved. They were not asked to join the Tonawanda Country Club nor invited to the dances at the union. Himself, Babbitt fretted4, he didn't “care a fat hoot5 for all these highrollers, but the wife would kind of like to be Among Those Present.” He nervously6 awaited his university class-dinner and an evening of furious intimacy7 with such social leaders as Charles McKelvey the millionaire contractor8, Max Kruger the banker, Irving Tate the tool-manufacturer, and Adelbert Dobson the fashionable interior decorator. Theoretically he was their friend, as he had been in college, and when he encountered them they still called him “Georgie,” but he didn't seem to encounter them often, and they never invited him to dinner (with champagne9 and a butler) at their houses on Royal Ridge10.
All the week before the class-dinner he thought of them. “No reason why we shouldn't become real chummy now!”
II
Like all true American diversions and spiritual outpourings, the dinner of the men of the Class of 1896 was thoroughly11 organized. The dinner-committee hammered like a sales-corporation. Once a week they sent out reminders12:
TICKLER NO. 3
Old man, are you going to be with us at the livest Friendship Feed the alumni of the good old U have ever known? The alumnae13 of '08 turned out 60% strong. Are we boys going to be beaten by a bunch of skirts? Come on, fellows, let's work up some real genuine enthusiasm and all boost together for the snappiest dinner yet! Elegant eats, short ginger-talks, and memories shared together of the brightest, gladdest days of life.
The dinner was held in a private room at the union Club. The club was a dingy14 building, three pretentious15 old dwellings16 knocked together, and the entrance-hall resembled a potato cellar, yet the Babbitt who was free of the magnificence of the Athletic18 Club entered with embarrassment19. He nodded to the doorman, an ancient proud negro with brass20 buttons and a blue tail-coat, and paraded through the hall, trying to look like a member.
Sixty men had come to the dinner. They made islands and eddies21 in the hall; they packed the elevator and the corners of the private dining-room. They tried to be intimate and enthusiastic. They appeared to one another exactly as they had in college—as raw youngsters whose present mustaches, baldnesses, paunches, and wrinkles were but jovial22 disguises put on for the evening. “You haven't changed a particle!” they marveled. The men whom they could not recall they addressed, “Well, well, great to see you again, old man. What are you—Still doing the same thing?”
Some one was always starting a cheer or a college song, and it was always thinning into silence. Despite their resolution to be democratic they divided into two sets: the men with dress-clothes and the men without. Babbitt (extremely in dress-clothes) went from one group to the other. Though he was, almost frankly23, out for social conquest, he sought Paul Riesling first. He found him alone, neat and silent.
“Rats now, Paulibus, loosen up and be a mixer! Finest bunch of boys on earth! Say, you seem kind of glum25. What's matter?”
“Oh, the usual. Run-in with Zilla.”
He kept Paul beside him, but worked toward the spot where Charles McKelvey stood warming his admirers like a furnace.
McKelvey had been the hero of the Class of '96; not only football captain and hammer-thrower but debater, and passable in what the State University considered scholarship. He had gone on, had captured the construction-company once owned by the Dodsworths, best-known pioneer family of Zenith. He built state capitols, skyscrapers28, railway terminals. He was a heavy-shouldered, big-chested man, but not sluggish29. There was a quiet humor in his eyes, a syrup-smooth quickness in his speech, which intimidated30 politicians and warned reporters; and in his presence the most intelligent scientist or the most sensitive artist felt thin-blooded, unworldly, and a little shabby. He was, particularly when he was influencing legislatures or hiring labor-spies, very easy and lovable and gorgeous. He was baronial; he was a peer in the rapidly crystallizing American aristocracy, inferior only to the haughty31 Old Families. (In Zenith, an Old Family is one which came to town before 1840.) His power was the greater because he was not hindered by scruples32, by either the vice33 or the virtue34 of the older Puritan tradition.
McKelvey was being placidly35 merry now with the great, the manufacturers and bankers, the land-owners and lawyers and surgeons who had chauffeurs36 and went to Europe. Babbitt squeezed among them. He liked McKelvey's smile as much as the social advancement to be had from his favor. If in Paul's company he felt ponderous38 and protective, with McKelvey he felt slight and adoring.
He heard McKelvey say to Max Kruger, the banker, “Yes, we'll put up Sir Gerald Doak.” Babbitt's democratic love for titles became a rich relish39. “You know, he's one of the biggest iron-men in England, Max. Horribly well-off.... Why, hello, old Georgie! Say, Max, George Babbitt is getting fatter than I am!”
The chairman shouted, “Take your seats, fellows!”
“Right. Hello, Paul! How's the old fiddler? Planning to sit anywhere special, George? Come on, let's grab some seats. Come on, Max. Georgie, I read about your speeches in the campaign. Bully41 work!”
After that, Babbitt would have followed him through fire. He was enormously busy during the dinner, now bumblingly cheering Paul, now approaching McKelvey with “Hear, you're going to build some piers42 in Brooklyn,” now noting how enviously43 the failures of the class, sitting by themselves in a weedy group, looked up to him in his association with the nobility, now warming himself in the Society Talk of McKelvey and Max Kruger. They spoke44 of a “jungle dance” for which Mona Dodsworth had decorated her house with thousands of orchids45. They spoke, with an excellent imitation of casualness, of a dinner in Washington at which McKelvey had met a Senator, a Balkan princess, and an English major-general. McKelvey called the princess “Jenny,” and let it be known that he had danced with her.
Babbitt was thrilled, but not so weighted with awe46 as to be silent. If he was not invited by them to dinner, he was yet accustomed to talking with bank-presidents, congressmen, and clubwomen who entertained poets. He was bright and referential with McKelvey:
“Say, Charley, juh remember in Junior year how we chartered a sea-going hack47 and chased down to Riverdale, to the big show Madame Brown used to put on? Remember how you beat up that hick constabule that tried to run us in, and we pinched the pants-pressing sign and took and hung it on Prof. Morrison's door? Oh, gosh, those were the days!”
Those, McKelvey agreed, were the days.
Babbitt had reached “It isn't the books you study in college but the friendships you make that counts” when the men at head of the table broke into song. He attacked McKelvey:
“It's a shame, uh, shame to drift apart because our, uh, business activities lie in different fields. I've enjoyed talking over the good old days. You and Mrs. McKelvey must come to dinner some night.”
“Like to talk to you about the growth of real estate out beyond your Grantsville warehouse49. I might be able to tip you off to a thing or two, possibly.”
“Splendid! We must have dinner together, Georgie. Just let me know. And it will be a great pleasure to have your wife and you at the house,” said McKelvey, much less vaguely.
Then the chairman's voice, that prodigious50 voice which once had roused them to cheer defiance51 at rooters from Ohio or Michigan or Indiana, whooped52, “Come on, you wombats53! All together in the long yell!” Babbitt felt that life would never be sweeter than now, when he joined with Paul Riesling and the newly recovered hero, McKelvey, in:
Baaaaaattle-ax Get an ax, Bal-ax, Get-nax, Who, who? The U.! Hooroo!
III
The Babbitts invited the McKelveys to dinner, in early December, and the McKelveys not only accepted but, after changing the date once or twice, actually came.
The Babbitts somewhat thoroughly discussed the details of the dinner, from the purchase of a bottle of champagne to the number of salted almonds to be placed before each person. Especially did they mention the matter of the other guests. To the last Babbitt held out for giving Paul Riesling the benefit of being with the McKelveys. “Good old Charley would like Paul and Verg Gunch better than some highfalutin' Willy boy,” he insisted, but Mrs. Babbitt interrupted his observations with, “Yes—perhaps—I think I'll try to get some Lynnhaven oysters,” and when she was quite ready she invited Dr. J. T. Angus, the oculist54, and a dismally55 respectable lawyer named Maxwell, with their glittering wives.
Neither Angus nor Maxwell belonged to the Elks56 or to the Athletic Club; neither of them had ever called Babbitt “brother” or asked his opinions on carburetors. The only “human people” whom she invited, Babbitt raged, were the Littlefields; and Howard Littlefield at times became so statistical57 that Babbitt longed for the refreshment58 of Gunch's, “Well, old lemon-pie-face, what's the good word?”
Immediately after lunch Mrs. Babbitt began to set the table for the seven-thirty dinner to the McKelveys, and Babbitt was, by order, home at four. But they didn't find anything for him to do, and three times Mrs. Babbitt scolded, “Do please try to keep out of the way!” He stood in the door of the garage, his lips drooping59, and wished that Littlefield or Sam Doppelbrau or somebody would come along and talk to him. He saw Ted3 sneaking60 about the corner of the house.
“What's the matter, old man?” said Babbitt.
“Is that you, thin, owld one? Gee61, Ma certainly is on the warpath! I told her Rone and I would jus' soon not be let in on the fiesta to-night, and she bit me. She says I got to take a bath, too. But, say, the Babbitt men will be some lookers to-night! Little Theodore in a dress-suit!”
“The Babbitt men!” Babbitt liked the sound of it. He put his arm about the boy's shoulder. He wished that Paul Riesling had a daughter, so that Ted might marry her. “Yes, your mother is kind of rouncing round, all right,” he said, and they laughed together, and sighed together, and dutifully went in to dress.
The McKelveys were less than fifteen minutes late.
Babbitt hoped that the Doppelbraus would see the McKelveys' limousine62, and their uniformed chauffeur37, waiting in front.
The dinner was well cooked and incredibly plentiful63, and Mrs. Babbitt had brought out her grandmother's silver candlesticks. Babbitt worked hard. He was good. He told none of the jokes he wanted to tell. He listened to the others. He started Maxwell off with a resounding64, “Let's hear about your trip to the Yellowstone.” He was laudatory65, extremely laudatory. He found opportunities to remark that Dr. Angus was a benefactor66 to humanity, Maxwell and Howard Littlefield profound scholars, Charles McKelvey an inspiration to ambitious youth, and Mrs. McKelvey an adornment67 to the social circles of Zenith, Washington, New York, Paris, and numbers of other places.
But he could not stir them. It was a dinner without a soul. For no reason that was clear to Babbitt, heaviness was over them and they spoke laboriously68 and unwillingly69.
He concentrated on Lucille McKelvey, carefully not looking at her blanched70 lovely shoulder and the tawny71 silken bared which supported her frock.
“I suppose you'll be going to Europe pretty soon again, won't you?” he invited.
“I suppose you see a lot of pictures and music and curios and everything there.”
“No, what I really go for is: there's a little trattoria on the Via della Scrofa where you get the best fettuccine in the world.”
“Oh, I—Yes. That must be nice to try that. Yes.”
At a quarter to ten McKelvey discovered with profound regret that his wife had a headache. He said blithely73, as Babbitt helped him with his coat, “We must lunch together some time, and talk over the old days.”
When the others had labored74 out, at half-past ten, Babbitt turned to his wife, pleading, “Charley said he had a corking75 time and we must lunch—said they wanted to have us up to the house for dinner before long.”
She achieved, “Oh, it's just been one of those quiet evenings that are often so much more enjoyable than noisy parties where everybody talks at once and doesn't really settle down to-nice quiet enjoyment76.”
But from his cot on the sleeping-porch he heard her weeping, slowly, without hope.
IV
For a month they watched the social columns, and waited for a return dinner-invitation.
As the hosts of Sir Gerald Doak, the McKelveys were headlined all the week after the Babbitts' dinner. Zenith ardently77 received Sir Gerald (who had come to America to buy coal). The newspapers interviewed him on prohibition78, Ireland, unemployment, naval79 aviation, the rate of exchange, tea-drinking versus80 whisky-drinking, the psychology81 of American women, and daily life as lived by English county families. Sir Gerald seemed to have heard of all those topics. The McKelveys gave him a Singhalese dinner, and Miss Elnora Pearl Bates, society editor of the Advocate-Times, rose to her highest lark-note. Babbitt read aloud at breakfast-table:
'Twixt the original and Oriental decorations, the strange and delicious food, and the personalities82 both of the distinguished83 guests, the charming hostess and the noted84 host, never has Zenith seen a more recherche85 affair than the Ceylon dinner-dance given last evening by Mr. and Mrs. Charles McKelvey to Sir Gerald Doak. Methought as we—fortunate one!—were privileged to view that fairy and foreign scene, nothing at Monte Carlo or the choicest ambassadorial sets of foreign capitals could be more lovely. It is not for nothing that Zenith is in matters social rapidly becoming known as the choosiest inland city in the country.
Though he is too modest to admit it, Lord Doak gives a cachet to our smart quartier such as it has not received since the ever-memorable visit of the Earl of Sittingbourne. Not only is he of the British peerage, but he is also, on dit, a leader of the British metal industries. As he comes from Nottingham, a favorite haunt of Robin86 Hood87, though now, we are informed by Lord Doak, a live modern city of 275,573 inhabitants, and important lace as well as other industries, we like to think that perhaps through his veins88 runs some of the blood, both virile89 red and bonny blue, of that earlier lord o' the good greenwood, the roguish Robin.
The lovely Mrs. McKelvey never was more fascinating than last evening in her black net gown relieved by dainty bands of silver and at her exquisite90 waist a glowing cluster of Aaron Ward27 roses.
Babbitt said bravely, “I hope they don't invite us to meet this Lord Doak guy. Darn sight rather just have a nice quiet little dinner with Charley and the Missus.”
At the Zenith Athletic Club they discussed it amply. “I s'pose we'll have to call McKelvey 'Lord Chaz' from now on,” said Sidney Finkelstein.
“It beats all get-out,” meditated91 that man of data, Howard Littlefield, “how hard it is for some people to get things straight. Here they call this fellow 'Lord Doak' when it ought to be 'Sir Gerald.'”
Babbitt marvelled92, “Is that a fact! Well, well! 'Sir Gerald,' eh? That's what you call um, eh? Well, sir, I'm glad to know that.”
Later he informed his salesmen, “It's funnier 'n a goat the way some folks that, just because they happen to lay up a big wad, go entertaining famous foreigners, don't have any more idea 'n a rabbit how to address 'em so's to make 'em feel at home!”
That evening, as he was driving home, he passed McKelvey's limousine and saw Sir Gerald, a large, ruddy, pop-eyed, Teutonic Englishman whose dribble93 of yellow mustache gave him an aspect sad and doubtful. Babbitt drove on slowly, oppressed by futility94. He had a sudden, unexplained, and horrible conviction that the McKelveys were laughing at him.
He betrayed his depression by the violence with which he informed his wife, “Folks that really tend to business haven't got the time to waste on a bunch like the McKelveys. This society stuff is like any other hobby; if you devote yourself to it, you get on. But I like to have a chance to visit with you and the children instead of all this idiotic95 chasing round.”
They did not speak of the McKelveys again.
V
It was a shame, at this worried time, to have to think about the Overbrooks.
Ed Overbrook was a classmate of Babbitt who had been a failure. He had a large family and a feeble insurance business out in the suburb of Dorchester. He was gray and thin and unimportant. He had always been gray and thin and unimportant. He was the person whom, in any group, you forgot to introduce, then introduced with extra enthusiasm. He had admired Babbitt's good-fellowship in college, had admired ever since his power in real estate, his beautiful house and wonderful clothes. It pleased Babbitt, though it bothered him with a sense of responsibility. At the class-dinner he had seen poor Overbrook, in a shiny blue serge business-suit, being diffident in a corner with three other failures. He had gone over and been cordial: “Why, hello, young Ed! I hear you're writing all the insurance in Dorchester now. Bully work!”
They recalled the good old days when Overbrook used to write poetry. Overbrook embarrassed him by blurting96, “Say, Georgie, I hate to think of how we been drifting apart. I wish you and Mrs. Babbitt would come to dinner some night.”
Babbitt boomed, “Fine! Sure! Just let me know. And the wife and I want to have you at the house.” He forgot it, but unfortunately Ed Overbrook did not. Repeatedly he telephoned to Babbitt, inviting97 him to dinner. “Might as well go and get it over,” Babbitt groaned98 to his wife. “But don't it simply amaze you the way the poor fish doesn't know the first thing about social etiquette99? Think of him 'phoning me, instead of his wife sitting down and writing us a regular bid! Well, I guess we're stuck for it. That's the trouble with all this class-brother hooptedoodle.”
He accepted Overbrook's next plaintive100 invitation, for an evening two weeks off. A dinner two weeks off, even a family dinner, never seems so appalling101, till the two weeks have astoundingly disappeared and one comes dismayed to the ambushed102 hour. They had to change the date, because of their own dinner to the McKelveys, but at last they gloomily drove out to the Overbrooks' house in Dorchester.
It was miserable103 from the beginning. The Overbrooks had dinner at six-thirty, while the Babbitts never dined before seven. Babbitt permitted himself to be ten minutes late. “Let's make it as short as possible. I think we'll duck out quick. I'll say I have to be at the office extra early to-morrow,” he planned.
The Overbrook house was depressing. It was the second story of a wooden two-family dwelling17; a place of baby-carriages, old hats hung in the hall, cabbage-smell, and a Family Bible on the parlor104 table. Ed Overbrook and his wife were as awkward and threadbare as usual, and the other guests were two dreadful families whose names Babbitt never caught and never desired to catch. But he was touched, and disconcerted, by the tactless way in which Overbrook praised him: “We're mighty105 proud to have old George here to-night! Of course you've all read about his speeches and oratory106 in the papers—and the boy's good-looking, too, eh?—but what I always think of is back in college, and what a great old mixer he was, and one of the best swimmers in the class.”
Babbitt tried to be jovial; he worked at it; but he could find nothing to interest him in Overbrook's timorousness107, the blankness of the other guests, or the drained stupidity of Mrs. Overbrook, with her spectacles, drab skin, and tight-drawn hair. He told his best Irish story, but it sank like soggy cake. Most bleary moment of all was when Mrs. Overbrook, peering out of her fog of nursing eight children and cooking and scrubbing, tried to be conversational108.
“Well, I get to Chicago fairly often.”
“It must be awfully interesting. I suppose you take in all the theaters.”
“Well, to tell the truth, Mrs. Overbrook, thing that hits me best is a great big beefsteak at a Dutch restaurant in the Loop!”
They had nothing more to say. Babbitt was sorry, but there was no hope; the dinner was a failure. At ten, rousing out of the stupor110 of meaningless talk, he said as cheerily as he could, “'Fraid we got to be starting, Ed. I've got a fellow coming to see me early to-morrow.” As Overbrook helped him with his coat, Babbitt said, “Nice to rub up on the old days! We must have lunch together, P.D.Q.”
Mrs. Babbitt sighed, on their drive home, “It was pretty terrible. But how Mr. Overbrook does admire you!”
“Yep. Poor cuss! Seems to think I'm a little tin archangel, and the best-looking man in Zenith.”
“Well, you're certainly not that but—Oh, Georgie, you don't suppose we have to invite them to dinner at our house now, do we?”
“Ouch! Gaw, I hope not!”
“See here, now, George! You didn't say anything about it to Mr. Overbrook, did you?”
“Well.... Oh, dear.... I don't want to hurt their feelings. But I don't see how I could stand another evening like this one. And suppose somebody like Dr. and Mrs. Angus came in when we had the Overbrooks there, and thought they were friends of ours!”
For a week they worried, “We really ought to invite Ed and his wife, poor devils!” But as they never saw the Overbrooks, they forgot them, and after a month or two they said, “That really was the best way, just to let it slide. It wouldn't be kind to THEM to have them here. They'd feel so out of place and hard-up in our home.”
They did not speak of the Overbrooks again.
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disastrous
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| adj.灾难性的，造成灾害的；极坏的，很糟的 | |
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advancement
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| n.前进，促进，提升 | |
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ted
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| vt.翻晒，撒，撒开 | |
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fretted
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| 焦躁的，附有弦马的，腐蚀的 | |
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hoot
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| n.鸟叫声，汽车的喇叭声； v.使汽车鸣喇叭 | |
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nervously
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| adv.神情激动地，不安地 | |
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intimacy
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| n.熟悉，亲密，密切关系，亲昵的言行 | |
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contractor
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| n.订约人，承包人，收缩肌 | |
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champagne
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| n.香槟酒；微黄色 | |
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ridge
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| n.山脊；鼻梁；分水岭 | |
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thoroughly
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| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
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reminders
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| n.令人回忆起…的东西( reminder的名词复数 )；提醒…的东西；（告知该做某事的）通知单；提示信 | |
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alumnae
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| n.女毕业生，女校友；女校友( alumna的名词复数 ) | |
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dingy
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| adj.昏暗的，肮脏的 | |
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pretentious
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| adj.自命不凡的，自负的，炫耀的 | |
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dwellings
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| n.住处，处所( dwelling的名词复数 ) | |
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dwelling
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| n.住宅，住所，寓所 | |
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athletic
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| adj.擅长运动的，强健的；活跃的，体格健壮的 | |
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embarrassment
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| n.尴尬；使人为难的人(事物)；障碍；窘迫 | |
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brass
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| n.黄铜；黄铜器，铜管乐器 | |
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eddies
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| （水、烟等的）漩涡，涡流( eddy的名词复数 ) | |
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jovial
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| adj.快乐的，好交际的 | |
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frankly
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| adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说 | |
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bunk
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| n.(车、船等倚壁而设的)铺位；废话 | |
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glum
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wade
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| v.跋涉，涉水；n.跋涉 | |
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ward
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| 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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skyscrapers
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sluggish
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| adj.懒惰的，迟钝的，无精打采的 | |
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intimidated
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| v.恐吓；威胁adj.害怕的；受到威胁的 | |
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haughty
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| adj.傲慢的，高傲的 | |
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scruples
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| n.良心上的不安( scruple的名词复数 )；顾虑，顾忌v.感到于心不安，有顾忌( scruple的第三人称单数 ) | |
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vice
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| n.坏事；恶习；[pl.]台钳，老虎钳；adj.副的 | |
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virtue
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| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
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placidly
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chauffeurs
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chauffeur
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ponderous
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| adj.沉重的，笨重的，(文章)冗长的 | |
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relish
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| n.滋味，享受，爱好，调味品；vt.加调味料，享受，品味；vi.有滋味 | |
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casually
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| adv.漠不关心地，无动于衷地，不负责任地 | |
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41
bully
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| n.恃强欺弱者，小流氓；vt.威胁，欺侮 | |
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42
piers
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| n.水上平台( pier的名词复数 )；（常设有娱乐场所的）突堤；柱子；墙墩 | |
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43
enviously
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| adv.满怀嫉妒地 | |
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44
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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45
orchids
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| n.兰花( orchid的名词复数 ) | |
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46
awe
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| n.敬畏，惊惧；vt.使敬畏，使惊惧 | |
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47
hack
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| n.劈，砍，出租马车；v.劈，砍，干咳 | |
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48
vaguely
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| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
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49
warehouse
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| n.仓库；vt.存入仓库 | |
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50
prodigious
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| adj.惊人的，奇妙的；异常的；巨大的；庞大的 | |
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51
defiance
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| n.挑战，挑衅，蔑视，违抗 | |
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52
whooped
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| 叫喊( whoop的过去式和过去分词 )； 高声说； 唤起 | |
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53
wombats
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| n.袋熊( wombat的名词复数 ) | |
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54
oculist
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| n.眼科医生 | |
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55
dismally
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| adv.阴暗地，沉闷地 | |
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56
elks
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| n.麋鹿( elk的名词复数 ) | |
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57
statistical
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| adj.统计的，统计学的 | |
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58
refreshment
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| n.恢复，精神爽快，提神之事物；（复数）refreshments:点心，茶点 | |
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59
drooping
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| adj. 下垂的，无力的 动词droop的现在分词 | |
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60
sneaking
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| a.秘密的，不公开的 | |
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61
gee
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| n.马；int.向右！前进！，惊讶时所发声音；v.向右转 | |
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62
limousine
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| n.豪华轿车 | |
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63
plentiful
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| adj.富裕的，丰富的 | |
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resounding
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| adj. 响亮的 | |
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laudatory
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| adj.赞扬的 | |
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benefactor
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| n. 恩人，行善的人，捐助人 | |
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67
adornment
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| n.装饰；装饰品 | |
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laboriously
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| adv.艰苦地；费力地；辛勤地；（文体等）佶屈聱牙地 | |
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unwillingly
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| adv.不情愿地 | |
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blanched
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| v.使变白( blanch的过去式 )；使（植物）不见阳光而变白；酸洗（金属）使有光泽；用沸水烫（杏仁等）以便去皮 | |
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71
tawny
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| adj.茶色的，黄褐色的；n.黄褐色 | |
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awfully
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| adv.可怕地，非常地，极端地 | |
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blithely
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| adv.欢乐地，快活地，无挂虑地 | |
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labored
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| adj.吃力的，谨慎的v.努力争取(for)( labor的过去式和过去分词 )；苦干；详细分析；（指引擎）缓慢而困难地运转 | |
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corking
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| adj.很好的adv.非常地v.用瓶塞塞住( cork的现在分词 ) | |
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76
enjoyment
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| n.乐趣；享有；享用 | |
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ardently
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| adv.热心地，热烈地 | |
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prohibition
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| n.禁止；禁令，禁律 | |
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naval
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| adj.海军的，军舰的，船的 | |
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versus
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| prep.以…为对手，对；与…相比之下 | |
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81
psychology
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| n.心理，心理学，心理状态 | |
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82
personalities
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| n. 诽谤，（对某人容貌、性格等所进行的）人身攻击； 人身攻击；人格, 个性, 名人( personality的名词复数 ) | |
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83
distinguished
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| adj.卓越的，杰出的，著名的 | |
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noted
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| adj.著名的，知名的 | |
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85
recherche
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| adj.精选的；罕有的 | |
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86
robin
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| n.知更鸟，红襟鸟 | |
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87
hood
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| n.头巾，兜帽，覆盖；v.罩上，以头巾覆盖 | |
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88
veins
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| n.纹理；矿脉( vein的名词复数 )；静脉；叶脉；纹理 | |
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89
virile
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| adj.男性的；有男性生殖力的；有男子气概的；强有力的 | |
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exquisite
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| adj.精美的；敏锐的；剧烈的，感觉强烈的 | |
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91
meditated
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| 深思，沉思，冥想( meditate的过去式和过去分词 )； 内心策划，考虑 | |
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marvelled
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| v.惊奇，对…感到惊奇( marvel的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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93
dribble
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| v.点滴留下，流口水；n.口水 | |
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94
futility
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| n.无用 | |
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95
idiotic
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| adj.白痴的 | |
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96
blurting
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| v.突然说出，脱口而出( blurt的现在分词 ) | |
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97
inviting
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| adj.诱人的，引人注目的 | |
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98
groaned
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| v.呻吟( groan的过去式和过去分词 )；发牢骚；抱怨；受苦 | |
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99
etiquette
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| n.礼仪，礼节；规矩 | |
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100
plaintive
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| adj.可怜的，伤心的 | |
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101
appalling
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| adj.骇人听闻的，令人震惊的，可怕的 | |
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102
ambushed
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| v.埋伏( ambush的过去式和过去分词 )；埋伏着 | |
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103
miserable
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| adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的 | |
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104
parlor
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| n.店铺，营业室；会客室，客厅 | |
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105
mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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106
oratory
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| n.演讲术；词藻华丽的言辞 | |
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107
timorousness
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| n.羞怯，胆怯 | |
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108
conversational
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| adj.对话的，会话的 | |
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109
prodded
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| v.刺，戳( prod的过去式和过去分词 )；刺激；促使；（用手指或尖物）戳 | |
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110
stupor
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| v.昏迷；不省人事 | |
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111
bluff
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| v.虚张声势，用假象骗人；n.虚张声势，欺骗 | |
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