He did not consciously think of Rose. But if she were not there he was uneasy till she came again. His secret exhilaration at her approach, the dead blankness of his lack of her when she was absent, told him nothing. These were the feelings he had, and they filled him and left no cool residue8 of reason wherewith to watch and guard. He was taken unawares, so drearily9 confident of his allegiance to his particular private tragedy that he did not admit the possibility of a defection. A sense of rest was on him and he set it down—if he ever thought of it at all—to the relief of a temporary respite10. Poor Dominick, with his inexperience of sweet things, did not argue that respite from pain should be a quiescent11, contented12 condition of being, far removed from that state of secret, troubled gladness that thrilled him at the sound of a woman’s footstep.
No situation could have been invented better suited for the fostering of sentiment. His helpless state demanded her constant attention. The attitude of nurse to patient, the solicitude13 of the consoling woman for the disabled, suffering man, have been, since time immemorial, recognized aids to romance. Rose, if an unawakened woman, was enough of one to enjoy richly this maternal15 office of alternate cossetting and ruling one, who, in the natural order of things, should have stood alone in his strength, dictating16 the law. Perhaps the human female so delights in this particular opportunity for tyranny because it is one of her few chances for indulging her passion for authority.
Rose, if she did not quite revel17 in it, discreetly18 enjoyed her period of dominance. In the beginning Dominick had been not a man but a patient—about the same to her as the doll is to the little girl. Then when he began to get better, and the man rose, tingling19 with renewed life, from the ashes of the patient, she quickly fell back into the old position. With the inherited, dainty deceptiveness20 of generations of women, who, while they were virtuous21, were also charming, she relinquished22 her dominion23 and retreated into that enfolded maidenly24 reserve and docility26 which we feel quite sure was the manner adopted by the ladies of the Stone Age when they felt it necessary to manage their lords.
She was as unconscious of all this as Dominick was of his growing absorption in her. If he was troubled she was not. The days saw her growing gayer, more blithe27 and light-hearted. She sang about the corridors, her smile grew more radiant, and every man in the hotel felt the power of her awakening28 womanhood. Her boyish frankness of demeanor29 was still undimmed by the first blurring30 breath of passion. If Dominick was not in the parlor31 her disappointment was as candid32 as a child’s whose mother has forgotten to bring home candy. All that she showed of consciousness was that when he was there and there was no disappointment, she concealed33 her satisfaction, wrapped herself in a sudden, shy quietness, as completely extinguishing of all beneath as a nun’s habit.
The continued, enforced intimacy34 into which their restricted quarters and indoor life threw them could not have been more effectual in fanning the growing flame if designed by a malicious35 Fate. There was only one sitting-room36, and, unable to go out, they sat side by side in it all day. They read together, they talked, they played cards. They were seldom alone, but the presence of Bill Cannon37, groaning38 over the fire with a three-weeks-old newspaper for company, was not one that diverted their attention from each other; and Cora and Willoughby, as opponents in a game of euchre, only helped to accentuate39 the comradeship which leagued them together in defensive40 alliance.
The days that were so long to others were to them of a bright, surprising shortness. Playing solitaire against each other on either side of the fireplace was a pastime at which hours slipped by. Quite unexpectedly it would be midday, with Cora putting her head round the door-post and calling them to dinner. In the euchre games of the afternoon the darkness crept upon them with the stealthy swiftness of an enemy. It would gather in the corners of the room while Cora was still heated and flushed from her efforts to instruct Willoughby in the intricacies of the game, and yet preserve that respectful attitude which she felt should be assumed in one’s relations with a lord.
The twilight41 hour that followed was to Dominick’s mind the most delightful42 of these days of fleeting43 enchantment44. The curtains were drawn45, a new log rolled on the fire, and the lamp lit. Then their fellow prisoners began dropping in—the old judge stowing himself away in one of the horsehair arm-chairs, Willoughby and Buford lounging in from the bar, Mrs. Perley with a basket of the family mending, and the doctor all snowy from his rounds. The audience for Rose’s readings had expanded from the original listener to this choice circle of Antelope46’s elect. The book chosen had been Great Expectations, and the spell of that greatest tale of a great romancer fell on the snow-bound group and held them entranced and motionless round the friendly hearth47.
The young man’s eyes passed from face to face, avoiding only that of the reader bent48 over the lamp-illumined page. The old judge, sunk comfortably into the depths of his arm-chair, listened, and cracked the joints49 of his lean, dry fingers. Willoughby, his dogs crouched50 about his feet, looked into the fire, his attentive51 gravity broken now and then by a slow smile. Mrs. Perley, after hearing the chapter which describes Mrs. Gargery’s methods of bringing up Pip “by hand,” attended regularly with the remark that “it was a queer sort of book, but some way or other she liked it.” When Cora was forced to leave to attend to her duties in the dining-room, she tore herself away with murmurous52 reluctance53. The doctor slipped in at the third reading and asked Rose if she would lend him the book in the morning “to read up what he had missed.” Even Perley’s boy, in his worn corduroys, his dirty, chapped hands rubbing his cap against his nose, was wont54 to sidle noiselessly in and slip into a seat near the door.
The climax55 of the day was the long evening round the fire. There was no reading then. It was the men’s hour, and the smoke of their pipes and cigars lay thick in the air. Cut off from the world in this cranny of the mountains, with the hotel shaking to the buffets56 of the wind and the snow blanket pressing on the pane57, their memories swept back to the wild days of their youth, to the epic58 times of frontiersman and pioneer.
The judge told of his crossing of the plains in forty-seven and the first Mormon settlement on the barren shores of Salt Lake. He had had encounters with the Indians, had heard the story of Olive Oatman from one who had known her, and listened to the sinister tale of the Donner party from a survivor59. Bill Cannon had “come by the Isthmus” in forty-eight, a half-starved, ragged60 lad who had run away from uncongenial drudgery61 on a New York farm. His reminiscences went back to the San Francisco that started up around Portsmouth Square, to the days when the banks of the American River swarmed62 with miners, and the gold lay yellow in the prospector’s pan. He had worked there shoulder to shoulder with men who afterwards made the history of the state and men who died with their names unknown. He had been an eye witness of that blackest of Californian tragedies, the lynching of a Spanish girl at Downieville, had stood pallid63 and sick under a pine tree and watched her boldly face her murderers and meet her death.
The younger men, warmed to emulation64, contributed their stories. Perley had reminiscences bequeathed to him by his father who had been an alcalde in that transition year, when California was neither state nor territory and stood in unadministered neglect, waiting for Congress to take some notice of her. Buford had stories of the vicissitudes65 of a strolling player’s life. He had been in the Klondike during the first gold rush and told tales of mining in the North to match those of mining on the “mother lode66.” Willoughby, thawed67 out of his original shyness, added to the nights’ entertainments stories of the Australian bush, grim legends of the days of the penal68 settlements at Botany Bay. Young Ryan was the only man of the group who contributed nothing to these Sierran Nights’ Entertainments. He sat silent in his chair, apparently69 listening, and, under the shadow of the hand arched over his eyes, looking at the girl opposite.
But the idyl had to end. Their captivity70 passed into its third week, and signs that release was at hand cheered them. They could go out. The streets of Antelope were beaten into footpaths71, and the prisoners, with the enthusiasm of children liberated72 from school, rushed into open-air diversions and athletic73 exercise. The first word from the outside world came by restored telegraphic communication. Consolatory74 messages poured in from San Francisco. Mrs. Ryan, the elder, sent telegrams as long as letters and showered them with the prodigality75 of an impassioned gratitude76 on the camp. Perley had one that he could not speak of without growing husky. Willoughby had one that made him blush. Dominick had several. None, however, had come from his wife and he guessed that none had been sent her, his remark to Rose to “let her alone” having been taken as a wish to spare her anxiety. It was thought that the mail would be in now in a day or two. That would be the end of the fairy tale. They sat about the fire on these last evenings discussing their letters, what they expected, and whom they would be from. No one told any more stories; the thought of news from “outside” was too absorbing.
It came in the early dusk of an afternoon near the end of the third week. Dominick, who was still unable to walk, was standing77 by the parlor window, when he saw Rose Cannon run past outside. She looked in at him as she ran by, her face full of a joyous78 excitement, and held up to his gaze a small white packet. A moment later the hall door banged, her foot sounded in the passage, and she entered the room with a rush of cold air and a triumphant79 cry of:
“The mail’s come!”
He limped forward to meet her and take from her hand the letter she held toward him. For the first moment he looked at her, not at the letter, which dwindled80 to a thing of no importance when their eyes met over it. Her face was nipped by the keen outside air into a bright, beaming rosiness81. She wore on her head a man’s fur cap which was pulled well down, and pressed wisps of fair hair against her forehead and cheeks. A loose fur-lined coat enveloped82 her to her feet, and after she had handed him his letter she pulled off the mittens83 she wore and began unfastening the clasps of the coat, with fingers that were purplish and cramped84 from the cold.
“There’s only one for you,” she said. “I waited till the postmaster looked all through them twice. Then I made him give it to me and ran back here with it. The entire population of Antelope’s in the post-office and there’s the greatest excitement.”
Her coat was unfastened and she threw back its long fronts, her figure outlined against the gray fur lining85. She snatched off her cap and tossed it to an adjacent chair and with a quick hand brushed away the hair it had pressed down on her forehead.
“I got seven,” she said, turning to the fire, “and papa a whole bunch, and the judge, quantities, and Willoughby, three. But only one for you—poor, neglected man!”
Spreading her hands wide to the blaze she looked at him over her shoulder, laughing teasingly. He had the letter in his hands still unopened.
“Why,” she cried, “what an extraordinary sight! You haven’t opened it!”
“No,” he answered, turning it over, “I haven’t.”
“I’ve always heard that curiosity was a feminine weakness but I never knew it till now,” she said. “Please go on and read it, because if you don’t I’ll feel that I’m preventing you and I’ll have to go up stairs to my own room, which is as cold as a refrigerator. Don’t make me polite and considerate against my will.”
Without answering her he tore open the letter and, moving to the light of the window, held the sheet up and began to read.
There was silence for some minutes. The fire sputtered86 and snapped, and once or twice the crisp paper rustled87 in Dominick’s hands. Rose held her fingers out to the warmth, studying them with her head on one side as if she had never seen them before. Presently she slid noiselessly out of her coat, and dropped it, a heap of silky fur, on a chair beside her. The movement made it convenient to steal a glance at the young man. He was reading the letter, his body close against the window-pane, his face full of frowning, almost fierce concentration. She turned back to the fire and made small, surreptitious smoothings and jerks of arrangement at her collar, her belt, her skirt. Dominick turned the paper and there was something aggressive in the crackling of the thin, dry sheet.
“Perley got a letter from your mother,” she said suddenly, “that he was reading in a corner of the post-office, and it nearly made him cry.”
There was no answer. She waited for a space and then said, projecting the remark into the heart of the fire,
“Yours must be a most interesting letter.”
She heard him move and looked quickly back at him, her face all gay challenge. It was met by a look so somber88 that her expression changed as if she had received a check to her gaiety as unexpected and effectual as a blow. She shrank a little as he came toward her, the letter in his hand.
“It is an interesting letter,” he said. “It’s from my wife.”
Since those first days of his illness, his wife’s name had been rarely mentioned. Rose thought it was because young Mrs. Ryan was a delicate subject best left alone; Dominick, because anything that reminded him of Berny was painful. But the truth was that, from the first, the wife had loomed89 before them as a figure of dread90, a specter whose presence congealed91 the something exquisite92 and uplifting each felt in the other’s heart. Now, love awakened14, forcing itself upon their recognition, her name came up between them, chilling and grim as the image of death intruding93 suddenly into the joyous presence of the living.
The change that had come over the interview all in a moment was startling. Suddenly it seemed lifted from the plane of every-day converse94 to a level where the truth was an obligation and the language of polite subterfuge95 could not exist. But the woman, who hides and protects herself with these shields, made an effort to keep it in the old accustomed place.
“She’s well,” he answered, “she’s very well. She wants me to come home.”
He suddenly looked away from her and, turning to the chimneypiece, rested one hand upon it and gazed down at the logs. A charred98 end projected and he pushed it in with his slippered99 foot, his down-bent face, the lips set and brows wrinkled, looking like the face of a sullen100 boy who has been unjustly punished. An icy, invading chill of depression made Rose’s heart sink down into bottomless depths. She faltered101 in faint tones,
“Well, you’ll be there soon now.”
“I don’t know,” he answered without moving. “I don’t know whether I shall.”
“You don’t know whether you’ll be home soon? The roads are open; the postman has come in.”
“I don’t know whether I’ll go home,” he repeated.
The snapping of the fire sounded loud upon the silence that followed. The thrill of strong emotions rising toward expression held them in a breathless, immovable quietude.
“Don’t you want to go home?” said the young girl. Her voice was low and she cleared her throat. In this interchange of commonplace sentences her heart had begun to beat so violently that it interfered102 with the ease of her speech.
“No, I don’t want to. I hate to.”
To this she did not reply at all, and after a moment he continued: “My home is unbearable104 to me. It isn’t a home. It’s a place where I eat and sleep, and I’d prefer doing that anywhere else, in any dirty boarding-house or fourth-rate hotel—I’d rather——”
He stopped abruptly105 and pushed the log farther in. The letter was caught up the chimney in a swirl106 of blackened scraps107.
“But your wife?” said Rose.
This time her voice was hoarse108 but she did not know it. She had lost the consciousness of herself. It was a profound moment, the deepest she had so far known, and all the forces of her being were concentrated upon it. The young man answered with deliberation, still not moving.
“I don’t want to see my wife. We are—we are—uncongenial. There is nothing but unhappiness between us.”
“Don’t you love her?” said the girl.
“No. I never did,” he answered.
For a moment neither dared speak. They did not look at each other or stir. They hardly seemed to breathe. A movement, a touch, would have rent the last thin crust of reserve that covered what were no longer unsuspected fires. Dominick knew it, but the girl did not. She was seized by what to her was a sudden, inexplicable109 fear, and the increased, suffocating110 beating of her heart made her feel dizzy. She suddenly wished to fly, to escape from the room, and him, and herself. She turned to go and was arrested by Cora’s voice in the hall:
“Say, you folks, are you in there?”
Cora’s visage followed her voice. She thrust it round the door-post, beamingly smiling under a recently-applied coat of powder.
“Do you want to tackle a game of euchre? Mr. Willoughby and I’ll lay you out cold unless that British memory of his has gone back on him and he’s forgot all I taught him last time.”
They were too bewildered to make any response. Rose gathered up her coat and dropped it again, looking stupidly from it to the intruder. Cora turned back to the passage, calling,
“Here they are, Mr. Willoughby, all ready and waiting for us. Now we’ll show them how to play euchre.”
Before Willoughby appeared, responsive to this cheerful hail, Cora had pulled the chairs round the table and brought out the cards. A few moments later, they were seated and the game had begun. Cora and her partner were soon jubilant. Not only did they hold the cards, but their adversaries111 played so badly that the tale of many old scores was wiped off.
The next day the first movements of departure began. Early in the afternoon Buford and Judge Washburne started for Rocky Bar in Perley’s sleigh. The road had been broken by the mail-carrier, but was still so deeply drifted that the drive was reckoned a toilsome undertaking112 not without danger. Perley’s two powerful horses were harnessed in tandem113, and Perley himself, a mere97 pillar of wrappings, drove them, squatted114 on a soap box in front of the two passengers. There were cries of farewell from the porch and tappings on the windows as the sleigh started and sped away to the diminishing jingle115 of bells. A sadness fell on those who watched it. The little idyl of isolation116 was over.
On the following day Bill Cannon and his daughter were to leave. A telegram had been sent to Rocky Bar for a sleigh and horses of the proper excellence117 to be the equipage of a Bonanza118 Princess. Rose had spent the morning packing the valises, and late in the afternoon began a down-stairs search for possessions left in the parlor.
The dusk was gathering119 as she entered the room, the corners of which were already full of darkness, the fire playing on them with a warm, varying light. Waves of radiance quivered and ran up the ceiling, here and there touching120 the glaze121 on a picture glass or china ornament122. The crude ugliness of the place was hidden in this unsteady, transforming combination of shadow and glow. It seemed a rich, romantic spot, flushed with fire that pulsed on an outer edge of mysterious obscurity, a center of familiar, intimate life, round which coldness and the dark pressed.
She thought the room was unoccupied and advanced toward the table, then started before the uprising of Dominick’s tall figure from a chair in a shadowed corner. It was the first time they had seen each other alone since their conversation of the day before. Rose was startled and agitated123, and her brusk backward movement showed it. Her voice, however, was natural, almost easy to casualness as she said,
“I thought there was no one here, you’ve hidden yourself in such a dark corner. I came to gather up my books and things.”
He advanced into the light, looking somberly at her.
“It’s true that you’re going to-morrow?” he said almost gruffly.
“Oh, yes, we’re really going. Everything’s been arranged. Horses and a sleigh are expected any moment now from Rocky Bar. They rest here all night and take us down in the afternoon. I think papa’d go crazy if we had to stay twenty-four hours longer.”
“I’ll follow in a day or two,” he said, “probably go down on Tuesday, the doctor says.”
She began gathering up the books, reading the titles, and putting aside those that were not hers.
“I’m so sorry it’s over,” she said in a preoccupied124 voice without any particular regret in it. “The Mill on the Floss is Mrs. Perley’s, I think.”
“I’m sorry, too,” he commented, very low.
She made no reply, selected another book, and as she held it up looking at the back, said,
“But it’s not like a regular good-by. It’s not as if you were going in one direction and we in another. We’ll see you in San Francisco, of course.”
“I don’t think so,” he answered.
She laid the book on the table and turned her face toward him. He stood looking into the fire, not seeing the face, but conscious of it, of its expression, of its every line.
“Do you mean that we’re not going to see you down there at all?”
“Yes, that’s just about what I meant,” he replied.
“Mr. Ryan!” It was hardly more than a breath of protest, but it was as stirring to the man as the whisper of love.
He made no comment on it, and she said, with a little more of insistence125 and volume,
“But why?”
“It’s best not,” he answered, and turned toward her.
His shoulders were squared and he held his head as a man does who prepares himself for a blow. His eyes, looking straight into hers, enveloped her in a glance soft and burning, not a savage126 glance, but the enfolding, possessive glance, caressing127 and ardent128, pleading and masterful, of a lover.
The books that she was holding fell to the table, and they looked at each other while the clock ticked.
“It’s best for me not to come,” he said huskily, “never to come.”
“Very well,” she faltered.
He came a little nearer to her and said,
“You know what I mean.”
She turned away, very pale, her lips trembling.
“And you’d like me to come if I could—if I were free?”
He was close to her and looked down to see her face, his own hard, the bones of the jaw129 showing through the thin cheeks.
“You’d like me to?” he urged.
She nodded, her lips too dry to speak.
“O Rose!” he whispered, a whisper that seemed to melt the strength of her heart and make her unvanquished, maiden25 pride dissolve into feebleness.
He leaned nearer and, taking her by the arms just above the elbows, drew her to himself, into an embrace, close and impassioned, that crushed her against him. She submitted passively, in a dizzy dream that was neither joy nor pain, but was like a moment of drugged unreality, fearful and beautiful. She was unconscious of his lips pressed on her hair, but she felt the beating of his heart beneath her cheek.
They stood thus for a moment, rising above time and space. They seemed to have been caught up to a pinnacle130 of life where the familiar world lay far beneath them. A joy, divine and dreamy, held them clasped together, motionless and mute, for a single point of time beyond and outside the limitations that had heretofore bound them.
Bill Cannon had a question to ask his daughter and he came down stairs to the parlor where she had told him she was going. He had dressed himself for supper, the most important item of his toilet being a pair of brown leather slippers131. They were soft and made no sound, and stepping briskly in them he advanced to the half-open parlor door, pushed it open and entered the quiet room. On the hearth-rug before the fire stood a woman clasped in the arms of Dominick Ryan.
Though the face was hidden, the first glance told him it was his daughter. The young man’s head was bowed on hers, his brown hair rising above the gleaming blondness of hers. They were absolutely motionless and silent. For an amazed moment the father stared at them, then turned and tiptoed out of the room.
He mounted several steps of the staircase and then descended132, stepping as heavily as he could, and, as he advanced on the parlor, coughed with aggressive loudness. He was on the threshold when he encountered his daughter, her head lowered, her gait quick, almost a run. Without a word he stepped aside and let her pass, the rustling133 of her skirt diminishing as she ran up the hall and mounted the stairs.
Dominick was standing on the hearth-rug, his head raised like a stag’s; his eyes, wide and gleaming, on the doorway134 through which she had passed. Cannon stopped directly in front of him and fixed135 a stony136, menacing glare on him.
“Well, Dominick Ryan,” he said in a low voice, “I saw that. I came in here a moment ago and saw that. What have you got to say about it?”
The young man turned his eyes slowly from vacancy137 to the angry face before him. For a moment he looked slightly dazed, staring blankly at Cannon. Then wrath138 gathered thunderously on his brow.
“Let me alone!” he said fiercely, thrusting him aside. “Get out of my way and let me alone! I can’t talk to you now.”
He swept the elder man out of his path, and, lurching and staggering on his wounded feet, hurled139 himself out of the room.
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1
transformation
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| n.变化；改造；转变 | |
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transit
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| n.经过，运输；vt.穿越，旋转；vi.越过 | |
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engrossing
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| adj.使人全神贯注的，引人入胜的v.使全神贯注( engross的现在分词 ) | |
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vessel
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| n.船舶；容器，器皿；管，导管，血管 | |
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mutinous
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| adj.叛变的，反抗的；adv.反抗地，叛变地；n.反抗，叛变 | |
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oasis
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| n.（沙漠中的）绿洲，宜人的地方 | |
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sinister
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| adj.不吉利的，凶恶的，左边的 | |
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residue
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drearily
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| 沉寂地，厌倦地，可怕地 | |
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respite
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| n.休息，中止，暂缓 | |
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quiescent
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| adj.静止的，不活动的，寂静的 | |
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contented
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| adj.满意的，安心的，知足的 | |
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solicitude
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| n.焦虑 | |
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awakened
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| v.（使）醒( awaken的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）觉醒；弄醒；（使）意识到 | |
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maternal
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| adj.母亲的，母亲般的，母系的，母方的 | |
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dictating
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| v.大声讲或读( dictate的现在分词 )；口授；支配；摆布 | |
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revel
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| vi.狂欢作乐，陶醉；n.作乐，狂欢 | |
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discreetly
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| ad.(言行)审慎地，慎重地 | |
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tingling
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deceptiveness
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virtuous
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| adj.有品德的，善良的，贞洁的，有效力的 | |
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relinquished
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| 交出，让给( relinquish的过去式和过去分词 )； 放弃 | |
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dominion
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| n.统治，管辖，支配权；领土，版图 | |
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maidenly
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| adj. 像处女的, 谨慎的, 稳静的 | |
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maiden
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| n.少女，处女；adj.未婚的，纯洁的，无经验的 | |
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docility
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blithe
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awakening
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| n.觉醒，醒悟 adj.觉醒中的；唤醒的 | |
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demeanor
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| n.行为；风度 | |
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blurring
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| n.模糊，斑点甚多，（图像的）混乱v.（使）变模糊( blur的现在分词 )；（使）难以区分 | |
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31
parlor
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| n.店铺，营业室；会客室，客厅 | |
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32
candid
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| adj.公正的，正直的；坦率的 | |
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33
concealed
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| a.隐藏的，隐蔽的 | |
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34
intimacy
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| n.熟悉，亲密，密切关系，亲昵的言行 | |
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35
malicious
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| adj.有恶意的，心怀恶意的 | |
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36
sitting-room
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| n.（BrE）客厅，起居室 | |
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37
cannon
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| n.大炮，火炮；飞机上的机关炮 | |
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38
groaning
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| adj. 呜咽的, 呻吟的 动词groan的现在分词形式 | |
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39
accentuate
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| v.着重，强调 | |
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40
defensive
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| adj.防御的；防卫的；防守的 | |
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41
twilight
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| n.暮光，黄昏；暮年，晚期，衰落时期 | |
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42
delightful
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| adj.令人高兴的，使人快乐的 | |
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43
fleeting
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| adj.短暂的，飞逝的 | |
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44
enchantment
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| n.迷惑，妖术，魅力 | |
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45
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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46
antelope
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| n.羚羊；羚羊皮 | |
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47
hearth
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| n.壁炉炉床，壁炉地面 | |
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48
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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49
joints
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| 接头( joint的名词复数 )； 关节； 公共场所（尤指价格低廉的饮食和娱乐场所） （非正式）； 一块烤肉 （英式英语） | |
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50
crouched
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| v.屈膝，蹲伏( crouch的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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51
attentive
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| adj.注意的，专心的；关心(别人)的，殷勤的 | |
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52
murmurous
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| adj.低声的 | |
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53
reluctance
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| n.厌恶，讨厌，勉强，不情愿 | |
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54
wont
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| adj.习惯于；v.习惯；n.习惯 | |
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55
climax
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| n.顶点；高潮；v.(使)达到顶点 | |
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56
buffets
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| （火车站的）饮食柜台( buffet的名词复数 )； （火车的）餐车； 自助餐 | |
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57
pane
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| n.窗格玻璃，长方块 | |
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58
epic
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| n.史诗，叙事诗；adj.史诗般的，壮丽的 | |
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59
survivor
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| n.生存者，残存者，幸存者 | |
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60
ragged
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| adj.衣衫褴褛的，粗糙的，刺耳的 | |
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61
drudgery
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| n.苦工，重活，单调乏味的工作 | |
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62
swarmed
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| 密集( swarm的过去式和过去分词 )； 云集； 成群地移动； 蜜蜂或其他飞行昆虫成群地飞来飞去 | |
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63
pallid
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| adj.苍白的，呆板的 | |
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64
emulation
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| n.竞争；仿效 | |
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65
vicissitudes
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| n.变迁，世事变化；变迁兴衰( vicissitude的名词复数 )；盛衰兴废 | |
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66
lode
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| n.矿脉 | |
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67
thawed
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| 解冻 | |
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68
penal
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| adj.刑罚的；刑法上的 | |
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69
apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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70
captivity
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| n.囚禁；被俘；束缚 | |
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71
footpaths
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| 人行小径，人行道( footpath的名词复数 ) | |
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72
liberated
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| a.无拘束的，放纵的 | |
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73
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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74
consolatory
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| adj.慰问的，可藉慰的 | |
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75
prodigality
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| n.浪费，挥霍 | |
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76
gratitude
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| adj.感激，感谢 | |
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77
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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78
joyous
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| adj.充满快乐的；令人高兴的 | |
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79
triumphant
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| adj.胜利的，成功的；狂欢的，喜悦的 | |
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80
dwindled
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| v.逐渐变少或变小( dwindle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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81
rosiness
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| n.玫瑰色；淡红色；光明；有希望 | |
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82
enveloped
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| v.包围，笼罩，包住( envelop的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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83
mittens
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| 不分指手套 | |
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84
cramped
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| a.狭窄的 | |
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85
lining
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| n.衬里，衬料 | |
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86
sputtered
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| v.唾沫飞溅( sputter的过去式和过去分词 )；发劈啪声；喷出；飞溅出 | |
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87
rustled
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| v.发出沙沙的声音( rustle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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88
somber
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| adj.昏暗的，阴天的，阴森的，忧郁的 | |
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89
loomed
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| v.隐约出现，阴森地逼近( loom的过去式和过去分词 )；隐约出现，阴森地逼近 | |
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90
dread
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| vt.担忧，忧虑；惧怕，不敢；n.担忧，畏惧 | |
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91
congealed
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| v.使凝结，冻结( congeal的过去式和过去分词 )；（指血）凝结 | |
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92
exquisite
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| adj.精美的；敏锐的；剧烈的，感觉强烈的 | |
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93
intruding
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| v.侵入，侵扰，打扰( intrude的现在分词)；把…强加于 | |
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94
converse
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| vi.谈话，谈天，闲聊；adv.相反的，相反 | |
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95
subterfuge
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| n.诡计；藉口 | |
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96
stammered
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| v.结巴地说出( stammer的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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97
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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98
charred
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| v.把…烧成炭( char的过去式)；烧焦 | |
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99
slippered
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| 穿拖鞋的 | |
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100
sullen
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| adj.愠怒的，闷闷不乐的，(天气等)阴沉的 | |
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101
faltered
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| （嗓音）颤抖( falter的过去式和过去分词 )； 支吾其词； 蹒跚； 摇晃 | |
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102
interfered
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| v.干预( interfere的过去式和过去分词 )；调停；妨碍；干涉 | |
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103
crumpled
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| adj. 弯扭的, 变皱的 动词crumple的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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104
unbearable
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| adj.不能容忍的；忍受不住的 | |
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105
abruptly
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| adv.突然地，出其不意地 | |
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106
swirl
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| v.(使)打漩，(使)涡卷；n.漩涡，螺旋形 | |
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107
scraps
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| 油渣 | |
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108
hoarse
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| adj.嘶哑的，沙哑的 | |
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109
inexplicable
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| adj.无法解释的，难理解的 | |
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110
suffocating
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| a.使人窒息的 | |
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111
adversaries
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| n.对手，敌手( adversary的名词复数 ) | |
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112
undertaking
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| n.保证，许诺，事业 | |
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113
tandem
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| n.同时发生；配合；adv.一个跟着一个地；纵排地；adj.（两匹马）前后纵列的 | |
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114
squatted
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| v.像动物一样蹲下( squat的过去式和过去分词 )；非法擅自占用（土地或房屋）；为获得其所有权；而占用某片公共用地。 | |
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115
jingle
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| n.叮当声，韵律简单的诗句；v.使叮当作响，叮当响，押韵 | |
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116
isolation
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| n.隔离，孤立，分解，分离 | |
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117
excellence
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| n.优秀，杰出，(pl.)优点，美德 | |
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118
bonanza
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| n.富矿带，幸运，带来好运的事 | |
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119
gathering
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| n.集会，聚会，聚集 | |
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120
touching
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| adj.动人的，使人感伤的 | |
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121
glaze
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| v.因疲倦、疲劳等指眼睛变得呆滞，毫无表情 | |
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122
ornament
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| v.装饰，美化；n.装饰，装饰物 | |
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123
agitated
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| adj.被鼓动的，不安的 | |
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124
preoccupied
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| adj.全神贯注的，入神的；被抢先占有的；心事重重的v.占据（某人）思想，使对…全神贯注，使专心于( preoccupy的过去式) | |
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125
insistence
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| n.坚持；强调；坚决主张 | |
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126
savage
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| adj.野蛮的；凶恶的，残暴的；n.未开化的人 | |
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127
caressing
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| 爱抚的，表现爱情的，亲切的 | |
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128
ardent
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| adj.热情的，热烈的，强烈的，烈性的 | |
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129
jaw
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| n.颚，颌，说教，流言蜚语；v.喋喋不休，教训 | |
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130
pinnacle
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| n.尖塔，尖顶，山峰；(喻)顶峰 | |
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131
slippers
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| n. 拖鞋 | |
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132
descended
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| a.为...后裔的，出身于...的 | |
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133
rustling
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| n. 瑟瑟声，沙沙声 adj. 发沙沙声的 | |
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134
doorway
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| n.门口，(喻)入门；门路，途径 | |
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135
fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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136
stony
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| adj.石头的，多石头的，冷酷的，无情的 | |
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137
vacancy
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| n.（旅馆的）空位，空房，（职务的）空缺 | |
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138
wrath
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| n.愤怒，愤慨，暴怒 | |
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139
hurled
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| v.猛投，用力掷( hurl的过去式和过去分词 )；大声叫骂 | |
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