It had been said as a joke, but as, after this, they awaited their friend in silence, the effect of the silence was to turn the time to gravity — a gravity not dissipated even when the Prince next spoke1. He had been thinking the case over and making up his mind. A handsome, clever, odd girl staying with one was a complication. Mrs. Assingham, so far, was right. But there were the facts — the good relations, from schooldays, of the two young women, and the clear confidence with which one of them had arrived. “She can come, you know, at any time, to US.”
Mrs. Assingham took it up with an irony3 beyond laughter. “You’d like her for your honeymoon4?”
“Oh no, you must keep her for that. But why not after?”
She had looked at him a minute; then, at the sound of a voice in the corridor, they had got up. “Why not? You’re splendid!” Charlotte Stant, the next minute, was with them, ushered5 in as she had alighted from her cab, and prepared for not finding Mrs. Assingham alone — this would have been to be noticed — by the butler’s answer, on the stairs, to a question put to him. She could have looked at her hostess with such straightness and brightness only from knowing that the Prince was also there — the discrimination of but a moment, yet which let him take her in still better than if she had instantly faced him. He availed himself of the chance thus given him, for he was conscious of all these things. What he accordingly saw, for some seconds, with intensity6, was a tall, strong, charming girl who wore for him, at first, exactly the look of her adventurous7 situation, a suggestion, in all her person, in motion and gesture, in free, vivid, yet altogether happy indications of dress, from the becoming compactness of her hat to the shade of tan in her shoes, of winds and waves and custom-houses, of far countries and long journeys, the knowledge of how and where and the habit, founded on experience, of not being afraid. He was aware, at the same time, that of this combination the “strongminded” note was not, as might have been apprehended8, the basis; he was now sufficiently9 familiar with English-speaking types, he had sounded attentively10 enough such possibilities, for a quick vision of differences. He had, besides, his own view of this young lady’s strength of mind. It was great, he had ground to believe, but it would never interfere11 with the play of her extremely personal, her always amusing taste. This last was the thing in her — for she threw it out positively12, on the spot, like a light — that she might have reappeared, during these moments, just to cool his worried eyes with. He saw her in her light that immediate13, exclusive address to their friend was like a lamp she was holding aloft for his benefit and for his pleasure. It showed him everything — above all her presence in the world, so closely, so irretrievably contemporaneous with his own: a sharp, sharp fact, sharper during these instants than any other at all, even than that of his marriage, but accompanied, in a subordinate and controlled way, with those others, facial, physiognomic, that Mrs. Assingham had been speaking of as subject to appreciation14. So they were, these others, as he met them again, and that was the connection they instantly established with him. If they had to be interpreted, this made at least for intimacy15. There was but one way certainly for HIM— to interpret them in the sense of the already known.
Making use then of clumsy terms of excess, the face was too narrow and too long, the eyes not large, and the mouth, on the other hand, by no means small, with substance in its lips and a slight, the very slightest, tendency to protrusion16 in the solid teeth, otherwise indeed well arrayed and flashingly white. But it was, strangely, as a cluster of possessions of his own that these things, in Charlotte Stant, now affected17 him; items in a full list, items recognised, each of them, as if, for the long interval18, they had been “stored” wrapped up, numbered, put away in a cabinet. While she faced Mrs. Assingham the door of the cabinet had opened of itself; he took the relics19 out, one by one, and it was more and more, each instant, as if she were giving him time. He saw again that her thick hair was, vulgarly speaking, brown, but that there was a shade of tawny20 autumn leaf in it, for “appreciation”— a colour indescribable and of which he had known no other case, something that gave her at moments the sylvan21 head of a huntress. He saw the sleeves of her jacket drawn22 to her wrists, but he again made out the free arms within them to be of the completely rounded, the polished slimness that Florentine sculptors23, in the great time, had loved, and of which the apparent firmness is expressed in their old silver and old bronze. He knew her narrow hands, he knew her long fingers and the shape and colour of her finger-nails, he knew her special beauty of movement and line when she turned her back, and the perfect working of all her main attachments24, that of some wonderful finished instrument, something intently made for exhibition, for a prize. He knew above all the extraordinary fineness of her flexible waist, the stem of an expanded flower, which gave her a likeness25 also to some long, loose silk purse, well filled with gold pieces, but having been passed, empty, through a finger-ring that held it together. It was as if, before she turned to him, he had weighed the whole thing in his open palm and even heard a little the chink of the metal. When she did turn to him it was to recognise with her eyes what he might have been doing. She made no circumstance of thus coming upon him, save so far as the intelligence in her face could at any moment make a circumstance of almost anything. If when she moved off she looked like a huntress, she looked when she came nearer like his notion, perhaps not wholly correct, of a muse26. But what she said was simply: “You see you’re not rid of me. How is dear Maggie?”
It was to come soon enough by the quite unforced operation of chance, the young man’s opportunity to ask her the question suggested by Mrs. Assingham shortly before her entrance. The license27, had he chosen to embrace it, was within a few minutes all there — the license given him literally28 to inquire of this young lady how long she was likely to be with them. For a matter of the mere29 domestic order had quickly determined30, on Mrs. Assingham’s part, a withdrawal31, of a few moments, which had the effect of leaving her visitors free. “Mrs. Betterman’s there?” she had said to Charlotte in allusion32 to some member of the household who was to have received her and seen her belongings33 settled; to which Charlotte had replied that she had encountered only the butler, who had been quite charming. She had deprecated any action taken on behalf of her effects; but her hostess, rebounding34 from accumulated cushions, evidently saw more in Mrs. Betterman’s non-appearance than could meet the casual eye. What she saw, in short, demanded her intervention35, in spite of an earnest “Let ME go!” from the girl, and a prolonged smiling wail36 over the trouble she was giving. The Prince was quite aware, at this moment, that departure, for himself, was indicated; the question of Miss Stant’s installation didn’t demand his presence; it was a case for one to go away — if one hadn’t a reason for staying. He had a reason, however — of that he was equally aware; and he had not for a good while done anything more conscious and intentional37 than not, quickly, to take leave. His visible insistence38 — for it came to that — even demanded of him a certain disagreeable effort, the sort of effort he had mostly associated with acting39 for an idea. His idea was there, his idea was to find out something, something he wanted much to know, and to find it out not tomorrow, not at some future time, not in short with waiting and wondering, but if possible before quitting the place. This particular curiosity, moreover, confounded itself a little with the occasion offered him to satisfy Mrs. Assingham’s own; he wouldn’t have admitted that he was staying to ask a rude question — there was distinctly nothing rude in his having his reasons. It would be rude, for that matter, to turn one’s back, without a word or two, on an old friend.
Well, as it came to pass, he got the word or two, for Mrs. Assingham’s preoccupation was practically simplifying. The little crisis was of shorter duration than our account of it; duration, naturally, would have forced him to take up his hat. He was somehow glad, on finding himself alone with Charlotte, that he had not been guilty of that inconsequence. Not to be flurried was the kind of consistency40 he wanted, just as consistency was the kind of dignity. And why couldn’t he have dignity when he had so much of the good conscience, as it were, on which such advantages rested? He had done nothing he oughtn’t — he had in fact done nothing at all. Once more, as a man conscious of having known many women, he could assist, as he would have called it, at the recurrent, the predestined phenomenon, the thing always as certain as sunrise or the coming round of Saints’ days, the doing by the woman of the thing that gave her away. She did it, ever, inevitably41, infallibly — she couldn’t possibly not do it. It was her nature, it was her life, and the man could always expect it without lifting a finger. This was HIS, the man’s, any man’s, position and strength — that he had necessarily the advantage, that he only had to wait, with a decent patience, to be placed, in spite of himself, it might really be said, in the right. Just so the punctuality of performance on the part of the other creature was her weakness and her deep misfortune — not less, no doubt, than her beauty. It produced for the man that extraordinary mixture of pity and profit in which his relation with her, when he was not a mere brute42, mainly consisted; and gave him in fact his most pertinent43 ground of being always nice to her, nice about her, nice FOR her. She always dressed her act up, of course, she muffled44 and disguised and arranged it, showing in fact in these dissimulations a cleverness equal to but one thing in the world, equal to her abjection45: she would let it be known for anything, for everything, but the truth of which it was made. That was what, precisely46, Charlotte Stant would be doing now; that was the present motive47 and support, to a certainty, of each of her looks and motions. She was the twentieth woman, she was possessed48 by her doom49, but her doom was also to arrange appearances, and what now concerned him was to learn how she proposed. He would help her, would arrange WITH her to any point in reason; the only thing was to know what appearance could best be produced and best be preserved. Produced and preserved on her part of course; since on his own there had been luckily no folly50 to cover up, nothing but a perfect accord between conduct and obligation.
They stood there together, at all events, when the door had closed behind their friend, with a conscious, strained smile and very much as if each waited for the other to strike the note or give the pitch. The young man held himself, in his silent suspense51 — only not more afraid because he felt her own fear. She was afraid of herself, however; whereas, to his gain of lucidity52, he was afraid only of her. Would she throw herself into his arms, or would she be otherwise wonderful? She would see what he would do — so their queer minute without words told him; and she would act accordingly. But what could he do but just let her see that he would make anything, everything, for her, as honourably53 easy as possible? Even if she should throw herself into his arms he would make that easy — easy, that is, to overlook, to ignore, not to remember, and not, by the same token, either, to regret. This was not what in fact happened, though it was also not at a single touch, but by the finest gradations, that his tension subsided54. “It’s too delightful55 to be back!” she said at last; and it was all she definitely gave him — being moreover nothing but what anyone else might have said. Yet with two or three other things that, on his response, followed it, it quite pointed56 the path, while the tone of it, and her whole attitude, were as far removed as need have been from the truth of her situation. The abjection that was present to him as of the essence quite failed to peep out, and he soon enough saw that if she was arranging she could be trusted to arrange. Good — it was all he asked; and all the more that he could admire and like her for it,
The particular appearance she would, as they said, go in for was that of having no account whatever to give him — it would be in fact that of having none to give anybody — of reasons or of motives57, of comings or of goings. She was a charming young woman who had met him before, but she was also a charming young woman with a life of her own. She would take it high — up, up, up, ever so high. Well then, he would do the same; no height would be too great for them, not even the dizziest conceivable to a young person so subtle. The dizziest seemed indeed attained58 when, after another moment, she came as near as she was to come to an apology for her abruptness59.
“I’ve been thinking of Maggie, and at last I yearned60 for her. I wanted to see her happy — and it doesn’t strike me I find you too shy to tell me I SHALL.”
“Of course she’s happy, thank God! Only it’s almost terrible, you know, the happiness of young, good, generous creatures. It rather frightens one. But the Blessed Virgin61 and all the Saints,” said the Prince, “have her in their keeping.”
“Certainly they have. She’s the dearest of the dear. But I needn’t tell you,” the girl added.
“Ah,” he returned with gravity, “I feel that I’ve still much to learn about her.” To which he subjoined “She’ll rejoice awfully62 in your being with us.”
“Oh, you don’t need me!” Charlotte smiled. “It’s her hour. It’s a great hour. One has seen often enough, with girls, what it is. But that,” she said, “is exactly why. Why I’ve wanted, I mean, not to miss it.”
He bent63 on her a kind, comprehending face. “You mustn’t miss anything.” He had got it, the pitch, and he could keep it now, for all he had needed was to have it given him. The pitch was the happiness of his wife that was to be-the sight of that happiness as a joy for an old friend. It was, yes, magnificent, and not the less so for its coming to him, suddenly, as sincere, as nobly exalted64. Something in Charlotte’s eyes seemed to tell him this, seemed to plead with him in advance as to what he was to find in it. He was eager — and he tried to show her that too — to find what she liked; mindful as he easily could be of what the friendship had been for Maggie. It had been armed with the wings of young imagination, young generosity65; it had been, he believed — always counting out her intense devotion to her father — the liveliest emotion she had known before the dawn of the sentiment inspired by himself. She had not, to his knowledge, invited the object of it to their wedding, had not thought of proposing to her, for a matter of a couple of hours, an arduous66 and expensive journey. But she had kept her connected and informed, from week to week, in spite of preparations and absorptions. “Oh, I’ve been writing to Charlotte — I wish you knew her better:” he could still hear, from recent weeks, this record of the fact, just as he could still be conscious, not otherwise than queerly, of the gratuitous67 element in Maggie’s wish, which he had failed as yet to indicate to her. Older and perhaps more intelligent, at any rate, why shouldn’t Charlotte respond — and be quite FREE to respond — to such fidelities68 with something more than mere formal good manners? The relations of women with each other were of the strangest, it was true, and he probably wouldn’t have trusted here a young person of his own race. He was proceeding69 throughout on the ground of the immense difference — difficult indeed as it might have been to disembroil in this young person HER race-quality. Nothing in her definitely placed her; she was a rare, a special product. Her singleness, her solitude70, her want of means, that is her want of ramifications71 and other advantages, contributed to enrich her somehow with an odd, precious neutrality, to constitute for her, so detached yet so aware, a sort of small social capital. It was the only one she had — it was the only one a lonely, gregarious72 girl COULD have, since few, surely, had in anything like the same degree arrived at it, and since this one indeed had compassed it but through the play of some gift of nature to which you could scarce give a definite name.
It wasn’t a question of her strange sense for tongues, with which she juggled73 as a conjuror74 at a show juggled with balls or hoops75 or lighted brands — it wasn’t at least entirely76 that, for he had known people almost as polyglot77 whom their accomplishment78 had quite failed to make interesting. He was polyglot himself, for that matter — as was the case too with so many of his friends and relations; for none of whom, more than for himself, was it anything but a common convenience. The point was that in this young woman it was a beauty in itself, and almost a mystery: so, certainly, he had more than once felt in noting, on her lips, that rarest, among the Barbarians79, of all civil graces, a perfect felicity in the use of Italian. He had known strangers — a few, and mostly men — who spoke his own language agreeably; but he had known neither man nor woman who showed for it Charlotte’s almost mystifying instinct. He remembered how, from the first of their acquaintance, she had made no display of it, quite as if English, between them, his English so matching with hers, were their inevitable80 medium. He had perceived all by accident — by hearing her talk before him to somebody else that they had an alternative as good; an alternative in fact as much better as the amusement for him was greater in watching her for the slips that never came. Her account of the mystery didn’t suffice: her recall of her birth in Florence and Florentine childhood; her parents, from the great country, but themselves already of a corrupt81 generation, demoralised, falsified, polyglot well before her, with the Tuscan balia who was her first remembrance; the servants of the villa82, the dear contadini of the poder, the little girls and the other peasants of the next podere, all the rather shabby but still ever so pretty human furniture of her early time, including the good sisters of the poor convent of the Tuscan hills, the convent shabbier than almost anything else, but prettier too, in which she had been kept at school till the subsequent phase, the phase of the much grander institution in Paris at which Maggie was to arrive, terribly frightened, and as a smaller girl, three years before her own ending of her period of five. Such reminiscences, naturally, gave a ground, but they had not prevented him from insisting that some strictly83 civil ancestor — generations back, and from the Tuscan hills if she would-made himself felt, ineffaceably, in her blood and in her tone. She knew nothing of the ancestor, but she had taken his theory from him, gracefully84 enough, as one of the little presents that make friendship flourish. These matters, however, all melted together now, though a sense of them was doubtless concerned, not unnaturally85, in the next thing, of the nature of a surmise86, that his discretion87 let him articulate. “You haven’t, I rather gather, particularly liked your country?” They would stick, for the time, to their English.
“It doesn’t, I fear, seem particularly mine. And it doesn’t in the least matter, over there, whether one likes it or not — that is to anyone but one’s self. But I didn’t like it,” said Charlotte Stant.
“That’s not encouraging then to me, is it?” the Prince went on.
“Do you mean because you’re going?”
“Oh yes, of course we’re going. I’ve wanted immensely to go.” She hesitated. “But now?— immediately?”
“In a month or two — it seems to be the new idea.” On which there was something in her face — as he imagined — that made him say: “Didn’t Maggie write to you?”
“Not of your going at once. But of course you must go. And of course you must stay”— Charlotte was easily clear —“as long as possible.”
“Is that what you did?” he laughed. “You stayed as long as possible?”
“Well, it seemed to me so — but I hadn’t ‘interests.’ You’ll have them — on a great scale. It’s the country for interests,” said Charlotte. “If I had only had a few I doubtless wouldn’t have left it.”
He waited an instant; they were still on their feet. “Yours then are rather here?”
“Oh, mine!”— the girl smiled. “They take up little room, wherever they are.”
It determined in him, the way this came from her and what it somehow did for her-it determined in him a speech that would have seemed a few minutes before precarious88 and in questionable89 taste. The lead she had given him made the difference, and he felt it as really a lift on finding an honest and natural word rise, by its license, to his lips. Nothing surely could be, for both of them, more in the note of a high bravery. “I’ve been thinking it all the while so probable, you know, that you would have seen your way to marrying.”
She looked at him an instant, and, just for these seconds, he feared for what he might have spoiled. “To marrying whom?”
“Why, some good, kind, clever, rich American.”
Again his security hung in the balance — then she was, as he felt, admirable.
“I tried everyone I came across. I did my best. I showed I had come, quite publicly, FOR that. Perhaps I showed it too much. At any rate it was no use. I had to recognise it. No one would have me.” Then she seemed to show as sorry for his having to hear of her anything so disconcerting. She pitied his feeling about it; if he was disappointed she would cheer him up. “Existence, you know, all the same, doesn’t depend on that. I mean,” she smiled, “on having caught a husband.”
“Oh — existence!” the Prince vaguely90 commented. “You think I ought to argue for more than mere existence?” she asked. “I don’t see why MY existence — even reduced as much as you like to being merely mine — should be so impossible. There are things, of sorts, I should be able to have — things I should be able to be. The position of a single woman today is very favourable91, you know.”
“Favourable to what?”
“Why, just TO existence — which may contain, after all, in one way and another, so much. It may contain, at the worst, even affections; affections in fact quite particularly; fixed92, that is, on one’s friends. I’m extremely fond of Maggie, for instance — I quite adore her. How could I adore her more if I were married to one of the people you speak of?”
The Prince gave a laugh. “You might adore HIM more —!”
“Ah, but it isn’t, is it?” she asked, “a question of that.”
“My dear friend,” he returned, “it’s always a question of doing the best for one’s self one can — without injury to others.” He felt by this time that they were indeed on an excellent basis; so he went on again, as if to show frankly93 his sense of its firmness. “I venture therefore to repeat my hope that you’ll marry some capital fellow; and also to repeat my belief that such a marriage will be more favourable to you, as you call it, than even the spirit of the age.”
She looked at him at first only for answer, and would have appeared to take it with meekness94 had she not perhaps appeared a little more to take it with gaiety. “Thank you very much,” she simply said; but at that moment their friend was with them again. It was undeniable that, as she came in, Mrs. Assingham looked, with a certain smiling sharpness, from one of them to the other; the perception of which was perhaps what led Charlotte, for reassurance95, to pass the question on. “The Prince hopes so much I shall still marry some good person.”
Whether it worked for Mrs. Assingham or not, the Prince was himself, at this, more than ever reassured96. He was SAFE, in a word — that was what it all meant; and he had required to be safe. He was really safe enough for almost any joke. “It’s only,” he explained to their hostess, “because of what Miss Stant has been telling me. Don’t we want to keep up her courage?” If the joke was broad he had at least not begun it — not, that is, AS a joke; which was what his companion’s address to their friend made of it. “She has been trying in America, she says, but hasn’t brought it off.”
The tone was somehow not what Mrs. Assingham had expected, but she made the best of it. “Well then,” she replied to the young man, “if you take such an interest you must bring it off.”
“And you must help, dear,” Charlotte said unperturbed —“as you’ve helped, so beautifully, in such things before.” With which, before Mrs. Assingham could meet the appeal, she had addressed herself to the Prince on a matter much nearer to him. “YOUR mar-riage is on Friday?— on Saturday?”
“Oh, on Friday, no! For what do you take us? There’s not a vulgar omen2 we’re neglecting. On Saturday, please, at the Oratory97, at three o’clock — before twelve assistants exactly.”
“Twelve including ME?”
It struck him — he laughed. “You’ll make the thirteenth. It won’t do!”
“Not,” said Charlotte, “if you’re going in for ‘omens.’ Should you like me to stay away?”
“Dear no — we’ll manage. We’ll make the round number — we’ll have in some old woman. They must keep them there for that, don’t they?”
Mrs. Assingham’s return had at last indicated for him his departure; he had possessed himself again of his hat and approached her to take leave. But he had another word for Charlotte. “I dine to-night with Mr. Verver. Have you any message?”
The girl seemed to wonder a little. “For Mr. Verver?”
“For Maggie — about her seeing you early. That, I know, is what she’ll like.”
“Then I’ll come early — thanks.”
“I daresay,” he went on, “she’ll send for you. I mean send a carriage.”
“Oh, I don’t require that, thanks. I can go, for a penny, can’t I?” she asked of Mrs. Assingham, “in an omnibus.”
“Oh, I say!” said the Prince while Mrs. Assingham looked at her blandly98.
“Yes, love — and I’ll give you the penny. She shall get there,” the good lady added to their friend.
But Charlotte, as the latter took leave of her, thought of something else. “There’s a great favour, Prince, that I want to ask of you. I want, between this and Saturday, to make Maggie a marriage-present.”
“Oh, I say!” the young man again soothingly99 exclaimed.
“Ah, but I MUST,” she went on. “It’s really almost for that I came back. It was impossible to get in America what I wanted.”
Mrs. Assingham showed anxiety. “What is it then, dear, you want?”
But the girl looked only at their companion. “That’s what the Prince, if he’ll be so good, must help me to decide.”
“Can’t I,” Mrs. Assingham asked, “help you to decide?”
“Certainly, darling, we must talk it well over.” And she kept her eyes on the Prince. “But I want him, if he kindly100 will, to go with me to look. I want him to judge with me and choose. That, if you can spare the hour,” she said, “is the great favour I mean.”
He raised his eyebrows101 at her — he wonderfully smiled. “What you came back from America to ask? Ah, certainly then, I must find the hour!” He wonderfully smiled, but it was rather more, after all, than he had been reckoning with. It went somehow so little with the rest that, directly, for him, it wasn’t the note of safety; it preserved this character, at the best, but by being the note of publicity102. Quickly, quickly, however, the note of publicity struck him as better than any other. In another moment even it seemed positively what he wanted; for what so much as publicity put their relation on the right footing? By this appeal to Mrs. Assingham it was established as right, and she immediately showed that such was her own understanding.
“Certainly, Prince,” she laughed, “you must find the hour!” And it was really so express a license from her, as representing friendly judgment103, public opinion, the moral law, the margin104 allowed a husband about to be, or whatever, that, after observing to Charlotte that, should she come to Portland Place in the morning, he would make a point of being there to see her and so, easily, arrange with her about a time, he took his departure with the absolutely confirmed impression of knowing, as he put it to himself, where he was. Which was what he had prolonged his visit for. He was where he could stay.
收听单词发音 |
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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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omen
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| n.征兆，预兆；vt.预示 | |
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irony
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| n.反语，冷嘲；具有讽刺意味的事，嘲弄 | |
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honeymoon
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| n.蜜月（假期）；vi.度蜜月 | |
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ushered
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| v.引，领，陪同( usher的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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intensity
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| n.强烈，剧烈；强度；烈度 | |
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adventurous
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| adj.爱冒险的；惊心动魄的，惊险的，刺激的 | |
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apprehended
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| 逮捕，拘押( apprehend的过去式和过去分词 )； 理解 | |
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sufficiently
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| adv.足够地，充分地 | |
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attentively
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| adv.聚精会神地；周到地；谛；凝神 | |
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interfere
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| v.(in)干涉，干预；(with)妨碍，打扰 | |
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positively
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| adv.明确地，断然，坚决地；实在，确实 | |
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immediate
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| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
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appreciation
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| n.评价；欣赏；感谢；领会，理解；价格上涨 | |
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intimacy
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| n.熟悉，亲密，密切关系，亲昵的言行 | |
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protrusion
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| n.伸出，突出 | |
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affected
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| adj.不自然的，假装的 | |
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interval
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| n.间隔，间距；幕间休息，中场休息 | |
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relics
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| [pl.］n.遗物，遗迹，遗产；遗体，尸骸 | |
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tawny
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| adj.茶色的，黄褐色的；n.黄褐色 | |
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sylvan
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| adj.森林的 | |
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drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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23
sculptors
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| 雕刻家，雕塑家( sculptor的名词复数 )； [天]玉夫座 | |
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24
attachments
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| n.（用电子邮件发送的）附件( attachment的名词复数 )；附着；连接；附属物 | |
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25
likeness
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| n.相像，相似（之处） | |
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26
muse
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| n.缪斯（希腊神话中的女神），创作灵感 | |
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27
license
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| n.执照，许可证，特许；v.许可，特许 | |
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literally
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| adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实 | |
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29
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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30
determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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31
withdrawal
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| n.取回，提款；撤退，撤军；收回，撤销 | |
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32
allusion
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| n.暗示，间接提示 | |
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33
belongings
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| n.私人物品，私人财物 | |
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34
rebounding
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| 蹦跳运动 | |
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35
intervention
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| n.介入，干涉，干预 | |
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36
wail
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| vt./vi.大声哀号，恸哭；呼啸，尖啸 | |
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intentional
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| adj.故意的，有意（识）的 | |
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insistence
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| n.坚持；强调；坚决主张 | |
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39
acting
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| n.演戏，行为，假装；adj.代理的，临时的，演出用的 | |
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consistency
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| n.一贯性，前后一致，稳定性；(液体的)浓度 | |
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41
inevitably
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| adv.不可避免地；必然发生地 | |
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42
brute
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| n.野兽，兽性 | |
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pertinent
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| adj.恰当的；贴切的；中肯的；有关的；相干的 | |
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muffled
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| adj.（声音）被隔的；听不太清的；（衣服）裹严的；蒙住的v.压抑，捂住( muffle的过去式和过去分词 )；用厚厚的衣帽包着（自己） | |
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abjection
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| n. 卑鄙, 落魄 | |
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precisely
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| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
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motive
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| n.动机，目的；adv.发动的，运动的 | |
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possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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49
doom
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| n.厄运，劫数；v.注定，命定 | |
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folly
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| n.愚笨，愚蠢，蠢事，蠢行，傻话 | |
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51
suspense
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| n.（对可能发生的事）紧张感，担心，挂虑 | |
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52
lucidity
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| n.明朗，清晰，透明 | |
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53
honourably
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| adv.可尊敬地，光荣地，体面地 | |
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subsided
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| v.（土地）下陷（因在地下采矿）( subside的过去式和过去分词 )；减弱；下降至较低或正常水平；一下子坐在椅子等上 | |
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delightful
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| adj.令人高兴的，使人快乐的 | |
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pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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motives
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| n.动机，目的( motive的名词复数 ) | |
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58
attained
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| （通常经过努力）实现( attain的过去式和过去分词 )； 达到； 获得； 达到（某年龄、水平、状况） | |
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abruptness
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| n. 突然，唐突 | |
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yearned
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| 渴望，切盼，向往( yearn的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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virgin
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| n.处女，未婚女子；adj.未经使用的；未经开发的 | |
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awfully
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| adv.可怕地，非常地，极端地 | |
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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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exalted
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| adj.(地位等)高的，崇高的；尊贵的，高尚的 | |
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generosity
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| n.大度，慷慨，慷慨的行为 | |
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66
arduous
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| adj.艰苦的，费力的，陡峭的 | |
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gratuitous
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| adj.无偿的，免费的；无缘无故的，不必要的 | |
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fidelities
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| 忠诚，忠实（fidelity的复数形式） | |
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69
proceeding
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| n.行动，进行，(pl.)会议录，学报 | |
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70
solitude
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| n. 孤独; 独居,荒僻之地,幽静的地方 | |
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71
ramifications
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| n.结果，后果( ramification的名词复数 ) | |
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72
gregarious
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| adj.群居的，喜好群居的 | |
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73
juggled
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| v.歪曲( juggle的过去式和过去分词 )；耍弄；有效地组织；尽力同时应付（两个或两个以上的重要工作或活动） | |
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74
conjuror
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| n.魔术师，变戏法者 | |
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75
hoops
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| n.箍( hoop的名词复数 )；（篮球）篮圈；（旧时儿童玩的）大环子；（两端埋在地里的）小铁弓 | |
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entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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polyglot
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| adj.通晓数种语言的；n.通晓多种语言的人 | |
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accomplishment
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| n.完成，成就，（pl.）造诣，技能 | |
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79
barbarians
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| n.野蛮人( barbarian的名词复数 )；外国人；粗野的人；无教养的人 | |
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80
inevitable
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| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
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81
corrupt
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| v.贿赂，收买；adj.腐败的，贪污的 | |
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82
villa
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| n.别墅，城郊小屋 | |
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83
strictly
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| adv.严厉地，严格地；严密地 | |
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84
gracefully
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| ad.大大方方地；优美地 | |
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85
unnaturally
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| adv.违反习俗地；不自然地；勉强地；不近人情地 | |
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86
surmise
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| v./n.猜想，推测 | |
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87
discretion
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| n.谨慎；随意处理 | |
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88
precarious
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| adj.不安定的，靠不住的；根据不足的 | |
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89
questionable
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| adj.可疑的，有问题的 | |
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90
vaguely
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| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
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91
favourable
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| adj.赞成的，称赞的，有利的，良好的，顺利的 | |
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fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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93
frankly
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| adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说 | |
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94
meekness
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| n.温顺，柔和 | |
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95
reassurance
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| n.使放心，使消除疑虑 | |
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96
reassured
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| adj.使消除疑虑的；使放心的v.再保证，恢复信心( reassure的过去式和过去分词) | |
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97
oratory
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| n.演讲术；词藻华丽的言辞 | |
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98
blandly
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| adv.温和地，殷勤地 | |
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99
soothingly
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| adv.抚慰地，安慰地；镇痛地 | |
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100
kindly
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| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
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101
eyebrows
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| 眉毛( eyebrow的名词复数 ) | |
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102
publicity
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| n.众所周知，闻名；宣传，广告 | |
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103
judgment
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| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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104
margin
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| n.页边空白；差额；余地，余裕；边，边缘 | |
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