Dr. Archie saw nothing of Thea during the following week. After several fruitless efforts, he succeeded in getting a word with her over the telephone, but she sounded so distracted and driven that he was glad to say good-night and hang up the instrument. There were, she told him, rehearsals2 not only for “Walküre,” but also for “Götterdämmerung,” in which she was to sing Waltraute two weeks later.
On Thursday afternoon Thea got home late, after an exhausting rehearsal1. She was in no happy frame of mind. Madame Necker, who had been very gracious to her that night when she went on to complete Gloeckler’s performance of Sieglinde, had, since Thea was cast to sing the part instead of Gloeckler in the production of the “Ring,” been chilly3 and disapproving4, distinctly hostile. Thea had always felt that she and Necker stood for the same sort of endeavor, and that Necker recognized it and had a cordial feeling for her. In Germany she had several times sung Brangaena to Necker’s Isolde, and the older artist had let her know that she thought she sang it beautifully. It was a bitter disappointment to find that the approval of so honest an artist as Necker could not stand the test of any significant recognition by the management. Madame Necker was forty, and her voice was failing just when her powers were at their height. Every fresh young voice was an enemy, and this one was accompanied by gifts which she could not fail to recognize.
Thea had her dinner sent up to her apartment, and it was a very poor one. She tasted the soup and then indignantly put on her wraps to go out and hunt a dinner. As she was going to the elevator, she had to admit that she was behaving foolishly. She took off her hat and coat and ordered another dinner. When it arrived, it was no better than the first. There was even a burnt match under the milk toast. She had a sore throat, which made swallowing painful and boded5 ill for the morrow. Although she had been speaking in whispers all day to save her throat, she now perversely6 summoned the housekeeper7 and demanded an account of some laundry that had been lost. The housekeeper was indifferent and impertinent, and Thea got angry and scolded violently. She knew it was very bad for her to get into a rage just before bedtime, and after the housekeeper left she realized that for ten dollars’ worth of underclothing she had been unfitting herself for a performance which might eventually mean many thousands. The best thing now was to stop reproaching herself for her lack of sense, but she was too tired to control her thoughts.
While she was undressing—Therese was brushing out her Sieglinde wig8 in the trunk-room—she went on chiding9 herself bitterly. “And how am I ever going to get to sleep in this state?” she kept asking herself. “If I don’t sleep, I’ll be perfectly10 worthless to-morrow. I’ll go down there to-morrow and make a fool of myself. If I’d let that laundry alone with whatever nigger has stolen it—why did I undertake to reform the management of this hotel to-night? After to-morrow I could pack up and leave the place. There’s the Phillamon—I liked the rooms there better, anyhow—and the Umberto—” She began going over the advantages and disadvantages of different apartment hotels. Suddenly she checked herself. “What am I doing this for? I can’t move into another hotel to-night. I’ll keep this up till morning. I shan’t sleep a wink11.”
Should she take a hot bath, or shouldn’t she? Sometimes it relaxed her, and sometimes it roused her and fairly put her beside herself. Between the conviction that she must sleep and the fear that she couldn’t, she hung paralyzed. When she looked at her bed, she shrank from it in every nerve. She was much more afraid of it than she had ever been of the stage of any opera house. It yawned before her like the sunken road at Waterloo.
She rushed into her bathroom and locked the door. She would risk the bath, and defer12 the encounter with the bed a little longer. She lay in the bath half an hour. The warmth of the water penetrated13 to her bones, induced pleasant reflections and a feeling of well-being14. It was very nice to have Dr. Archie in New York, after all, and to see him get so much satisfaction out of the little companionship she was able to give him. She liked people who got on, and who became more interesting as they grew older. There was Fred; he was much more interesting now than he had been at thirty. He was intelligent about music, and he must be very intelligent in his business, or he would not be at the head of the Brewers’ Trust. She respected that kind of intelligence and success. Any success was good. She herself had made a good start, at any rate, and now, if she could get to sleep—Yes, they were all more interesting than they used to be. Look at Harsanyi, who had been so long retarded15; what a place he had made for himself in Vienna. If she could get to sleep, she would show him something to-morrow that he would understand.
She got quickly into bed and moved about freely between the sheets. Yes, she was warm all over. A cold, dry breeze was coming in from the river, thank goodness! She tried to think about her little rock house and the Arizona sun and the blue sky. But that led to memories which were still too disturbing. She turned on her side, closed her eyes, and tried an old device.
She entered her father’s front door, hung her hat and coat on the rack, and stopped in the parlor16 to warm her hands at the stove. Then she went out through the diningroom, where the boys were getting their lessons at the long table; through the sitting-room17, where Thor was asleep in his cot bed, his dress and stocking hanging on a chair. In the kitchen she stopped for her lantern and her hot brick. She hurried up the back stairs and through the windy loft18 to her own glacial room. The illusion was marred19 only by the consciousness that she ought to brush her teeth before she went to bed, and that she never used to do it. Why—? The water was frozen solid in the pitcher20, so she got over that. Once between the red blankets there was a short, fierce battle with the cold; then, warmer—warmer. She could hear her father shaking down the hard-coal burner for the night, and the wind rushing and banging down the village street. The boughs21 of the cottonwood, hard as bone, rattled22 against her gable. The bed grew softer and warmer. Everybody was warm and well downstairs. The sprawling23 old house had gathered them all in, like a hen, and had settled down over its brood. They were all warm in her father’s house. Softer and softer. She was asleep. She slept ten hours without turning over. From sleep like that, one awakes in shining armor.
On Friday afternoon there was an inspiring audience; there was not an empty chair in the house. Ottenburg and Dr. Archie had seats in the orchestra circle, got from a ticket broker24. Landry had not been able to get a seat, so he roamed about in the back of the house, where he usually stood when he dropped in after his own turn in vaudeville25 was over. He was there so often and at such irregular hours that the ushers26 thought he was a singer’s husband, or had something to do with the electrical plant.
Harsanyi and his wife were in a box, near the stage, in the second circle. Mrs. Harsanyi’s hair was noticeably gray, but her face was fuller and handsomer than in those early years of struggle, and she was beautifully dressed. Harsanyi himself had changed very little. He had put on his best afternoon coat in honor of his pupil, and wore a pearl in his black ascot. His hair was longer and more bushy than he used to wear it, and there was now one gray lock on the right side. He had always been an elegant figure, even when he went about in shabby clothes and was crushed with work. Before the curtain rose he was restless and nervous, and kept looking at his watch and wishing he had got a few more letters off before he left his hotel. He had not been in New York since the advent27 of the taxicab, and had allowed himself too much time. His wife knew that he was afraid of being disappointed this afternoon. He did not often go to the opera because the stupid things that singers did vexed28 him so, and it always put him in a rage if the conductor held the tempo29 or in any way accommodated the score to the singer.
When the lights went out and the violins began to quaver their long D against the rude figure of the basses30, Mrs. Harsanyi saw her husband’s fingers fluttering on his knee in a rapid tattoo31. At the moment when Sieglinde entered from the side door, she leaned toward him and whispered in his ear, “Oh, the lovely creature!” But he made no response, either by voice or gesture. Throughout the first scene he sat sunk in his chair, his head forward and his one yellow eye rolling restlessly and shining like a tiger’s in the dark. His eye followed Sieglinde about the stage like a satellite, and as she sat at the table listening to Siegmund’s long narrative32, it never left her. When she prepared the sleeping draught33 and disappeared after Hunding, Harsanyi bowed his head still lower and put his hand over his eye to rest it. The tenor34,—a young man who sang with great vigor35, went on:—
“Wälse! Wälse!
Wo ist dein Schwert?”
Harsanyi smiled, but he did not look forth36 again until Sieglinde reappeared. She went through the story of her shameful37 bridal feast and into the Walhall’ music, which she always sang so nobly, and the entrance of the one-eyed stranger:—
“Mir allein
Weckte das Auge.”
Mrs. Harsanyi glanced at her husband, wondering whether the singer on the stage could not feel his commanding glance. On came the crescendo:—
“Was je ich verlor,
Was je ich beweint
War’ mir gewonnen.”
(All that I have lost,
All that I have mourned,
Would I then have won.)
Harsanyi touched his wife’s arm softly.
Seated in the moonlight, the Volsung pair began their loving inspection38 of each other’s beauties, and the music born of murmuring sound passed into her face, as the old poet said,—and into her body as well. Into one lovely attitude after another the music swept her, love impelled39 her. And the voice gave out all that was best in it. Like the spring, indeed, it blossomed into memories and prophecies, it recounted and it foretold40, as she sang the story of her friendless life, and of how the thing which was truly herself, “bright as the day, rose to the surface” when in the hostile world she for the first time beheld41 her Friend. Fervently42 she rose into the hardier43 feeling of action and daring, the pride in hero-strength and hero-blood, until in a splendid burst, tall and shining like a Victory, she christened him:—
“Siegmund—
So nenn ich dich!”
Her impatience44 for the sword swelled45 with her anticipation46 of his act, and throwing her arms above her head, she fairly tore a sword out of the empty air for him, before Nothung had left the tree. In höchster Trunkenheit, indeed, she burst out with the flaming cry of their kinship: “If you are Siegmund, I am Sieglinde!” Laughing, singing, bounding, exulting,—with their passion and their sword,—the Volsungs ran out into the spring night.
As the curtain fell, Harsanyi turned to his wife. “At last,” he sighed, “somebody with Enough! Enough voice and talent and beauty, enough physical power. And such a noble, noble style!”
“I can scarcely believe it, Andor. I can see her now, that clumsy girl, hunched47 up over your piano. I can see her shoulders. She always seemed to labor48 so with her back. And I shall never forget that night when you found her voice.”
The audience kept up its clamor until, after many reappearances with the tenor, Kronborg came before the curtain alone. The house met her with a roar, a greeting that was almost savage49 in its fierceness. The singer’s eyes, sweeping50 the house, rested for a moment on Harsanyi, and she waved her long sleeve toward his box.
“She ought to be pleased that you are here,” said Mrs. Harsanyi. “I wonder if she knows how much she owes to you.”
“She owes me nothing,” replied her husband quickly. “She paid her way. She always gave something back, even then.”
“I remember you said once that she would do nothing common,” said Mrs. Harsanyi thoughtfully.
“Just so. She might fail, die, get lost in the pack. But if she achieved, it would be nothing common. There are people whom one can trust for that. There is one way in which they will never fail.” Harsanyi retired51 into his own reflections.
After the second act Fred Ottenburg brought Archie to the Harsanyis’ box and introduced him as an old friend of Miss Kronborg. The head of a musical publishing house joined them, bringing with him a journalist and the president of a German singing society. The conversation was chiefly about the new Sieglinde. Mrs. Harsanyi was gracious and enthusiastic, her husband nervous and uncommunicative. He smiled mechanically, and politely answered questions addressed to him. “Yes, quite so.” “Oh, certainly.” Every one, of course, said very usual things with great conviction. Mrs. Harsanyi was used to hearing and uttering the commonplaces which such occasions demanded. When her husband withdrew into the shadow, she covered his retreat by her sympathy and cordiality. In reply to a direct question from Ottenburg, Harsanyi said, flinching52, “Isolde? Yes, why not? She will sing all the great roles, I should think.”
The chorus director said something about “dramatic temperament53.” The journalist insisted that it was “explosive force,” “projecting power.”
Ottenburg turned to Harsanyi. “What is it, Mr. Harsanyi? Miss Kronborg says if there is anything in her, you are the man who can say what it is.”
The journalist scented54 copy and was eager. “Yes, Harsanyi. You know all about her. What’s her secret?”
Harsanyi rumpled55 his hair irritably56 and shrugged57 his shoulders. “Her secret? It is every artist’s secret,”—he waved his hand,—“passion. That is all. It is an open secret, and perfectly safe. Like heroism58, it is inimitable in cheap materials.”
The lights went out. Fred and Archie left the box as the second act came on.
Artistic59 growth is, more than it is anything else, a refining of the sense of truthfulness60. The stupid believe that to be truthful61 is easy; only the artist, the great artist, knows how difficult it is. That afternoon nothing new came to Thea Kronborg, no enlightenment, no inspiration. She merely came into full possession of things she had been refining and perfecting for so long. Her inhibitions chanced to be fewer than usual, and, within herself, she entered into the inheritance that she herself had laid up, into the fullness of the faith she had kept before she knew its name or its meaning.
Often when she sang, the best she had was unavailable; she could not break through to it, and every sort of distraction62 and mischance came between it and her. But this afternoon the closed roads opened, the gates dropped. What she had so often tried to reach, lay under her hand. She had only to touch an idea to make it live.
While she was on the stage she was conscious that every movement was the right movement, that her body was absolutely the instrument of her idea. Not for nothing had she kept it so severely63, kept it filled with such energy and fire. All that deep-rooted vitality64 flowered in her voice, her face, in her very finger-tips. She felt like a tree bursting into bloom. And her voice was as flexible as her body; equal to any demand, capable of every nuance65. With the sense of its perfect companionship, its entire trustworthiness, she had been able to throw herself into the dramatic exigencies66 of the part, everything in her at its best and everything working together.
The third act came on, and the afternoon slipped by. Thea Kronborg’s friends, old and new, seated about the house on different floors and levels, enjoyed her triumph according to their natures. There was one there, whom nobody knew, who perhaps got greater pleasure out of that afternoon than Harsanyi himself. Up in the top gallery a gray-haired little Mexican, withered67 and bright as a string of peppers beside a’dobe door, kept praying and cursing under his breath, beating on the brass68 railing and shouting “Bravó! Bravó!” until he was repressed by his neighbors.
He happened to be there because a Mexican band was to be a feature of Barnum and Bailey’s circus that year. One of the managers of the show had traveled about the Southwest, signing up a lot of Mexican musicians at low wages, and had brought them to New York. Among them was Spanish Johnny. After Mrs. Tellamantez died, Johnny abandoned his trade and went out with his mandolin to pick up a living for one. His irregularities had become his regular mode of life.
When Thea Kronborg came out of the stage entrance on Fortieth Street, the sky was still flaming with the last rays of the sun that was sinking off behind the North River. A little crowd of people was lingering about the door—musicians from the orchestra who were waiting for their comrades, curious young men, and some poorly dressed girls who were hoping to get a glimpse of the singer. She bowed graciously to the group, through her veil, but she did not look to the right or left as she crossed the sidewalk to her cab. Had she lifted her eyes an instant and glanced out through her white scarf, she must have seen the only man in the crowd who had removed his hat when she emerged, and who stood with it crushed up in his hand. And she would have known him, changed as he was. His lustrous69 black hair was full of gray, and his face was a good deal worn by the extasi, so that it seemed to have shrunk away from his shining eyes and teeth and left them too prominent. But she would have known him. She passed so near that he could have touched her, and he did not put on his hat until her taxi had snorted away. Then he walked down Broadway with his hands in his overcoat pockets, wearing a smile which embraced all the stream of life that passed him and the lighted towers that rose into the limpid70 blue of the evening sky. If the singer, going home exhausted71 in her cab, was wondering what was the good of it all, that smile, could she have seen it, would have answered her. It is the only commensurate answer.
Here we must leave Thea Kronborg. From this time on the story of her life is the story of her achievement. The growth of an artist is an intellectual and spiritual development which can scarcely be followed in a personal narrative. This story attempts to deal only with the simple and concrete beginnings which color and accent an artist’s work, and to give some account of how a Moonstone girl found her way out of a vague, easy-going world into a life of disciplined endeavor. Any account of the loyalty72 of young hearts to some exalted73 ideal, and the passion with which they strive, will always, in some of us, rekindle74 generous emotions.
点击收听单词发音
1 rehearsal | |
n.排练,排演;练习 | |
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2 rehearsals | |
n.练习( rehearsal的名词复数 );排练;复述;重复 | |
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3 chilly | |
adj.凉快的,寒冷的 | |
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4 disapproving | |
adj.不满的,反对的v.不赞成( disapprove的现在分词 ) | |
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5 boded | |
v.预示,预告,预言( bode的过去式和过去分词 );等待,停留( bide的过去分词 );居住;(过去式用bided)等待 | |
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6 perversely | |
adv. 倔强地 | |
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7 housekeeper | |
n.管理家务的主妇,女管家 | |
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8 wig | |
n.假发 | |
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9 chiding | |
v.责骂,责备( chide的现在分词 ) | |
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10 perfectly | |
adv.完美地,无可非议地,彻底地 | |
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11 wink | |
n.眨眼,使眼色,瞬间;v.眨眼,使眼色,闪烁 | |
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12 defer | |
vt.推迟,拖延;vi.(to)遵从,听从,服从 | |
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13 penetrated | |
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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14 well-being | |
n.安康,安乐,幸福 | |
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15 retarded | |
a.智力迟钝的,智力发育迟缓的 | |
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16 parlor | |
n.店铺,营业室;会客室,客厅 | |
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17 sitting-room | |
n.(BrE)客厅,起居室 | |
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18 loft | |
n.阁楼,顶楼 | |
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19 marred | |
adj. 被损毁, 污损的 | |
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20 pitcher | |
n.(有嘴和柄的)大水罐;(棒球)投手 | |
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21 boughs | |
大树枝( bough的名词复数 ) | |
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22 rattled | |
慌乱的,恼火的 | |
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23 sprawling | |
adj.蔓生的,不规则地伸展的v.伸开四肢坐[躺]( sprawl的现在分词 );蔓延;杂乱无序地拓展;四肢伸展坐着(或躺着) | |
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24 broker | |
n.中间人,经纪人;v.作为中间人来安排 | |
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25 vaudeville | |
n.歌舞杂耍表演 | |
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26 ushers | |
n.引座员( usher的名词复数 );招待员;门房;助理教员v.引,领,陪同( usher的第三人称单数 ) | |
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27 advent | |
n.(重要事件等的)到来,来临 | |
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28 vexed | |
adj.争论不休的;(指问题等)棘手的;争论不休的问题;烦恼的v.使烦恼( vex的过去式和过去分词 );使苦恼;使生气;详细讨论 | |
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29 tempo | |
n.(音乐的)速度;节奏,行进速度 | |
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30 basses | |
低音歌唱家,低音乐器( bass的名词复数 ) | |
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31 tattoo | |
n.纹身,(皮肤上的)刺花纹;vt.刺花纹于 | |
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32 narrative | |
n.叙述,故事;adj.叙事的,故事体的 | |
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33 draught | |
n.拉,牵引,拖;一网(饮,吸,阵);顿服药量,通风;v.起草,设计 | |
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34 tenor | |
n.男高音(歌手),次中音(乐器),要旨,大意 | |
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35 vigor | |
n.活力,精力,元气 | |
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36 forth | |
adv.向前;向外,往外 | |
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37 shameful | |
adj.可耻的,不道德的 | |
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38 inspection | |
n.检查,审查,检阅 | |
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39 impelled | |
v.推动、推进或敦促某人做某事( impel的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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40 foretold | |
v.预言,预示( foretell的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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41 beheld | |
v.看,注视( behold的过去式和过去分词 );瞧;看呀;(叙述中用于引出某人意外的出现)哎哟 | |
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42 fervently | |
adv.热烈地,热情地,强烈地 | |
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43 hardier | |
能吃苦耐劳的,坚强的( hardy的比较级 ); (植物等)耐寒的 | |
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44 impatience | |
n.不耐烦,急躁 | |
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45 swelled | |
增强( swell的过去式和过去分词 ); 肿胀; (使)凸出; 充满(激情) | |
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46 anticipation | |
n.预期,预料,期望 | |
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47 hunched | |
(常指因寒冷、生病或愁苦)耸肩弓身的,伏首前倾的 | |
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48 labor | |
n.劳动,努力,工作,劳工;分娩;vi.劳动,努力,苦干;vt.详细分析;麻烦 | |
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49 savage | |
adj.野蛮的;凶恶的,残暴的;n.未开化的人 | |
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50 sweeping | |
adj.范围广大的,一扫无遗的 | |
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51 retired | |
adj.隐退的,退休的,退役的 | |
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52 flinching | |
v.(因危险和痛苦)退缩,畏惧( flinch的现在分词 ) | |
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53 temperament | |
n.气质,性格,性情 | |
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54 scented | |
adj.有香味的;洒香水的;有气味的v.嗅到(scent的过去分词) | |
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55 rumpled | |
v.弄皱,使凌乱( rumple的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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56 irritably | |
ad.易生气地 | |
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57 shrugged | |
vt.耸肩(shrug的过去式与过去分词形式) | |
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58 heroism | |
n.大无畏精神,英勇 | |
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59 artistic | |
adj.艺术(家)的,美术(家)的;善于艺术创作的 | |
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60 truthfulness | |
n. 符合实际 | |
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61 truthful | |
adj.真实的,说实话的,诚实的 | |
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62 distraction | |
n.精神涣散,精神不集中,消遣,娱乐 | |
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63 severely | |
adv.严格地;严厉地;非常恶劣地 | |
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64 vitality | |
n.活力,生命力,效力 | |
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65 nuance | |
n.(意义、意见、颜色)细微差别 | |
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66 exigencies | |
n.急切需要 | |
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67 withered | |
adj. 枯萎的,干瘪的,(人身体的部分器官)因病萎缩的或未发育良好的 动词wither的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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68 brass | |
n.黄铜;黄铜器,铜管乐器 | |
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69 lustrous | |
adj.有光泽的;光辉的 | |
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70 limpid | |
adj.清澈的,透明的 | |
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71 exhausted | |
adj.极其疲惫的,精疲力尽的 | |
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72 loyalty | |
n.忠诚,忠心 | |
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73 exalted | |
adj.(地位等)高的,崇高的;尊贵的,高尚的 | |
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74 rekindle | |
v.使再振作;再点火 | |
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