But I began to tell you how Ellen McGee and I invented Snockerty and arrived at our first contact with organized society, at least Forrie and Effie and I did, for it led to our being interdicted1 the society of the McGee children for so long that we forgot to inquire what inconvenience, if any, they suffered on account of it.
You will see for yourself that Ellen must have invented him—where, indeed, should a saint-abhorring, Sunday-schooled Taylorville child get the stuff for it? God we knew, and were greatly bored by His inordinate2 partiality for the Jews as against all ancient peoples, and by the inquisitorial eye and ear forever at the keyhole of our lives, as Cousin Judd never spared to remind us; and personally I was convinced of a large friendliness3 brooding over Hadley's pasture, to the sense of which I woke every morning afresh, was called by it, and to it; walking apart from the others, I vaguely4 prayed. But Snockerty was of the stripe of trolls, leprechauns, pucks, and hobgoblins.
We began, I remember, by thinking of him as resident in an old hollow apple tree, down which, if small trifles were dropped, they fell out of reach and sound. There was the inviting5 hole, arm high in the apple trunk, into which you popped bright pebbles6, bits of glass—and I suppose He might have sprung very naturally from the need of justifying7 your having parted with something you valued and couldn't get back again, at the prompting of an impulse you did not understand. Very presently the practice grew into the acknowledgment of a personality amenable8 to our desires.
We took to dropping small belongings9 in the tree for an omen10 of the day: whether the spring was full or not, or if we should find any pawpaws in the wood, and drew the augury11 from anything that happened immediately afterward12: say, if the wind ruffled13 the leaves or if a rabbit ran out of the grass.
It was Ellen who showed the most wit in interpreting the signs and afterward reconciling their inconsistencies, but it was I conceived the notion of propitiating14 Snockerty, who by this time had come to exercise a marked influence on all our plays, by a species of dramatic entertainment made up of scraps15 of school exercises, Sunday hymns16, recitations, and particularly of improvisations in which Ellen and I vied. There were times when, even in the midst of these ritualistic observances, we would go off at a tangent of normal play, quite oblivious17 of Snockerty; other times we were so worked upon by our own performance as to make sacrifices of really valuable possessions and variously to afflict18 ourselves.
It was I, I remember, who scared one of the little Allinghams almost into fits by my rendering19 in the name of Snockerty of an anathema20 which I had picked up somewhere, but it was Ellen who contrived21 to extend His influence over the whole of our territory by finding in every decaying stump22 and hollow trunk, a means of communication, and deriving23 therefrom authority for any wild prank24 that happened to come into her head. It is curious that in all the escapades which were imposed on us in the name of our deity25, for which we were duly punished, not one word of the real cause of our outbreaks ever leaked through to our parents. It was the only thing, I believe, the little Allinghams never told their mother, not even when the second youngest in a perfect frenzy26 of propitiation, made a sacrifice of a handful of his careful curls which I personally hacked27 off for him with Forester's pocket knife. He lied like a little gentleman and said he had cut them off himself because he was tired of looking like a girl baby.
I think it must have been about the end of Snockerty's second summer that Ellen's wild humour got us all into serious trouble which resulted in my first real contact with authority.
Along the west side of Hadley's pasture, between it and the county road, lay the tilled fields of the Ross property, corn and pumpkins28 and turnips29, against which a solemn trespass30 board advised us. It was that board, no doubt, which led to our always referring to the owner of it as old man Ross, for except as he was a tall, stooping, white-bearded, childless man, I do not know how he had deserved our disrespect. I have suspected since that the trespass sign did not originate wholly in the alleged31 cantankerousness32 of farmer Ross, and that the McGees knew more of the taste of his young turnips and roasting ears than they admitted at the time when Snockerty announced to Ellen through the hollow of a dark, gnarly oak at the foot of Hadley's hill, that he would be acceptably served by a feast of green corn and turnips out of Ross's field. This was the first time the idea of such a depredation33 had occurred to us, I believe, for we were really good children in the main, but I do not think we had any notion of disobeying. Personally I rather delighted in the idea of being compelled to desperate enterprises. I recall the wild freebooting dash, the scramble34 over the fence, the rustle35 of the corn full of delicious intimations of ambush36 and surprise, the real fear of coming suddenly on old man Ross among the rows, where I suspect we did a great deal of damage in the search for ears suitable to roast, and the derisive37 epithets38 which we did not spare to fling over our shoulders as we escaped into the brush with our booty. There was a perfect little carnival39 of wickedness in the safe hollow where we stripped the ears for roasting—fires too were forbidden us—where we dared old man Ross to come on, gave dramatic rehearsals40 of what we should do to him in that event, and revelled41 in forbidden manners and interdicted words. I remember the delightful42 shock of hearing Alfred Allingham declare that he meant to get his belly43 full of green corn anyway, for belly was a word that no well brought up Taylorville child was expected to use on any occasion; and finally how we all took hands in a wild dance around the fire and over it, crying,
"Snockerty, Snockerty, Snockerty!"
Following on the heels of that, a sort of film came over the performance, an intimation of our disgust in each other at the connivance45 of wrongdoing. I remember, as we came up through the orchard46 rather late, this feeling grew upon us: the sense of taint47, of cheapness, which swelled48 into a most abominable49 conviction of guilt50 as we discovered old man Ross on the front porch talking to our father. And then with what a heaviness of raw turnips and culpability51 we huddled52 in about our mother, going with brisk movements to and fro getting supper, and how she cuffed53 us out of her way, not knowing in the least what old man Ross had come about. Finally the overwhelming consciousness of publicity54 swooped55 down upon us at my father's coming in through the door, very white and angry, wanting to know if this were true that he had heard—and it was the utmost limit of opprobriousness that our father should get to know of our misdeeds at all. Times before, when we downrightly transgressed56 by eating wild crabs57, or taking off our stockings to wade58 in the brook59 too early in the season, we bore our mother's strictures according to our several dispositions60. Forester, I remember, was troubled with sensibility and used fairly to give us over to wrath61 by the advertisement of guilty behaviour. He had a vocation62 for confession63, wept copiously64 under whippings which did him a world of good, and went about for days with a chastened manner which irritated me excessively. I believe now that he was quite sincere in it, but there was a feeling among the rest of us that he carried the admission of culpability too far. Myself, since I never entered on disobedience without having settled with myself that the fun of it would be worth the pains, scorned repentance65, and endured correction with a philosophy which got me the reputation of being a hardened and froward child. That we did not, on this basis, get into more serious scrapes was due to Effie, who could never bear any sort of unpleasantness. Parents, if you crossed them, had a way of making things so very unpleasant.
It was Effie who, if we went to the neighbours for a stated visit, kept her eye upon the clock, and if she found us yielding to temptation, was fertile in the invention of counter exploits just as exciting and quite within the parental66 pale, and when we did fall, had a genius for extrication67 as great as Forester's for propitiatory68 behaviour. So it fell out that our piratical descent on Ross's field was our first encounter with an order of things that transcended69 my mother's personal jurisdiction70.
Up to this time contact with our parents' world had got no farther than vainglorious71 imaginings of our proper entry into it, and now suddenly we found that we were in it, haled there by our own acts in the unhappy quality of offenders72. I think this was the first time in my life that I had been glad it was Forester who was the boy and not I who was made to go with my father and Mr. Allingham to Ross's field to point out the damage, for which they paid.
It was this which sealed the enormity of our offence, money was paid for it, and came near to losing its moral point with Forrie, who felt himself immeasurably raised in the estimate of the other boys as a public character. It served, along with my father's anger, which was so new to us, to raise the occasion to a solemn note against which mere73 switchings were inconsiderable. No doubt my brother has forgotten it by now, along with Effie, who got off with nothing worse than the complicity of having been one of us, but to me the incident takes rank as the beginning of a new kind of Snockertism which was to array itself indefinitely against the forces inappreciably sucking at the bottom of my life.
It was as if, on the very first occasion of my swimming to the surface of my lustrous74 seas, I was taken with a line at the end of which I was to be played into shoals and shallows, to foul75 with my flounderings some clear pools and scatter76 the peace of many smaller fry—I mean the obligation of repute, the necessity of being loyal to what I found in the world because it had been founded in sincerity77 with pains. For what my father made clear to us as the very crux78 of our transgression79, was that we had discredited80 our bringing up. Old man Ross could be paid for his vegetables, but there was nothing, I was given to understand, could satisfy our arrears81 to our parents' honour, which, it transpired82, had been appallingly83 blackened in the event.
Nothing in my whole life has so surprised me as the capacity of this single adventure for involving us in successive coils of turpitude84 and disaster; though it was not until we followed my father into the best room the next morning after he had seen Mr. Allingham, still rather sick, for the turnips had not agreed with us, that we realized the worst, rounding on us through a stream of dreadful, biting things that, as my father uttered them, seemed to float us clear beyond the pale of sympathy and hope. I remember my father walking up and down with his hands under his coat behind, a short man in my recollection, with a kind of swing in his walk which curiously85 nobody but myself seems to have noticed, and a sort of electrical flash in his manner which might have come, as in this instance, from our never being brought up before him except when we had done something thoroughly86 exasperating87: I am not sure that I did not tell Ellen McGee, in an attempt to render the magnitude of our going over, that he rated us in full uniform, waving his sword, which at that moment hung with his regimentals over the mantelpiece.
"Good heavens," he said, "you might have been arrested for it—my children—mine—and I thought I could have trusted you. Good heavens!"
Suddenly he reached out as it were over my brother's shoulder, to whom in his capacity as the eldest88 son most of this tirade89 was addressed, with a word for me that was to go tearing its way sorely to the seat of memory and consciousness, and, lodging90 there, become the one point of attachment91 to support the memory of him beyond his death.
"As for you, Olivia," I started at this, for I had been staying my misery92 for the moment on a red and black table cover which my mother valued, and I was amazed to find myself still able to hate—"as for you, Olivia May"—he would never allow my name to be shortened in the least—"I am surprised at you."
He had expected better of me then; he had reached beyond my surfaces and divined what I was inarticulately sure of, that I was different—no, not better—but somehow intrinsically different. He was surprised at me; he did not say so much of Forester, and he did say that it was exactly what he had expected of the McGees, but he had had a better opinion of me. I recall a throb93 of exasperation94 at his never having told me. I might have lived up to it. But with all the soreness of having dropped short of a possible estimate, that phrase, which might have gone no deeper than his momentary95 disappointment, is all I have on which to hang the faith that perhaps ... perhaps some vision had shaped on his horizon of what I might become. I was never anything to my mother, I know, but a cuckoo's egg dropped in her creditable nest. "But," said my father, "I am surprised at you."
He was, I believe, one of those men who make a speciality of integrity and of great dependability in public service, which is often brought to answer for the want of private success; an early republican type fast being relegated96 to small towns and country neighbourhoods. He had a brilliant war record which was partly responsible for his office, and a string of debts pendent from some earlier mercantile enterprise, which, in the occasion they afforded of paying up under circumstances of great stringency97, appeared somehow an additional burnish98 to his name. He was a man everybody liked; that he was extremely gentle and gay in his manner with us on most occasions, I remember very well, and I think he must have had a vein99 of romance, though I do not know upon what grounds except that among the few books that he left, many were of that character, and from the names of his children, Forester, Olivia May, and Ephemia, called Effie for short, which were certainly not Taylorvillian. Forester grew out of a heroic incident of his soldiering, of which I have forgotten all the particulars except that the other man's name was Forester, and my father's idea of giving it to his son who was born about that time, was that when he should grow up, and be distinguished100, the double name of Forester Lattimore should serve at once as a reminder101 and a certificate of appreciation102. I recall that we children, or perhaps it was only I, used to abound103 in dramatic imaginings of what would happen when this belated recognition took place, though in fact nothing ever came of it, which might have been largely owing to my brother's turning out the least distinguished of men.
Whether if my father had lived he would have remained always as much in the dark as to the private sources of my behaviour, I try not to guess, but this incident picked him out for me among the ruck of fathers as a man distinguished for propriety104, produced, in the very moment of pronouncing me unworthy of it, the ideal of a personal standard. If he hadn't up to this time affected105 greatly my gratitude106 or affections, he began to shine for me now with some of the precious quality which inheres in dreams. And before the shine had gone off I lost him.
点击收听单词发音
1 interdicted | |
v.禁止(行动)( interdict的过去式和过去分词 );禁用;限制 | |
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2 inordinate | |
adj.无节制的;过度的 | |
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3 friendliness | |
n.友谊,亲切,亲密 | |
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4 vaguely | |
adv.含糊地,暖昧地 | |
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5 inviting | |
adj.诱人的,引人注目的 | |
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6 pebbles | |
[复数]鹅卵石; 沙砾; 卵石,小圆石( pebble的名词复数 ) | |
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7 justifying | |
证明…有理( justify的现在分词 ); 为…辩护; 对…作出解释; 为…辩解(或辩护) | |
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8 amenable | |
adj.经得起检验的;顺从的;对负有义务的 | |
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9 belongings | |
n.私人物品,私人财物 | |
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10 omen | |
n.征兆,预兆;vt.预示 | |
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11 augury | |
n.预言,征兆,占卦 | |
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12 afterward | |
adv.后来;以后 | |
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13 ruffled | |
adj. 有褶饰边的, 起皱的 动词ruffle的过去式和过去分词 | |
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14 propitiating | |
v.劝解,抚慰,使息怒( propitiate的现在分词 ) | |
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15 scraps | |
油渣 | |
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16 hymns | |
n.赞美诗,圣歌,颂歌( hymn的名词复数 ) | |
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17 oblivious | |
adj.易忘的,遗忘的,忘却的,健忘的 | |
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18 afflict | |
vt.使身体或精神受痛苦,折磨 | |
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19 rendering | |
n.表现,描写 | |
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20 anathema | |
n.诅咒;被诅咒的人(物),十分讨厌的人(物) | |
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21 contrived | |
adj.不自然的,做作的;虚构的 | |
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22 stump | |
n.残株,烟蒂,讲演台;v.砍断,蹒跚而走 | |
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23 deriving | |
v.得到( derive的现在分词 );(从…中)得到获得;源于;(从…中)提取 | |
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24 prank | |
n.开玩笑,恶作剧;v.装饰;打扮;炫耀自己 | |
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25 deity | |
n.神,神性;被奉若神明的人(或物) | |
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26 frenzy | |
n.疯狂,狂热,极度的激动 | |
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27 hacked | |
生气 | |
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28 pumpkins | |
n.南瓜( pumpkin的名词复数 );南瓜的果肉,南瓜囊 | |
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29 turnips | |
芜青( turnip的名词复数 ); 芜菁块根; 芜菁甘蓝块根; 怀表 | |
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30 trespass | |
n./v.侵犯,闯入私人领地 | |
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31 alleged | |
a.被指控的,嫌疑的 | |
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32 cantankerousness | |
cantankerousness' S | |
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33 depredation | |
n.掠夺,蹂躏 | |
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34 scramble | |
v.爬行,攀爬,杂乱蔓延,碎片,片段,废料 | |
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35 rustle | |
v.沙沙作响;偷盗(牛、马等);n.沙沙声声 | |
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36 ambush | |
n.埋伏(地点);伏兵;v.埋伏;伏击 | |
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37 derisive | |
adj.嘲弄的 | |
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38 epithets | |
n.(表示性质、特征等的)词语( epithet的名词复数 ) | |
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39 carnival | |
n.嘉年华会,狂欢,狂欢节,巡回表演 | |
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40 rehearsals | |
n.练习( rehearsal的名词复数 );排练;复述;重复 | |
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41 revelled | |
v.作乐( revel的过去式和过去分词 );狂欢;着迷;陶醉 | |
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42 delightful | |
adj.令人高兴的,使人快乐的 | |
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43 belly | |
n.肚子,腹部;(像肚子一样)鼓起的部分,膛 | |
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44 savage | |
adj.野蛮的;凶恶的,残暴的;n.未开化的人 | |
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45 connivance | |
n.纵容;默许 | |
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46 orchard | |
n.果园,果园里的全部果树,(美俚)棒球场 | |
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47 taint | |
n.污点;感染;腐坏;v.使感染;污染 | |
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48 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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49 abominable | |
adj.可厌的,令人憎恶的 | |
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50 guilt | |
n.犯罪;内疚;过失,罪责 | |
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51 culpability | |
n.苛责,有罪 | |
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52 huddled | |
挤在一起(huddle的过去式与过去分词形式) | |
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53 cuffed | |
v.掌打,拳打( cuff的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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54 publicity | |
n.众所周知,闻名;宣传,广告 | |
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55 swooped | |
俯冲,猛冲( swoop的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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56 transgressed | |
v.超越( transgress的过去式和过去分词 );越过;违反;违背 | |
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57 crabs | |
n.蟹( crab的名词复数 );阴虱寄生病;蟹肉v.捕蟹( crab的第三人称单数 ) | |
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58 wade | |
v.跋涉,涉水;n.跋涉 | |
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59 brook | |
n.小河,溪;v.忍受,容让 | |
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60 dispositions | |
安排( disposition的名词复数 ); 倾向; (财产、金钱的)处置; 气质 | |
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61 wrath | |
n.愤怒,愤慨,暴怒 | |
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62 vocation | |
n.职业,行业 | |
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63 confession | |
n.自白,供认,承认 | |
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64 copiously | |
adv.丰富地,充裕地 | |
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65 repentance | |
n.懊悔 | |
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66 parental | |
adj.父母的;父的;母的 | |
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67 extrication | |
n.解脱;救出,解脱 | |
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68 propitiatory | |
adj.劝解的;抚慰的;谋求好感的;哄人息怒的 | |
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69 transcended | |
超出或超越(经验、信念、描写能力等)的范围( transcend的过去式和过去分词 ); 优于或胜过… | |
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70 jurisdiction | |
n.司法权,审判权,管辖权,控制权 | |
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71 vainglorious | |
adj.自负的;夸大的 | |
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72 offenders | |
n.冒犯者( offender的名词复数 );犯规者;罪犯;妨害…的人(或事物) | |
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73 mere | |
adj.纯粹的;仅仅,只不过 | |
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74 lustrous | |
adj.有光泽的;光辉的 | |
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75 foul | |
adj.污秽的;邪恶的;v.弄脏;妨害;犯规;n.犯规 | |
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76 scatter | |
vt.撒,驱散,散开;散布/播;vi.分散,消散 | |
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77 sincerity | |
n.真诚,诚意;真实 | |
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78 crux | |
adj.十字形;难事,关键,最重要点 | |
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79 transgression | |
n.违背;犯规;罪过 | |
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80 discredited | |
不足信的,不名誉的 | |
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81 arrears | |
n.到期未付之债,拖欠的款项;待做的工作 | |
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82 transpired | |
(事实,秘密等)被人知道( transpire的过去式和过去分词 ); 泄露; 显露; 发生 | |
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83 appallingly | |
毛骨悚然地 | |
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84 turpitude | |
n.可耻;邪恶 | |
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85 curiously | |
adv.有求知欲地;好问地;奇特地 | |
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86 thoroughly | |
adv.完全地,彻底地,十足地 | |
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87 exasperating | |
adj. 激怒的 动词exasperate的现在分词形式 | |
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88 eldest | |
adj.最年长的,最年老的 | |
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89 tirade | |
n.冗长的攻击性演说 | |
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90 lodging | |
n.寄宿,住所;(大学生的)校外宿舍 | |
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91 attachment | |
n.附属物,附件;依恋;依附 | |
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92 misery | |
n.痛苦,苦恼,苦难;悲惨的境遇,贫苦 | |
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93 throb | |
v.震颤,颤动;(急速强烈地)跳动,搏动 | |
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94 exasperation | |
n.愤慨 | |
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95 momentary | |
adj.片刻的,瞬息的;短暂的 | |
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96 relegated | |
v.使降级( relegate的过去式和过去分词 );使降职;转移;把…归类 | |
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97 stringency | |
n.严格,紧迫,说服力;严格性;强度 | |
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98 burnish | |
v.磨光;使光滑 | |
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99 vein | |
n.血管,静脉;叶脉,纹理;情绪;vt.使成脉络 | |
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100 distinguished | |
adj.卓越的,杰出的,著名的 | |
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101 reminder | |
n.提醒物,纪念品;暗示,提示 | |
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102 appreciation | |
n.评价;欣赏;感谢;领会,理解;价格上涨 | |
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103 abound | |
vi.大量存在;(in,with)充满,富于 | |
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104 propriety | |
n.正当行为;正当;适当 | |
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105 affected | |
adj.不自然的,假装的 | |
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106 gratitude | |
adj.感激,感谢 | |
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