Canterton followed a path that led into the larch wood where the thousands of grey black poles were packed so close together that the eye could not see for more than thirty yards. There was a faint and mysterious murmuring in the tree tops, a sound as of breathing that was only to be heard when one stood still. The ground was covered with thin, wiry grass of a peculiarly vivid green. The path curled this way and that among the larch trunks, with a ribbon of blue sky mimicking9 it overhead. The wood was called the wilderness10, and even when a gale11 was blowing, it was calm and sheltered in the deeps among the trees.
Canterton paused now and again to examine some of the larches. He had been working at the spruce gall12 aphis disease, trying to discover a new method of combating it, or of lighting13 upon some other creature that by preying14 upon the pest might be encouraged to extirpate15 the disease. The winding16 path led him at last to the lip of a large dell or sunken clearing. It was a pool of yellow sunlight in the midst of the green glooms, palisaded round with larch trunks, its banks a tangle17 of broom, heather, bracken, whortleberry, and furze. There was a boggy18 spot in one corner where gorgeous mosses20 made a carpet of green and gold, and bog19 asphodel grew, and the sundew fed upon insects. All about the clearing the woods were a blue mist when the wild hyacinth bloomed in May.
Down below him in a grassy21 hollow a child with brilliant auburn hair was feeding a fire with dry sticks. She knelt intent and busy, serenely22 alone with herself, tending the fire that she had made. Beside her she had a tin full of water, an old saucepan, two or three potatoes, some tea and sugar twisted up together in the corner of a newspaper, and a medicine bottle half full of milk.
“Hallo—hallo!”
The auburn hair flashed in the sunlight, and the child turned the face of a beautiful and wayward elf.
“Daddy!”
She sprang up and raced towards him.
“Daddy, come along. I’ve got to cook the supper for the fairies.”
Canterton had never evolved a more beautiful flower than this child of his, Lynette. She was his in every way, without a shred23 of her mother’s nature, for even her glowing little head was as different from Gertrude Canterton’s as fire from clay.
“Hallo, come along.”
He caught her up with his big hands, and set her on his shoulder.
“Now then, what about Princess Puck? You don’t mean to say the greedy little beggars have eaten up all that pudding we cooked them last night?”
“Every little bit.”
On the short grass at the bottom of the clearing was a fairy ring, and to Lynette the whole wilderness was full of the little people. The dell was her playing ground, and she fled to it on those happy occasions when Miss Vance, her governess, had her hours of freedom. As for Canterton, he was just the child that she was, entering into all her fancies, applauding them, and taking a delight in her gay, elf-like enthusiasm.
“Have you seen Brer Rabbit to-night?”
“No.”
“He just said ‘How de do’ to me as I came through the wood. And I saw old Sergeant25 Hedgehog taking a nap under a tuft of grass.”
“I don’t like old Hedgehog. I don’t like prickly people, do you, daddy?”
“Not much.”
“Like Miss Nickleton. She might be a pin-cushion. She’s always taking out pins, and putting you all tidy.”
“Now then, we’ve got to be very serious. What’s the supper to be to-night?”
“Baked potatoes and tea.”
“By Jove, they’ll get fat.”
Canterton set her down and threw himself into the business with an immense seriousness that made him the most convincing of playfellows. He took off his coat, rolled up his shirt sleeves, and looked critically at the fire.
“We want some more wood, daddy.”
“Just so.”
He went among the larches, gathered an armful of dead wood, and returned to the fire. Lynette was kneeling and poking26 it with a stick, her hair shining in the sunlight, her pale face with its hazel eyes full of a happy seriousness. Canterton knelt down beside her, and they began to feed the fire.
“Rather sulky.”
“Blow, daddy.”
“I say, what a lot of work these fairies give us!”
“But won’t they be pleased! I like to think of them coming out in the moonlight, and feasting, and then having their dance round the ring.”
“And singing, ‘Long live Lynette.’”
They heated up the water in the saucepan, and made tea—of a kind—and baked the potatoes in the embers of the fire. Lynette always spread the feast on the bottom of a bank near the fairy ring. Sergeant Hedgehog, black-eyed field mice, and an occasional rat, disposed of the food, but that did not matter so long as Lynette found that it had gone. Canterton himself would come down early, and empty the tea away to keep up the illusion.
“I think I’ll be a fairy some night, Lynette.”
Her eyes laughed up at him.
“Fancy you being a fairy, daddy! Why, you’d eat up all the food, and there wouldn’t be room to dance.”
“Come, now, I’m hurt.”
She stroked his face.
“You’re so much better than a fairy, daddy.”
The sun slanted28 lower, and shadows began to cover the clearing. Canterton smothered29 the fire, picked up Lynette, and set her on his shoulders, one black leg hanging down on either side of his cerise tie, for Canterton always wore Irish tweeds, and ties that showed some colour.
“Off we go.”
They romped30 through the larch wood, up the hill-side, and into the garden, Lynette’s two hands clasped over her father’s forehead. Fernhill House showed up against the evening sky, a warm, old, red-brick building with white window frames, roses and creepers covering it, and little dormer windows peeping out of the tiled roof. Stretches of fine turf were unfurled before it, set with beds of violas, and bounded by great herbaceous borders. A cedar31 of Lebanon grew to the east, a noble sequoia32 to the west, throwing sharp black shadows on the gold-green grass.
“Gallop, daddy.”
Canterton galloped33, and her brilliant hair danced, and her red mouth laughed. They came across the grass to the house in fine uproarious style, and were greeted by the sound of voices drifting through the open windows of the drawing-room.
Their irresponsible fun was at end. Canterton set the child down just as the thin primrose34-coloured figure came to one of the open French windows.
“James, Mrs. Brocklebank has come back with me. Where is Miss Vance?”
Lynette replied for Miss Vance.
“She had a headache, mother.”
“I might have inferred something of the kind. Look at the front of your dress, Lynette.”
“Yes, mother.”
“What have you been doing? And you have got a great hole in your left stocking, over the knee.”
“Yes, mother, so I have.”
“Lynette, how often have I told you——”
Mrs. Brocklebank or no Mrs. Brocklebank, Canterton interposed quietly in Lynette’s defence.
“If it’s anybody’s fault it’s mine, Gertrude. Let the child be a child sometimes.”
She turned on him impatiently, being only too conscious of the fact that Lynette was his child, and not hers.
“How can you expect me to have any authority? And in the end the responsibility always rests with the woman.”
“Perhaps—perhaps not. Run along, old lady. I’ll come and say good night presently.”
Lynette walked off to the south door, having no desire to be kissed by Mrs. Brocklebank in the drawing-room. She turned and looked back once at her father with a demure35 yet inimitable twinkle of the eyes. Canterton was very much part of Lynette’s life. Her mother only dashed into it with spasmodic earnestness, and with eyes that were fussily36 critical. For though Gertrude Canterton always spoke37 of woman’s place being the home, she was so much busied with reforming other people’s homes, and setting all their social machinery38 in order, that she had very little leisure left for her own. A housekeeper39 managed the house by letting Mrs. Canterton think that she herself managed it. Miss Vance was almost wholly responsible for Lynette, and Gertrude Canterton’s periodic plunges40 into the domestic routine at Fernhill were like the surprise visits of an inspector41 of schools.
“Mrs. Brocklebank is staying the night. We have some business to discuss with regard to the Children’s Home.”
Canterton detested42 Mrs. Brocklebank, but he went in and shook hands with her. She was a large woman, with the look of a very serious-minded white cow. Her great point was her gravity. It was a massive and imposing43 edifice44 which you could walk round and inspect, without being able to get inside it. This building was fitted with a big clock that boomed solemnly at regular intervals45, always making the same sound, and making it as though it were uttering some new and striking note.
“I see you are one of those, Mr. Canterton, who like to let children run wild.”
“I suppose I am. I’d rather my child had fine legs and a good appetite to begin with.”
His wife joined in.
“Lynette could not read when she was six.”
“That was a gross crime, Gertrude, to be sure.”
“It might be called symptomatic.”
“Mrs. Brocklebank, my wife is too conscientious46 for some of us.”
“Can one be too conscientious, Mr. Canterton?”
“Well, I can never imagine Gertrude with holes in her stockings, or playing at honey-pots. I believe you wrote a prize essay when you were eleven, Gertrude, and the subject was, ‘How to teach children to play in earnest.’ If you’ll excuse me, I have to see Lavender about one of the hothouses before I dress for dinner.”
He left them together, sitting like two solemn china figures nodding their heads over his irresponsible love of laissez-faire. Mrs. Brocklebank had no children, but she was a great authority upon them, in a kind of pathological way.
“I think you ought to make a stand, Gertrude.”
“The trouble is, my husband’s ideas run the same way as the child’s inclinations47. I think I must get rid of Miss Vance. She is too easygoing.”
“The child ought soon to be old enough to go to school. Let me see, how old is she?”
“Seven.”
“Send her away next year. There is that very excellent school at Cheltenham managed by Miss Sandys. She was a wrangler48, you know, and is an LL.D. Her ideas are absolutely sound. Psychological discipline is one of her great points.”
“I must speak to James about it. He is such a difficult man to deal with. So immovable, and always turning things into a kind of quiet laughter.”
“I know. Most difficult—most baffling.”
Though three people sat down at the dinner table, it was a diner à deux so far as the conversation was concerned. The women discussed the Primrose League Fête, and Lord Parallax, whom Gertrude Canterton had found rather disappointing. From mere49 local topics they travelled into the wilderness of eugenics, Mrs. Brocklebank treating of Mendelism, and talking as though Canterton had never heard of Mendel. It amused him to listen to her, especially since the work of such master men as Mendel and De Vries formed part of the intimate inspiration of his own study of the strange beauty of growth. Mrs. Brocklebank appeared to have muddled50 up Mendelism with Galton’s theory of averages. She talked sententiously of pure dominants51 and recessives, got her figures badly mixed, and uttered some really astonishing things that would have thrilled a scientific audience.
Yet it was dreary53 stuff when devitalised by Mrs. Brocklebank’s pompous54 inexactitudes, especially when accompanied by an interminable cracking of nuts. She always ended lunch and dinner with nuts, munching55 them slowly and solemnly, exaggerating her own resemblance to a white cow chewing the cud.
Canterton escaped upstairs, passed Miss Vance on the landing, a motherly young woman with rich brown hair, and made his way to the nursery. The room was full of the twilight56, and through the open window came the last notes of a thrush. Lynette was lying in a white bed with a green coverlet. Her mother had ordered a pink bedspread, but Miss Vance had thought of Lynette’s hair.
Canterton sat on the edge of the bed.
“I’ve said my prayers, daddy.”
“Oh, that’s good—very good! I wonder how the feast is getting on in the Wilderness?”
“They won’t come out yet, not till the moon shines.”
“I wish I could see them, daddy. Have you ever seen a fairy?”
“I think I’ve caught a glimpse of one, now and again. But you have to be ever so good to see fairies.”
“You ought to have seen lots, then, daddy.”
“There are more wonderful things than fairies, Lynette. I’ll tell you about them some day.”
“Yes, do.”
She sat up in bed, her hair a dark flowing mass about her slim face and throat, and Canterton was reminded of some exquisite60 white bud that promised to be an exquisite flower.
“Let’s have some rhymes, daddy.”
“Yes.”
“What shall we start with?”
“Begin with cat.”
“All right, let’s see what turns up:
“Outside the door there lay a cat,
Aunt Emma thought it was a mat,
And though poor Puss was rather fat,
Aunt Emma left her, simply—flat.”
“Rather too realistic for you, and too hard on the cat!”
“Make up something about Mister Bruin.”
“Bruin. That’s a stiff thing to rhyme to. Let’s see:
“Now, Mister Bruin
Went a-wooin’,
The lady said ‘What are you doin’!’
“Oh, yes you can, daddy!”
“Very well.”
“Let’s call him Mr. Bear instead,
And say his mouth was very red.
Miss Bruin had a Paris gown on,
She was a sweet phenomenownon.
The gloves she wore were just nineteens,
Of course you know what that size means!
Mr. Bear wore thirty-ones,
But then he was so fond of buns.
He asked Miss B. to be his wife,
And said, ‘I will lay down my life.’
She answered him, ‘Now, how much money
Can you afford, and how much honey?’
Poor B. looked rather brown at that,
For he was not a plutocrat.
‘My dear,’ he said, ‘it makes me sore,
That I should be so very poor.
I’ll start a bun shop, if you like,
And buy you a new motor-bike.’
She said, ‘I know where all the buns would go,
And motor biking’s much too low.’
Poor Teddy flew off in disgust,
Saying, ‘Marry a Marquis if you must.’”
Lynette clapped her hands.
“No, she married Lord Grizzley. And he gave her twopence a week to dress on, and made her give him her fur to stuff his bath-chair cushions with.”
“How splendid! That’s just what ought to have happened, daddy.”
When he had kissed her “good night,” and seen her snuggle down with her hair spread out over the pillow, Canterton went down to the library and, in passing the door of the drawing-room, heard Mrs. Brocklebank’s voice sending out its slow, complacent65 notes. This woman always had a curious psychical66 effect on him. She smeared67 all the fine outlines of life, and brought an unpleasant odour into the house that penetrated68 everywhere. What was more, she had the effect of making him look at his wife with that merciless candour that discovers every crudity69, and every trifle that is unlovely. Gertrude was a most excellent woman. He saw her high forehead, her hat tilted70 at the wrong angle, her hair straggling in wisps, her finnicking vivacity71, her thin, wriggling72 shoulders, the way she mouthed her words and poked73 her chin forward when she talked. The clarity of his vision often shocked him, especially when he tried to remember her as a slim and rather over-enthusiastic girl. Had they both changed so vastly, and why? He knew that his wife had become subtly repulsive74 to him, not in the mere gross physical sense alone, but in her mental odour. They ate together, but slept apart. He never entered her room. The idea of touching75 her provoked some fastidious instinct within him, and made him shrink from the imagined contact.
Sometimes he wondered whether Gertrude was aware of this strong and incipient76 repulsion. He imagined that she felt nothing. He had not lived with her for fifteen years without discovering how thick was the skin of her restless egotism. Canterton had never known anyone who was so completely and actively77 self-satisfied. He never remembered having seen her in tears. As for their estrangement78, it had come about gradually when he had chosen to change the life of the amateur for the life of the trader. Then there was the child, another gulf79 between them. A tacit yet silent antagonism80 had grown up round Lynette.
On Canterton’s desk in the library lay the manuscript of his “Book of the English Garden.” He had been at work on it for two years, trying to get all the mystery and colour and beauty of growth into the words he used.
He sat down at the desk, and turned over the pages written in that strong, regular, and unhurried hand of his. The manuscript smelt81 of lavender, for he always kept a few sprigs between the leaves. But to-night something seemed lacking in the book. It was too much a thing of black and white. The words did not strike upon his brain and evoke82 a glow of living colour. Roses were not red enough, and the torch lily had not a sufficient flame.
“Colour, yes, colour!”
He sat back and lit his pipe.
“I must get someone to start the plates. I know just what I want, but I don’t quite know the person to do it.”
He talked to himself—within himself.
“Rogers? No, too flamboyant83, not true. I want truth. There’s Peterson. No, I don’t like Peterson’s style—too niggling. Loses the charm in trying to be too correct.”
He was disturbed by the opening of a door, and a sudden swelling84 of voices towards him. He half turned in his chair with the momentary85 impatience86 of a thinker disturbed.
“Let us look it up under ‘hygiene.’”
The library door opened, and the invasion displayed itself.
“We want to look at the encyclopædia, James.”
“It’s there!”
“I always feel so stimulated87 when I am in a library, Mr. Canterton. I hope you don’t mind our——”
“Oh, not in the least!”
“I think we might make our notes here, Gertrude.”
“Yes. James, you might get us the other light, and put it on the table.”
He got up, fetched the portable red-shaded lamp from a book-stand, set it on the oak table in the centre of the room, and turned on the switch.
“Something thinner?”
“Please. Oh, and some paper. Some of that manuscript paper will do.”
They established themselves at the table, Mrs. Brocklebank with the volume, Gertrude with the pen and paper. Mrs. Brocklebank brought out her pince-nez, adjusted them half down her nose, and began to turn over the pages. Canterton took a book on moths91 from a shelf, and sat down in an easy chair.
“Hum—Hygiene. I find it here—public health, sanitary92 by-laws; hum—hum—sewage systems. I think we shall discover what we want. Ah, here it is!”
“The matron told me——”
“Yes, exactly. They had to burn pastilles. Hum—hum—septic tank. My dear, what is a septic tank?”
“Something not quite as it should be.”
“Ah, exactly! I understand. Hum—let me see. Their tank must be very septic. That accounts for—hum—for the odour.”
Canterton watched them over the top of his book. He could see his wife’s face plainly. She was frowning and biting the end of the pen, and fidgeting with the paper. He noticed the yellow tinge93 of the skin, and the eager and almost hungry shadow lines that ran from her nose to the corners of her mouth. It was a passionless face, angular and restless, utterly94 lacking in any inward imaginative glow. Gertrude Canterton rushed at life, fiddled95 at the notes with her thin fingers, but had no subtle understanding of the meaning of the sounds that were produced.
Mrs. Brocklebank read like a grave cleric at a lectern, head tilted slightly back, her eyes looking down through her pince-nez.
“The bacterial96 action should produce an effluent that is perfectly97 clear and odourless. My dear, I think—hum—that there is a misconception somewhere.”
Neither of them noticed that Canterton had left them, and had disappeared through the French window into the garden.
A full moon had risen, and in one of the shrubberies a nightingale was singing. The cedar of Lebanon and the great sequoia were black and mysterious and very still, the lawns a soft silver dusted ever so lightly with dew. Not a leaf was stirring, and the pale night stood like a sweet sad ghost looking down on the world with eyes of wisdom and of wonder.
Canterton strolled across the grass, and down through the Japanese garden where lilies floated in the still pools that reflected the moonlight. All the shadows were very sharp and black, the cypresses98 standing like obelisks99, the yew hedge of the rosery a wall of obsidian100. Canterton wandered up and down the stone paths of the rosery, and knocked his pipe out in order to smell the faint perfumes that lingered in the still air. He had lived so much among flowers that his sense of smell had become extraordinarily101 sensitive, and he could distinguish many a rose in the dark by means of its perfume. The full moon stared at him over the yew hedge, huge and yellow in a cloudless sky, and Canterton thought of Lynette’s fairies down in the Wilderness tripping round the fairy ring on the dewy grass.
The sense of an increasing loneliness forced itself upon him as he walked up and down the paths of the rosery. For of late he had come to know that he was lonely, in spite of Lynette, in spite of all his fascinating problems, in spite of his love of life and of growth. That was just it. He loved the colours, the scents102, and the miraculous103 complexities104 of life so strongly that he wanted someone to share this love, someone who understood, someone who possessed105 both awe106 and curiosity. Lynette was very dear to him, dearer than anything else on earth, but she was the child, and doubtless he would lose her when she became the woman.
He supposed that some day she would marry, and the thought of it almost shocked him. Good God, what a lottery107 it was! He might have to hand her over to some raw boy—and if life proved unkind to her! Well, after all, it was Nature. And how did marriages come about? How had his own come about? What on earth had made him marry Gertrude? What on earth made most men marry most women? He had been shy, rather diffident, a big fellow in earnest, and he remembered how Gertrude had made a little hero of him because of his travels. Yes, he supposed it had been suggestion. Every woman, the lure108 of the feminine thing, a dim notion that they would be fellow enthusiasts109, and that the woman was what he had imagined woman to be.
Canterton smiled to himself, but the pathetic humour of life did not make him feel any less lonely. He wanted someone who would walk with him on such a night as this, someone to whom it was not necessary to say trite110 things, someone to whom a touch of the hand would be eloquent111, someone who had his patient, watchful112, wonder-obsessed soul. He was not spending half of himself, because he could not pour out one half of all that was in him. It seemed a monstrous113 thing that a man should have taught himself to see so much, and that he should have no one to see life with him as he saw it.
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1
yew
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| n.紫杉属树木 | |
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cataract
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| n.大瀑布，奔流，洪水，白内障 | |
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larch
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| n.落叶松 | |
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spires
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| n.（教堂的） 塔尖，尖顶( spire的名词复数 ) | |
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larches
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| n.落叶松（木材）( larch的名词复数 ) | |
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descended
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| a.为...后裔的，出身于...的 | |
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glimmering
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| n.微光，隐约的一瞥adj.薄弱地发光的v.发闪光，发微光( glimmer的现在分词 ) | |
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willows
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| n.柳树( willow的名词复数 )；柳木 | |
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mimicking
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| v.（尤指为了逗乐而）模仿( mimic的现在分词 )；酷似 | |
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wilderness
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| n.杳无人烟的一片陆地、水等，荒漠 | |
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gale
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| n.大风，强风，一阵闹声（尤指笑声等） | |
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gall
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| v.使烦恼，使焦躁，难堪；n.磨难 | |
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lighting
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| n.照明，光线的明暗，舞台灯光 | |
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preying
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| v.掠食( prey的现在分词 )；掠食；折磨；（人）靠欺诈为生 | |
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extirpate
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| v.除尽，灭绝 | |
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winding
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| n.绕，缠，绕组，线圈 | |
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tangle
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| n.纠缠；缠结；混乱；v.(使)缠绕；变乱 | |
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boggy
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| adj.沼泽多的 | |
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bog
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| n.沼泽；室...陷入泥淖 | |
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mosses
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| n. 藓类, 苔藓植物 名词moss的复数形式 | |
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grassy
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| adj.盖满草的；长满草的 | |
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serenely
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| adv.安详地，宁静地，平静地 | |
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shred
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| v.撕成碎片，变成碎片；n.碎布条，细片，些少 | |
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aprons
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| 围裙( apron的名词复数 )； 停机坪，台口（舞台幕前的部份） | |
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sergeant
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| n.警官，中士 | |
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poking
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| n. 刺，戳，袋 vt. 拨开，刺，戳 vi. 戳，刺，捅，搜索，伸出，行动散慢 | |
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bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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slanted
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| 有偏见的； 倾斜的 | |
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smothered
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| （使）窒息， （使）透不过气( smother的过去式和过去分词 )； 覆盖； 忍住； 抑制 | |
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romped
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| v.嬉笑玩闹( romp的过去式和过去分词 )；（尤指在赛跑或竞选等中）轻易获胜 | |
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cedar
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| n.雪松，香柏(木) | |
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sequoia
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| n.红杉 | |
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galloped
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| （使马）飞奔，奔驰( gallop的过去式和过去分词 )； 快速做[说]某事 | |
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primrose
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| n.樱草，最佳部分， | |
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35
demure
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| adj.严肃的；端庄的 | |
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36
fussily
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| adv.无事空扰地，大惊小怪地，小题大做地 | |
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37
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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38
machinery
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| n.(总称)机械，机器；机构 | |
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39
housekeeper
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| n.管理家务的主妇，女管家 | |
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40
plunges
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| n.跳进，投入vt.使投入，使插入，使陷入vi.投入，跳进，陷入v.颠簸( plunge的第三人称单数 )；暴跌；骤降；突降 | |
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41
inspector
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| n.检查员，监察员，视察员 | |
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42
detested
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| v.憎恶，嫌恶，痛恨( detest的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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43
imposing
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| adj.使人难忘的，壮丽的，堂皇的，雄伟的 | |
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edifice
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| n.宏伟的建筑物(如宫殿，教室) | |
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45
intervals
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| n.[军事]间隔( interval的名词复数 )；间隔时间；[数学]区间；（戏剧、电影或音乐会的）幕间休息 | |
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46
conscientious
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| adj.审慎正直的，认真的，本着良心的 | |
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47
inclinations
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| 倾向( inclination的名词复数 )； 倾斜； 爱好； 斜坡 | |
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48
wrangler
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| n.口角者，争论者；牧马者 | |
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49
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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50
muddled
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| adj.混乱的；糊涂的；头脑昏昏然的v.弄乱，弄糟( muddle的过去式)；使糊涂；对付，混日子 | |
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51
dominants
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| n.占优势的( dominant的名词复数 )；统治的；（基因）显性的；高耸的 | |
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52
dominant
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| adj.支配的，统治的；占优势的；显性的；n.主因，要素，主要的人(或物)；显性基因 | |
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53
dreary
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| adj.令人沮丧的，沉闷的，单调乏味的 | |
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pompous
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| adj.傲慢的，自大的；夸大的；豪华的 | |
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munching
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| v.用力咀嚼（某物），大嚼( munch的现在分词 ) | |
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56
twilight
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| n.暮光，黄昏；暮年，晚期，衰落时期 | |
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57
slippers
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| n. 拖鞋 | |
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58
meditative
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| adj.沉思的，冥想的 | |
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59
humility
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| n.谦逊，谦恭 | |
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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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61
ballads
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| 民歌，民谣，特别指叙述故事的歌( ballad的名词复数 )； 讴 | |
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pussy
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| n.(儿语)小猫，猫咪 | |
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63
stumped
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| 僵直地行走，跺步行走( stump的过去式和过去分词 )； 把（某人）难住； 使为难； （选举前）在某一地区作政治性巡回演说 | |
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horrid
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| adj.可怕的；令人惊恐的；恐怖的；极讨厌的 | |
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complacent
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| adj.自满的；自鸣得意的 | |
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psychical
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| adj.有关特异功能现象的；有关特异功能官能的；灵魂的；心灵的 | |
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67
smeared
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| 弄脏； 玷污； 涂抹； 擦上 | |
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penetrated
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| adj. 击穿的，鞭辟入里的 动词penetrate的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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crudity
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| n.粗糙，生硬；adj.粗略的 | |
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tilted
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| v. 倾斜的 | |
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71
vivacity
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| n.快活，活泼，精神充沛 | |
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wriggling
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| v.扭动，蠕动，蜿蜒行进( wriggle的现在分词 )；（使身体某一部位）扭动；耍滑不做，逃避（应做的事等）；蠕蠕 | |
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73
poked
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| v.伸出( poke的过去式和过去分词 )；戳出；拨弄；与（某人）性交 | |
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74
repulsive
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| adj.排斥的，使人反感的 | |
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75
touching
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| adj.动人的，使人感伤的 | |
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76
incipient
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| adj.起初的，发端的，初期的 | |
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actively
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| adv.积极地，勤奋地 | |
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78
estrangement
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| n.疏远，失和，不和 | |
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79
gulf
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| n.海湾；深渊，鸿沟；分歧，隔阂 | |
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antagonism
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| n.对抗，敌对，对立 | |
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81
smelt
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| v.熔解，熔炼；n.银白鱼，胡瓜鱼 | |
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82
evoke
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| vt.唤起，引起，使人想起 | |
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83
flamboyant
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| adj.火焰般的，华丽的，炫耀的 | |
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84
swelling
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| n.肿胀 | |
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85
momentary
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| adj.片刻的，瞬息的；短暂的 | |
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86
impatience
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| n.不耐烦，急躁 | |
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87
stimulated
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| a.刺激的 | |
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88
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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revolving
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| adj.旋转的，轮转式的；循环的v.（使）旋转( revolve的现在分词 )；细想 | |
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90
nibs
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| 上司，大人物； 钢笔尖，鹅毛管笔笔尖( nib的名词复数 )； 可可豆的碎粒； 小瑕疵 | |
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91
moths
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| n.蛾( moth的名词复数 ) | |
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92
sanitary
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| adj.卫生方面的，卫生的，清洁的，卫生的 | |
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93
tinge
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| vt.(较淡)着色于，染色；使带有…气息；n.淡淡色彩，些微的气息 | |
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94
utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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95
fiddled
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| v.伪造( fiddle的过去式和过去分词 )；篡改；骗取；修理或稍作改动 | |
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96
bacterial
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| a.细菌的 | |
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97
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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98
cypresses
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| n.柏属植物，柏树( cypress的名词复数 ) | |
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99
obelisks
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| n.方尖石塔，短剑号，疑问记号( obelisk的名词复数 ) | |
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100
obsidian
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| n.黑曜石 | |
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101
extraordinarily
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| adv.格外地；极端地 | |
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102
scents
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| n.香水( scent的名词复数 )；气味；（动物的）臭迹；（尤指狗的）嗅觉 | |
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103
miraculous
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| adj.像奇迹一样的，不可思议的 | |
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104
complexities
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| 复杂性(complexity的名词复数)； 复杂的事物 | |
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105
possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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106
awe
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| n.敬畏，惊惧；vt.使敬畏，使惊惧 | |
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107
lottery
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| n.抽彩；碰运气的事，难于算计的事 | |
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108
lure
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| n.吸引人的东西，诱惑物；vt.引诱，吸引 | |
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109
enthusiasts
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| n.热心人，热衷者( enthusiast的名词复数 ) | |
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110
trite
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| adj.陈腐的 | |
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111
eloquent
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| adj.雄辩的，口才流利的；明白显示出的 | |
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112
watchful
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| adj.注意的，警惕的 | |
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113
monstrous
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| adj.巨大的；恐怖的；可耻的，丢脸的 | |
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