THE four pikemen had spread themselves one above the other over the whole face of the cutting. Separated by planks2, hooked on to retain the fallen coal, they each occupied about four metres of the seam, and this seam was so thin, scarcely more than fifty centimetres thick at this spot, that they seemed to be flattened4 between the roof and the wall, dragging themselves along by their knees and elbows, and unable to turn without crushing their shoulders. In order to attack the coal, they had to lie on their sides with their necks twisted and arms raised, brandishing5, in a sloping direction, their short-handled picks.
Below there was, first, Zacharie; Levaque and Chaval were on the stages above, and at the very top was Maheu. Each worked at the slaty6 bed, which he dug out with blows of the pick; then he made two vertical7 cuttings in the bed and detached the block by burying an iron wedge in its upper part. The coal was rich; the block broke and rolled in fragments along their bellies8 and thighs9. When these fragments, retained by the plank1, had collected round them, the pikemen disappeared, buried in the narrow cleft11.
Maheu suffered most. At the top the temperature rose to thirty-five degrees, and the air was stagnant12, so that in the long run it became lethal13. In order to see, he had been obliged to fix his lamp to a nail near his head, and this lamp, close to his skull14, still further heated his blood. But his torment15 was especially aggravated16 by the moisture. The rock above him, a few centimetres from his face, streamed with water, which fell in large continuous rapid drops with a sort of obstinate17 rhythm, always at the same spot. It was vain for him to twist his head or bend back his neck. They fell on his face, dropping unceasingly. In a quarter of an hour he was soaked, and at the same time covered with sweat, smoking as with the hot steam of a laundry. This morning a drop beating upon his eye made him swear. He would not leave his picking, he dealt great strokes which shook him violently between the two rocks, like a fly caught between two leaves of a book and in danger of being completely flattened.
Not a word was exchanged. They all hammered; one only heard these irregular blows, which seemed veiled and remote. The sounds had a sonorous19 hoarseness20, without any echo in the dead air. And it seemed that the darkness was an unknown blackness, thickened by the floating coal dust, made heavy by the gas which weighed on the eyes. The wicks of the lamps beneath their caps of metallic21 tissue only showed as reddish points. One could distinguish nothing. The cutting opened out above like a large chimney, flat and oblique22, in which the soot23 of ten years had amassed24 a profound night. Spectral25 figures were moving in it, the gleams of light enabled one to catch a glimpse of a rounded hip26, a knotty27 arm, a vigorous head, besmeared as if for a crime. Sometimes, blocks of coal shone suddenly as they became detached, illuminated28 by a crystalline reflection. Then everything fell back into darkness, pickaxes struck great hollow blows; one only heard panting chests, the grunting29 of discomfort30 and weariness beneath the weight of the air and the rain of the springs.
Zacharie, with arms weakened by a spree of the night before, soon left his work on the pretence31 that more timbering was necessary. This allowed him to forget himself in quiet whistling, his eyes vaguely32 resting in the shade. Behind the pikemen nearly three metres of the seam were clear, and they had not yet taken the precaution of supporting the rock, having grown careless of danger and miserly of their time.
“Here, you swell,” cried the young man to étienne, “hand up some wood.”
étienne, who was learning from Catherine how to manage his shovel33, had to raise the wood in the cutting. A small supply had remained over from yesterday. It was usually sent down every morning ready cut to fit the bed.
“Hurry up there, damn it!” shouted Zacharie, seeing the new putter hoist34 himself up awkwardly in the midst of the coal, his arms embarrassed by four pieces of oak.
He made a hole in the roof with his pickaxe, and then another in the wall, and wedged in the two ends of the wood, which thus supported the rock. In the afternoon the workers in the earth cutting took the rubbish left at the bottom of the gallery by the pikemen, and cleared out the exhausted35 section of the seam, in which they destroyed the wood, being only careful about the lower and upper roads for the haulage.
Maheu ceased to groan36. At last he had detached his block, and he wiped his streaming face on his sleeve. He was worried about what Zacharie was doing behind him.
“Let it be,” he said, “we will see after breakfast. Better go on hewing37, if we want to make up our share of trams.”
“It’s because it’s sinking,” replied the young man. “Look, there’s a crack. It may slip.”
But the father shrugged38 his shoulders. Ah! nonsense! Slip! And if it did, it would not be the first time; they would get out of it all right. He grew angry at last, and sent his son to the front of the cutting.
All of them, however, were now stretching themselves. Levaque, resting on his back, was swearing as he examined his left thumb which had been grazed by the fall of a piece of sandstone. Chaval had taken off his shirt in a fury, and was working with bare chest and back for the sake of coolness. They were already black with coal, soaked in a fine dust diluted39 with sweat which ran down in streams and pools. Maheu first began again to hammer, lower down, with his head level with the rock. Now the drop struck his forehead so obstinately40 that he seemed to feel it piercing a hole in the bone of his skull.
“You mustn’t mind,” explained Catherine to étienne, “they are always howling.”
And like a good-natured girl she went on with her lesson. Every laden41 tram arrived at the top in the same condition as it left the cutting, marked with a special metal token so that the receiver might put it to the reckoning of the stall. It was necessary, therefore, to be very careful to fill it, and only to take clean coal, otherwise it was refused at the receiving office.
The young man, whose eyes were now becoming accustomed to the darkness, looked at her, still white with her chlorotic complexion42, and he could not have told her age; he thought she must be twelve, she seemed to him so slight. However, he felt she must be older, with her boyish freedom, a simple audacity43 which confused him a little; she did not please him: he thought her too roguish with her pale Pierrot head, framed at the temples by the cap. But what astonished him was the strength of this child, a nervous strength which was blended with a good deal of skill. She filled her train faster than he could, with quick small regular strokes of the shovel; she afterwards pushed it to the inclined way with a single slow push, without a hitch44, easily passing under the low rocks. He tore himself to pieces, got off the rails, and was reduced to despair.
It was certainly not a convenient road. It was sixty metres from the cutting to the upbrow, and the passage, which the miners in the earth cutting had not yet enlarged, was a mere18 tube with a very irregular roof swollen45 by innumerable bosses; at certain spots the laden tram could only just pass; the putter had to flatten3 himself, to push on his knees, in order not to break his head, and besides this the wood was already bending and yielding. One could see it broken in the middle in long pale rents like an over-weak crutch46. One had to be careful not to graze oneself in these fractures; and beneath the slow crushing, which caused the splitting of billets of oak as large as the thigh10, one had to glide47 almost on one’s belly48 with a secret fear of suddenly hearing one’s back break.
“Again!” said Catherine, laughing.
étienne’s tram had gone off the rails at the most difficult spot. He could not roll straight on these rails which sank in the damp earth, and he swore, became angry, and fought furiously with the wheels, which he could not get back into place in spite of exaggerated efforts.
“Wait a bit,” said the young girl. “If you get angry it will never go.” Skilfully49 she had glided50 down and thrust her buttocks beneath the tram, and by putting the weight on her loins she raised it and replaced it. The weight was seven hundred kilograms. Surprised and ashamed, he stammered51 excuses.
She was obliged to show him how to straddle his legs and brace52 his feet against the planking on both sides of the gallery, in order to give himself a more solid fulcrum53. The body had to be bent54, the arms made stiff so as to push with all the muscles of the shoulders and hips55. During the journey he followed her and watched her proceed with tense back, her fists so low that she seemed trotting56 on all fours, like one of those dwarf57 beasts that perform at circuses. She sweated, panted, her joints58 cracked, but without a complaint, with the indifference59 of custom, as if it were the common wretchedness of all to live thus bent double. But he could not succeed in doing as much; his shoes troubled him, his body seemed broken by walking in this way with lowered head. At the end of a few minutes the position became a torture, an intolerable anguish60, so painful that he got on his knees for a moment to straighten himself and breathe.
Then at the upbrow there was more labour. She taught him to fill his tram quickly. At the top and bottom of this inclined plane, which served all the cuttings from one level to the other, there was a trammer — the brakesman above, the receiver below. These scamps of twelve to fifteen years shouted abominable61 words to each other, and to warn them it was necessary to yell still more violently. Then, as soon as there was an empty tram to send back, the receiver gave the signal and the putter embarked62 her full tram, the weight of which made the other ascend63 when the brakesman loosened his brake. Below, in the bottom gallery, were formed the trains which the horses drew to the shaft64.
“Here, you confounded rascals,” cried Catherine in the inclined way, which was wood-lined, about a hundred metres long, and resounded65 like a gigantic trumpet66.
The trainmers must have been resting, for neither of them replied. On all the levels haulage had stopped. A shrill67 girl’s voice said at last:
“One of them must be on Mouquette, sure enough!” There was a roar of laughter, and the putters of the whole seam held their sides.
“Who is that?” asked étienne of Catherine.
The latter named little Lydie, a scamp who knew more than she ought, and who pushed her tram as stoutly68 as a woman in spite of her doll’s arms. As to Mouquette, she was quite capable of being with both the trammers at once.
But the voice of the receiver arose, shouting out to load. Doubtless a captain was passing beneath. Haulage began again on the nine levels, and one only heard the regular calls of the trammers, and the snorting of the putters arriving at the upbrow and steaming like over-laden mares. It was the element of bestiality which breathed in the pit, the sudden desire of the male, when a miner met one of these girls on all fours, with her flanks in the air and her hips bursting through her boy’s breeches.
And on each journey étienne found again at the bottom the stuffiness69 of the cutting, the hollow and broken cadence70 of the axes, the deep painful sighs of the pikemen persisting in their work. All four were naked, mixed up with the coal, soaked with black mud up to the cap. At one moment it had been necessary to free Maheu, who was gasping71, and to remove the planks so that the coal could fall into the passage. Zacharie and Levaque became enraged72 with the seam, which was now hard, they said, and which would make the condition of their account disastrous73. Chaval turned, lying for a moment on his back, abusing étienne, whose presence decidedly exasperated75 him.
“A sort of worm; hasn’t the strength of a girl! Are you going to fill your tub? It’s to spare your arms, eh? Damned if I don’t keep back the ten sous if you get us one refused!”
The young man avoided replying, too happy at present to have found this convict’s labour and accepting the brutal76 rule of the worker by master worker. But he could no longer walk, his feet were bleeding, his limbs torn by horrible cramps77, his body confined in an iron girdle. Fortunately it was ten o’clock, and the stall decided74 to have breakfast.
Maheu had a watch, but he did not even look at it. At the bottom of this starless night he was never five minutes out. All put on their shirts and jackets. Then, descending78 from the cutting they squatted79 down, their elbows to their sides, their buttocks on their heels, in that posture80 so habitual81 with miners that they keep it even when out of the mine, without feeling the need of a stone or a beam to sit on. And each, having taken out his briquet, bit seriously at the thick slice, uttering occasional words on the morning’s work. Catherine, who remained standing82, at last joined étienne, who had stretched himself out farther along, across the rails, with his back against the planking. There was a place there almost dry.
“You don’t eat?” she said to him, with her mouth full and her brick in her hand.
Then she remembered that this youth, wandering about at night without a sou, perhaps had not a bit of bread.
“Will you share with me?”
And as he refused, declaring that he was not hungry, while his voice trembled with the gnawing83 in his stomach, she went on cheerfully:
“Ah! if you are fastidious! But here, I’ve only bitten on that side. I’ll give you this.”
She had already broken the bread and butter into two pieces. The young man, taking his half, restrained himself from devouring84 it all at once, and placed his arms on his thighs, so that she should not see how he trembled. With her quiet air of good comradeship she lay beside him, at full length on her stomach, with her chin in one hand, slowly eating with the other. Their lamps, placed between them, lit up their faces.
Catherine looked at him a moment in silence. She must have found him handsome, with his delicate face and black moustache. She vaguely smiled with pleasure.
“Then you are an engine-man, and they sent you away from your railway. Why?”
“Because I struck my chief.”
She remained stupefied, overwhelmed, with her hereditary86 ideas of subordination and passive obedience87.
“I ought to say that I had been drinking,” he went on, and when I drink I get mad — I could devour85 myself, and I could devour other people. Yes; I can’t swallow two small glasses without wanting to kill someone. Then I am ill for two days.”
“You mustn’t drink,” she said, seriously.
“Ah, don’t be afraid. I know myself.”
And he shook his head. He hated brandy with the hatred88 of the last child of a race of drunkards, who suffered in his flesh from all those ancestors, soaked and driven mad by alcohol to such a point that the least drop had become poison to him.
“It is because of mother that I didn’t like being turned into the street,” he said, after having swallowed a mouthful. “Mother is not happy, and I used to send her a five-franc piece now and then.”
“Where is she, then, your mother?”
“At Paris. Laundress, Rue89 de la Goutte-d’or.”
There was silence. When he thought of these things a tremor90 dimmed his dark eyes, the sudden anguish of the injury he brooded over in his fine youthful strength. For a moment he remained with his looks buried in the darkness of the mine; and at that depth, beneath the weight and suffocation91 of the earth, he saw his childhood again, his mother still beautiful and strong, forsaken92 by his father, then taken up again after having married another man, living with the two men who ruined her, rolling with them in the gutter93 in drink and ordure. It was down there, he recalled the street, the details came back to him; the dirty linen94 in the middle of the shop, the drunken carousals that made the house stink95, and the jaw-breaking blows.
“Now,” he began again, in a slow voice, “I haven’t even thirty sous to make her presents with. She will die of misery96, sure enough.”
He shrugged his shoulders with despair, and again bit at his bread and butter.
“Will you drink?” asked Catherine, uncorking her tin. “Oh, it’s coffee, it won’t hurt you. One gets dry when one eats like that.”
But he refused; it was quite enough to have taken half her bread. However, she insisted good-naturedly, and said at last:
“Well, I will drink before you since you are so polite. Only you can’t refuse now, it would be rude.”
She held out her tin to him. She had got on to her knees and he saw her quite close to him, lit up by the two lamps. Why had he found her ugly? Now that she was black, her face powdered with fine charcoal97, she seemed to him singularly charming. In this face surrounded by shadow, the teeth in the broad mouth shone with whiteness, while the eyes looked large and gleamed with a greenish reflection, like a cat’s eyes. A lock of red hair which had escaped from her cap tickled98 her ear and made her laugh. She no longer seemed so young, she might be quite fourteen.
“To please you,” he said, drinking and giving her back the tin.
She swallowed a second mouthful and forced him to take one too, wishing to share, she said; and that little tin that went from one mouth to the other amused them. He suddenly asked himself if he should not take her in his arms and kiss her lips. She had large lips of a pale rose colour, made vivid by the coal, which tormented99 him with increasing desire. But he did not dare, intimidated100 before her, only having known girls on the streets at Lille of the lowest order, and not realizing how one ought to behave with a work-girl still living with her family.
“You must be about fourteen then?” he asked, after having gone back to his bread. She was astonished, almost angry.
“What? fourteen! But I am fifteen! It’s true I’m not big. Girls don’t grow quick with us.”
He went on questioning her and she told everything without boldness or shame. For the rest she was not ignorant concerning man and woman, although he felt that her body was virginal, with the virginity of a child delayed in her sexual maturity101 by the environment of bad air and weariness in which she lived. When he spoke102 of Mouquette, in order to embarrass her, she told some horrible stories in a quiet voice, with much amusement. Ah! she did some fine things! And as he asked if she herself had no lovers, she replied jokingly that she did not wish to vex103 her mother, but that it must happen some day. Her shoulders were bent. She shivered a little from the coldness of her garments soaked in sweat, with a gentle resigned air, ready to submit to things and men.
“People can find lovers when they all live together, can’t they?”
“Sure enough!”
“And then it doesn’t hurt any one. One doesn’t tell the priest.”
“Oh! the priest! I don’t care for him! But there is the Black Man?”
“What do you mean, the Black Man?”
“The old miner who comes back into the pit and wrings104 naughty girls’ necks.”
He looked at her, afraid that she was making fun of him.
“You believe in those stupid things? Then you don’t know anything.”
“Yes, I do. I can read and write. That is useful among us; in father and mother’s time they learnt nothing.”
She was certainly very charming. When she had finished her bread and butter, he would take her and kiss her on her large rosy105 lips. It was the resolution of timidity, a thought of violence which choked his voice. These boy’s clothes — this jacket and these breeches — on the girl’s flesh excited and troubled him. He had swallowed his last mouthful. He drank from the tin and gave it back for her to empty. Now the moment for action had come, and he cast a restless glance at the miners farther on. But a shadow blocked the gallery.
For a moment Chaval stood and looked at them from afar. He came forward, having assured himself that Maheu could not see him; and as Catherine was seated on the earth he seized her by the shoulders, drew her head back, and tranquilly106 crushed her mouth beneath a brutal kiss, affecting not to notice étienne. There was in that kiss an act of possession, a sort of jealous resolution.
However, the young girl was offended.
“Let me go, do you hear?”
He kept hold of her head and looked into her eyes. His moustache and small red beard flamed in his black face with its large eagle nose. He let her go at last, and went away without speaking a word.
A shudder107 had frozen étienne. It was stupid to have waited. He could certainly not kiss her now, for she would, perhaps, think that he wished to behave like the other. In his wounded vanity he experienced real despair.
“Why did you lie?” he said, in a low voice. “He’s your lover.”
“But no, I swear,” she cried. “There is not that between us. Sometimes he likes a joke; he doesn’t even belong here; it’s six months since he came from the Pas-de-Calais.”
Both rose; work was about to be resumed. When she saw him so cold she seemed annoyed. Doubtless she found him handsomer than the other; she would have preferred him perhaps. The idea of some amiable108, consoling relationship disturbed her; and when the young man saw with surprise that his lamp was burning blue with a large pale ring, she tried at least to amuse him.
“Come, I will show you something,” she said, in a friendly way.
When she had led him to the bottom of the cutting, she pointed109 out to him a crevice110 in the coal. A slight bubbling escaped from it, a little noise like the warbling of a bird.
“Put your hand there; you’ll feel the wind. It’s fire-damp.”
He was surprised. Was that all? Was that the terrible thing which blew everything up? She laughed, she said there was a good deal of it to-day to make the flame of the lamps so blue.
“Now, if you’ve done chattering111, lazy louts!” cried Maheu’s rough voice.
Catherine and étienne hastened to fill their trams, and pushed them to the upbrow with stiffened112 back, crawling beneath the bossy113 roof of the passage. Even after the second journey, the sweat ran off them and their joints began to crack.
The pikemen had resumed work in the cutting. The men often shortened their breakfast to avoid getting cold; and their bricks, eaten in this way, far from the sun, with silent voracity114, loaded their stomachs with lead. Stretched on their sides they hammered more loudly, with the one fixed115 idea of filling a large number of trams. Every thought disappeared in this rage for gain which was so hard to earn. They no longer felt the water which streamed on them and swelled116 their limbs, the cramps of forced attitudes, the suffocation of the darkness in which they grew pale, like plants put in a cellar. Yet, as the day advanced, the air became more poisoned and heated with the smoke of the lamps, with the pestilence117 of their breaths, with the asphyxia of the fire-damp — blinding to the eyes like spiders’ webs — which only the aeration118 of the night could sweep away. At the bottom of their mole-hill, beneath the weight of the earth, with no more breath in their inflamed119 lungs, they went on hammering.
1 plank | |
n.板条,木板,政策要点,政纲条目 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
2 planks | |
(厚)木板( plank的名词复数 ); 政纲条目,政策要点 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
3 flatten | |
v.把...弄平,使倒伏;使(漆等)失去光泽 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
4 flattened | |
[医](水)平扁的,弄平的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
5 brandishing | |
v.挥舞( brandish的现在分词 );炫耀 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
6 slaty | |
石板一样的,石板色的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
7 vertical | |
adj.垂直的,顶点的,纵向的;n.垂直物,垂直的位置 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
8 bellies | |
n.肚子( belly的名词复数 );腹部;(物体的)圆形或凸起部份;腹部…形的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
9 thighs | |
n.股,大腿( thigh的名词复数 );食用的鸡(等的)腿 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
10 thigh | |
n.大腿;股骨 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
11 cleft | |
n.裂缝;adj.裂开的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
12 stagnant | |
adj.不流动的,停滞的,不景气的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
13 lethal | |
adj.致死的;毁灭性的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
14 skull | |
n.头骨;颅骨 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
15 torment | |
n.折磨;令人痛苦的东西(人);vt.折磨;纠缠 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
16 aggravated | |
使恶化( aggravate的过去式和过去分词 ); 使更严重; 激怒; 使恼火 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
17 obstinate | |
adj.顽固的,倔强的,不易屈服的,较难治愈的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
18 mere | |
adj.纯粹的;仅仅,只不过 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
19 sonorous | |
adj.响亮的,回响的;adv.圆润低沉地;感人地;n.感人,堂皇 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
20 hoarseness | |
n.嘶哑, 刺耳 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
21 metallic | |
adj.金属的;金属制的;含金属的;产金属的;像金属的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
22 oblique | |
adj.斜的,倾斜的,无诚意的,不坦率的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
23 soot | |
n.煤烟,烟尘;vt.熏以煤烟 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
24 amassed | |
v.积累,积聚( amass的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
25 spectral | |
adj.幽灵的,鬼魂的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
26 hip | |
n.臀部,髋;屋脊 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
27 knotty | |
adj.有结的,多节的,多瘤的,棘手的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
28 illuminated | |
adj.被照明的;受启迪的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
29 grunting | |
咕哝的,呼噜的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
30 discomfort | |
n.不舒服,不安,难过,困难,不方便 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
31 pretence | |
n.假装,作假;借口,口实;虚伪;虚饰 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
32 vaguely | |
adv.含糊地,暖昧地 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
33 shovel | |
n.铁锨,铲子,一铲之量;v.铲,铲出 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
34 hoist | |
n.升高,起重机,推动;v.升起,升高,举起 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
35 exhausted | |
adj.极其疲惫的,精疲力尽的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
36 groan | |
vi./n.呻吟,抱怨;(发出)呻吟般的声音 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
37 hewing | |
v.(用斧、刀等)砍、劈( hew的现在分词 );砍成;劈出;开辟 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
38 shrugged | |
vt.耸肩(shrug的过去式与过去分词形式) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
39 diluted | |
无力的,冲淡的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
40 obstinately | |
ad.固执地,顽固地 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
41 laden | |
adj.装满了的;充满了的;负了重担的;苦恼的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
42 complexion | |
n.肤色;情况,局面;气质,性格 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
43 audacity | |
n.大胆,卤莽,无礼 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
44 hitch | |
v.免费搭(车旅行);系住;急提;n.故障;急拉 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
45 swollen | |
adj.肿大的,水涨的;v.使变大,肿胀 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
46 crutch | |
n.T字形拐杖;支持,依靠,精神支柱 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
47 glide | |
n./v.溜,滑行;(时间)消逝 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
48 belly | |
n.肚子,腹部;(像肚子一样)鼓起的部分,膛 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
49 skilfully | |
adv. (美skillfully)熟练地 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
50 glided | |
v.滑动( glide的过去式和过去分词 );掠过;(鸟或飞机 ) 滑翔 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
51 stammered | |
v.结巴地说出( stammer的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
52 brace | |
n. 支柱,曲柄,大括号; v. 绷紧,顶住,(为困难或坏事)做准备 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
53 fulcrum | |
n.杠杆支点 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
54 bent | |
n.爱好,癖好;adj.弯的;决心的,一心的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
55 hips | |
abbr.high impact polystyrene 高冲击强度聚苯乙烯,耐冲性聚苯乙烯n.臀部( hip的名词复数 );[建筑学]屋脊;臀围(尺寸);臀部…的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
56 trotting | |
小跑,急走( trot的现在分词 ); 匆匆忙忙地走 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
57 dwarf | |
n.矮子,侏儒,矮小的动植物;vt.使…矮小 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
58 joints | |
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) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
59 indifference | |
n.不感兴趣,不关心,冷淡,不在乎 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
60 anguish | |
n.(尤指心灵上的)极度痛苦,烦恼 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
61 abominable | |
adj.可厌的,令人憎恶的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
62 embarked | |
乘船( embark的过去式和过去分词 ); 装载; 从事 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
63 ascend | |
vi.渐渐上升,升高;vt.攀登,登上 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
64 shaft | |
n.(工具的)柄,杆状物 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
65 resounded | |
v.(指声音等)回荡于某处( resound的过去式和过去分词 );产生回响;(指某处)回荡着声音 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
66 trumpet | |
n.喇叭,喇叭声;v.吹喇叭,吹嘘 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
67 shrill | |
adj.尖声的;刺耳的;v尖叫 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
68 stoutly | |
adv.牢固地,粗壮的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
69 stuffiness | |
n.不通风,闷热;不通气 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
70 cadence | |
n.(说话声调的)抑扬顿挫 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
71 gasping | |
adj. 气喘的, 痉挛的 动词gasp的现在分词 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
72 enraged | |
使暴怒( enrage的过去式和过去分词 ); 歜; 激愤 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
73 disastrous | |
adj.灾难性的,造成灾害的;极坏的,很糟的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
74 decided | |
adj.决定了的,坚决的;明显的,明确的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
75 exasperated | |
adj.恼怒的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
76 brutal | |
adj.残忍的,野蛮的,不讲理的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
77 cramps | |
n. 抽筋, 腹部绞痛, 铁箍 adj. 狭窄的, 难解的 v. 使...抽筋, 以铁箍扣紧, 束缚 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
78 descending | |
n. 下行 adj. 下降的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
79 squatted | |
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。 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
80 posture | |
n.姿势,姿态,心态,态度;v.作出某种姿势 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
81 habitual | |
adj.习惯性的;通常的,惯常的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
82 standing | |
n.持续,地位;adj.永久的,不动的,直立的,不流动的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
83 gnawing | |
a.痛苦的,折磨人的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
84 devouring | |
吞没( devour的现在分词 ); 耗尽; 津津有味地看; 狼吞虎咽地吃光 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
85 devour | |
v.吞没;贪婪地注视或谛听,贪读;使着迷 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
86 hereditary | |
adj.遗传的,遗传性的,可继承的,世袭的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
87 obedience | |
n.服从,顺从 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
88 hatred | |
n.憎恶,憎恨,仇恨 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
89 rue | |
n.懊悔,芸香,后悔;v.后悔,悲伤,懊悔 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
90 tremor | |
n.震动,颤动,战栗,兴奋,地震 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
91 suffocation | |
n.窒息 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
92 Forsaken | |
adj. 被遗忘的, 被抛弃的 动词forsake的过去分词 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
93 gutter | |
n.沟,街沟,水槽,檐槽,贫民窟 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
94 linen | |
n.亚麻布,亚麻线,亚麻制品;adj.亚麻布制的,亚麻的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
95 stink | |
vi.发出恶臭;糟透,招人厌恶;n.恶臭 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
96 misery | |
n.痛苦,苦恼,苦难;悲惨的境遇,贫苦 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
97 charcoal | |
n.炭,木炭,生物炭 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
98 tickled | |
(使)发痒( tickle的过去式和过去分词 ); (使)愉快,逗乐 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
99 tormented | |
饱受折磨的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
100 intimidated | |
v.恐吓;威胁adj.害怕的;受到威胁的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
101 maturity | |
n.成熟;完成;(支票、债券等)到期 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
102 spoke | |
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 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
103 vex | |
vt.使烦恼,使苦恼 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
104 wrings | |
绞( wring的第三人称单数 ); 握紧(尤指别人的手); 把(湿衣服)拧干; 绞掉(水) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
105 rosy | |
adj.美好的,乐观的,玫瑰色的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
106 tranquilly | |
adv. 宁静地 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
107 shudder | |
v.战粟,震动,剧烈地摇晃;n.战粟,抖动 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
108 amiable | |
adj.和蔼可亲的,友善的,亲切的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
109 pointed | |
adj.尖的,直截了当的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
110 crevice | |
n.(岩石、墙等)裂缝;缺口 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
111 chattering | |
n. (机器振动发出的)咔嗒声,(鸟等)鸣,啁啾 adj. 喋喋不休的,啾啾声的 动词chatter的现在分词形式 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
112 stiffened | |
加强的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
113 bossy | |
adj.爱发号施令的,作威作福的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
114 voracity | |
n.贪食,贪婪 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
115 fixed | |
adj.固定的,不变的,准备好的;(计算机)固定的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
116 swelled | |
增强( swell的过去式和过去分词 ); 肿胀; (使)凸出; 充满(激情) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
117 pestilence | |
n.瘟疫 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
118 aeration | |
n. 通气,充气 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
119 inflamed | |
adj.发炎的,红肿的v.(使)变红,发怒,过热( inflame的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
欢迎访问英文小说网 |