Chapter 16
From the balcony of the little pink house Vance Weston looked out over a shabby garden and a barrier of palms to a bay between plum~blue headlands.
On this particular day the bay palpitated with glittering cubes of purple and azure1 that the waves tossed back and forth2 like mermaids3 playing with their jewels. To Vance these games of wind and water were a ceaseless joy. He was always leaving his work to watch the waves race in from the open sea, dodge4 past the guardian5 promontories6, and fall crying on the beach below his balcony — those unquiet waves, perpetually escaping from something; cloud-shadows and sun-javelins, the silver bullets of the rain, the steady drive of the west wind’s flails7. There were other days, very different, when they were not in flight, but like immense grazing flocks moved backward and forward over their smooth pastures to a languid secret rhythm; when a luminous8 indistinctness falsified the distances, and the wild bay became a placid9 land-locked sheet of water. Divine days too; but not as inspiriting as those of flight and pursuit, or as exciting as those when the storm caught the frightened waves and turned their hollows livid as the olive trees along the shore.
Vance laid down his pen and went out on the balcony. Coming up the path of the adjoining Pension Britannique, between untrimmed tea~roses and tough-leaved yuccas, was the perpendicular10 form of the eldest11 Miss Plummet12. Her hand, cased in a black glove worn blue at the seams, clutched a string bag, through the interstices of which were visible some books from the English Chapel13 library, a bottle from the chemist’s, a handful of mandarins and a tiny bunch of faded anemones14. Miss Plummet was almost as fascinating to Vance as the sea and the headlands. She represented, in all its angular purity, a vision as new and exotic: the English maiden15 lady whose life is spent in continental16 pensions kept by English landladies17, and especially recommended by the local English chaplain. The type was familiar to Halo, so much of whose girlhood had been lived in continental pensions; but to Vance it was more novel and exciting than anything that Montparnasse could offer. “She’s got an outline, an edge; she’s representative. And what she represents is so colossal,” he would explain to Halo, pressing her for further elucidations about the kind of life that Miss Plummet’s family probably led at home, the kind of house she came out of, her background, her conception of the universe.
The passing of Miss Plummet always told Vance what time it was. Precisely18 at three every afternoon she returned from her shopping in the one narrow street of Oubli-sur-Mer, the little Mediterranean19 town curving its front of blotched pink-and-yellow houses along the harbour crammed20 with fishing-boats and guarded by a miniature jetty. Oubli-sur-Mer (Halo had explained, when she proposed to him that they should go there for the winter) was a queer survival: a pocket past which, since the war, fashion and money, jazz and cinemas, had swept eastward21, leaving stranded22 in this dent23 of the coast, hemmed24 in by rusty25 pine-clad hills, the remnant of an old~fashioned English colony. The colonists26 were annually27 fewer, a dying race; but though the group had dwindled28 it held the more jealously to its habits and traditions, its English chaplain, English doctor, chemist, parish library, its sacred horror of “French ways”, and inability to understand the humour of “what French people call funny”.
But Vance never could give the proper amount of attention to Miss Plummet, for almost immediately after she had vanished into the interior of the Pension Britannique there always emerged from it Mrs. Dorman, the chaplain’s wife. Mrs. Dorman was spreading where Miss Plummet was vertical29, ambling30 where the other was brisk. She belonged to the generation which had known the south of France to possess a warm winter climate, and her large mild face looked forth astonished under a spreading straw hat wreathed with a discouraged dust-coloured feather, while she grasped a sun-umbrella in one hand and with the other tightened31 her fur tippet. Vance called her the regional divinity because her dual32 precautions against the weather so aptly symbolized33 the extremes of temperature experienced at Oubli-sur-Mer in passing from sun to shade.
“I’m afraid the winter climate of the Riviera is not what it used to be; in old times we never DREAMED of covering up the Bougainvilleas,” Mrs. Dorman would invariably proclaim to new arrivals at the pension, to the distress34 of her landlady35, Madame Fleuret, who was the widow of a French Protestant pasteur, but herself unassailably English. “If only,” Madame Fleuret privately36 complained, “she’d leave the new people alone till they’ve settled down, and made up their minds to have their letters sent here” — a view in which the Reverend Mr. Dorman heartily37 concurred38. “But you know, dear Madame Fleuret, the Bishop39 DID agree with me,” Mrs. Dorman would gently protest, thereby40 recalling to Madame Fleuret’s irritated memory the disastrous41 visit of the Bishop of Drearbury. His lordship, having been ordered south by his physicians for a rest, and having singled out the Pension Britannique after protracted42 correspondence with Lady Dayes–Dawes, had arrived on a mistral day, when the olive trees were turned inside out, the gale43 screaming down the chimneys, and the fire smoking furiously in what Madame Fleuret had lately been trained to call the “lounge”; and it was at that disastrous moment that Mrs. Dorman had put her stereotyped44 question: “We do so hope you’re going to like the Riviera?” to which the Bishop, whom Mr. Dorman had just brought back from a good long walk in the teeth of the gale, had hissed45 out: “I’m afraid I don’t like your foliage46.” (“If at least,” Madame Fleuret said afterward47 confidentially48 to the other ladies, “Mrs. Dorman would give them time to get used to the olives! It took me YEARS, I know; and there’s no use trying to hurry people.”)
Mrs. Dorman, Vance knew, was on her way to sit with Mrs. Churley, the wife of the retired49 Indian cavalry50 officer who lived up the hill. Colonel Churley, a long melancholy51 mahogany-coloured man with a drooping52 white moustache, and white rings under his pale blue eyes, walked past the pink house every morning to fetch his letters from the post office, and every afternoon to take a long tramp by himself along the shore or among the hills. He walked slowly, his arms clasped behind his back, his walking stick dragging through the dust, and looked neither to right nor left, but kept his stern eyes, under projecting shaggy brows, fixed53 steadily54 ahead of him, as if to avoid being accosted55 by acquaintances. Only when he met the Reverend Mr. Dorman, the short round chaplain, whose face was as rubicund56 as the other’s was dark, did Colonel Churley stop for a few words before resuming his mournful tramp. Mrs. Churley, crippled with rheumatism57 and half blind, lay all day on her sofa at Les Mimosas, the dismal-looking house up the hill, and Mrs. Dorman and Miss Plummet took turns to sit with her during her husband’s solitary58 rambles59. Halo had offered to share their task, but Mrs. Dorman had explained, with some embarrassment60, that the Churleys were very shy and unsociable, and perhaps it would be best . . . though Mrs. Weston was so very kind . . . and she would of course give the message . . . but Mrs. Weston mustn’t think it odd . . . even dear Lady Dayes–Dawes had never been allowed to call. . .
There was a Churley son, it appeared, a youth also said to be invalidish and unsociable; Vance had not yet seen him, but at times he was haunted by the thought that a young fellow, perhaps younger than himself, lived in that dreary63 house up the lane, in a place as lacking in youthful life as Oubli-sur-Mer. Mrs. Dorman had told Halo that young Churley was said to be “literary,” and the ladies of the Pension Britannique shook their heads when he was mentioned, as if small good was to be hoped of any one with such tendencies. The ladies had been shy of Vance too when they learned he was an author; but Halo had had the happy thought of giving the parish library a copy of “Instead”, his romantic early novel, and Miss Pamela Plummet, the invalid62, who ranked as the leading literary critic of Oubli-sur-Mer, had pronounced it very pretty; after which, reassured64, the Pension Britannique had taken “Mr. and Mrs. Weston” to its bosom65.
The pension had made the acquaintance of the newcomers through the accident of their sudden arrival. Halo and Vance, after the latter’s encounter with Lewis Tarrant, had both felt the desire to get away from Paris; and Halo, with her usual promptness, had remembered the obsolete66 charms of Oubli-sur-Mer, got hold of some one who knew a house-agent there, and secured the little pink house after one glance at its fly-blown photograph. A week later they had packed up and evacuated67 the Paris flat; but their arrival in the south had been too precipitate68 for Halo to engage servants in advance. The restaurants on the quay69 were too far off, and the nearness of the Pension Britannique prompted her to seek its hospitality. It was against Madame Fleuret’s principles to receive boarders from outside; she was opposed to transients of any kind. Her established clients, she explained, did not like to be brought in contact with strangers, people you couldn’t tell anything about, and who might turn out to be “foreigners”, or even “peculiar”. But Halo’s persuasiveness70, and the good looks and good humour of the young couple, had broken down her rule, and for a week Vance and Halo had been suffered to lunch and dine at the pension. It was then that Vance had laid in his store of impressions; had listened, fascinated, to the literary judgments71 of the invalid Miss Plummet on “The First Violin” and “Ships that Pass in the Night” (her favourite works of fiction); had gazed spell-bound on the mushroom hats and jet-beaded mantle72 of old Lady Dayes–Dawes, the baronet’s widow, who knew more knitting and crochet73 stitches than any one else at Oubli, and whose first cousin was a Colonial Governor; had hung delighted on the conversation of the Honourable74 Ginevra Hipsley, who kept white mice on whose sensibilities she experimented by means of folk-songs accompanied by the accordion75, and about whom she wrote emotional letters to “Nature” and the “Spectator”; had followed the Reverend Mr. Dorman’s discreet76 attempts to ascertain77 if “Mr. and Mrs. Weston” belonged to the American branch of the Church of England (as their distinguished78 appearance made him hope) and would therefore be disposed to assist in the maintenance of the Bougainvillea-draped chapel in which he officiated, or whether they were members of one of the innumerable sects79 which so deplorably diversify80 the religious life of the States; and had gathered various items of information about the melancholy Churley family and the other British residents of Oubli-sur-Mer.
It was a little world seemingly given over to illness, poverty and middle-age; and the contrast between the faded faces and vanished hopes of its inhabitants and the boisterous81 setting of sun and gale that framed their declining days would have been depressing if Vance had not felt in them a deep-down solidarity82 of tastes and principles. It was enough that they all read the “Times”, and did not like vegetables cooked in the French way; in the rootless drifting world into which Vance had been born he had never (even among Halo’s friends and family) come across such a solid coral~isle of convictions. This little handful of people, elderly, disappointed and poor, forced by bad health or lack of means to live away from their country, drifting from pension to pension, or from one hired villa83 to another, with interests limited to the frugal84 and the trivial, yet managed by sheer community of sentiment to fit into the pattern of something big and immemorial. The sense of the past awakened85 in Vance by his first sight of the Willows86, that queer old house on the Hudson which embodied87 a past so recent, now stirred in him more deeply at the sight of these detached and drifting fragments of so great a whole. It was odd, he thought, looking back: he hadn’t felt Chartres, yet he felt Miss Plummet and Colonel Churley. Perhaps even Halo wouldn’t have understood how it was that, seen from Euphoria, these human monuments seemed the more venerable.
Vance stood on the balcony and lit a cigarette. Behind him was his writing-table, scattered88 with the loose sheets of “Colossus”; before him, the joyous89 temptation of sun and sea. In the next room he heard the diligent90 click of Halo’s Remington, re-copying the third version of Chapter VII. The work wasn’t going as well as he had hoped; he thought enviously91 of the pace at which he had reeled off “The Puritan in Spain” the previous winter at Cadiz. What he was at now, of course, was a different matter; no glib92 tale, but a sort of compendium93 of all that life had given him — and received from him. He was attempting to transcribe94 the sum total of his experience, to do a human soul, his soul, in the round. At times, when his inspiration flagged, he told himself ironically that it looked as though he hadn’t had enough experience to fill many pages. Yet there were days when a grain of mustard-seed, like an Indian conjuror’s tree, would suddenly shoot up and scale the sky. He stood on the balcony, thinking restlessly of the sound of the wind in the pines along the shore, of the smell of lavender and sage61 on the hot slopes behind the town, and watching for the figure of Colonel Churley, gloomily silhouetted95 against the dazzling bay. If Miss Plummet were a moment late Vance could always put his watch right by Colonel Churley.
“Ready for the next!” Halo called.
“Yes. All right. . .” Ah, there the Colonel was, dragging his stick along behind him, punctual and desolate96 as a winter night. In another moment he would probably meet Mr. Dorman, and Vance would watch their two faces, one blankly melancholy, the other a~twitter with animation97. But today Mr. Dorman was not visible, and Colonel Churley strode on, aiming for the hills. Vance shivered and turned indoors.
“All right. Only I’m afraid there’s nothing more coming,” he said.
As Halo looked up he saw a shade of disappointment cross her face and transform itself into a smile. “Another holiday?”
“Looks like it. I believe it’s the sea,” he said with a shrug98.
“Well, you’d better go out and spend the rest of the day with it.”
He stood in the doorway99, irresolute100. “Come along?”
“I don’t believe I will. I want to go over the first chapters again.”
“What a life for you!”
She laughed. “Do I look as if I minded?”
“No. That’s what’s so trying about you. . .”
They laughed together, and Vance swung joyously101 down the stairs.
The little house was full of a friendly shabby gaiety. Halo always managed to give that air to their improvised102 habitations. On the ground floor, where the kitchen and dining-room were, she had hidden the dingy103 papering of the hall under a gay striped cotton, and had herself repainted and cushioned the tumbledown chairs in the verandah. Vance’s craving104 for order and harmony was always subtly gratified by this exercise of her skill. He recalled with a shudder105 the chronic106 disorder107 in which he had struggled through the weary years of his marriage, the untidy lair108 into which poor Laura Lou converted every room she lived in, the litter of unmended garments, half-empty medicine bottles and leaking hot-water bags that accumulated about her as lavender-scented linen109, fresh window~curtains, flowers and books did about Halo — poor Laura Lou, who could never touch a fire without making it smoke, while Halo’s clever hands could coax110 a flame from the sulkiest log.
Vance, thinking of all this, and of the golden freedom awaiting him outside, recalled another day as bright and beckoning111, when he had fled from the squalid Westchester bungalow112, and the monotony of Laura Lou’s companionship, to wander in the woods and dream of a book he was never to write. He thought of the incredible change in his fortunes since then, of the love and understanding and success which had come to him together, and wondered why mercies of which he was so exquisitely114 aware had never yet stifled116 his old aching interrogation of life. He was glad to be at Oubli-sur-Mer, away from the incessant117 stimulus118 of Paris, in the country quiet which seemed a necessity to his creative mood. The queer little community, so self-contained and shut off from his own agitated119 world, gave him the sense of aloofness120 which his spirit needed; yet somehow — as so often before — the fulness of the opportunity seemed to oppress him, his work lagged under the very lack of obstacles.
He picked up his stick and cap, and was just emerging from the verandah when a young man who walked with a slight limp pushed open the garden gate. The visitor, a stranger to Vance, came toward him with an air of rather jaunty121 self-confidence. He had a narrow dusky face, with an unexpected crop of reddish hair streaked122 with amber123 tumbling over a broad forehead, and dark eyes with the look of piercing wistfulness that sometimes betrays spinal124 infirmity. A brilliant crimson125 tie, and a loudly patterned, but faded pull-over above a pair of baggy126 flannel127 trousers, completed his studied make~up.
“Mr. Weston? Would you give me an interview? I don’t mean for a newspaper,” the young man began abruptly128, in a cultivated but slightly strident voice. “I’ve been asked to do an article for the ‘Windmill’, and I’d be awfully129 glad if you’d let me talk with you for a few minutes.”
Vance stood still in the path considering his visitor. He was not particularly interested in the idea of being interviewed or reviewed. From the outset of his literary career he had been unusually indifferent to the notoriety attained130 by personal intervention131. He remembered the shock he had received, when he was reviewing for Lewis Tarrant on the “New Hour”, on discovering the insatiable greed for publicity132 of such successful novelists as Gratz Blemer. It was not that Vance was indifferent to success, but because its achievement seemed to him so entirely133 independent of self-advertising. Halo abounded134 in this view, partly (he suspected) from disgust at what she had seen of the inner workings of the “New Hour”, partly from an inborn135 disdain136 of any sort of cheap popularity. She wanted him to be the greatest novelist who had ever lived, and was still (Vance felt sure) gloriously certain of his eventually reaching that pinnacle137; but she cared not a rush for the fame cooked up in editorial kitchens. As for Vance, though he had to the full the artist’s quivering sensitiveness to praise, and anguished138 shrinking from adverse139 criticism, he felt neither praise or blame unless it implied recognition of what he had been striving for. Random140 approbation141 had never, even in the early days, perceptibly raised his pulse; and his first taste of popularity had only made him more fastidious.
But the young man in the faded pull-over interested him for other reasons. That eager dark face, with its strange shock of bright hair tossed back from a too prominent forehead, was full of intellectual excitement.
“I hate interviews — don’t see any sense in them,” Vance began, but in a tone so friendly that his visitor rejoined with a laugh: “Oh, you’re thinking of the heart-to-heart kind, probably. With a snap~shot of yourself looking at the first crocus in your garden; or smoking a pipe, with your arm round a Great Dane.”
“Well . . .” Vance acknowledged. “Transposed into ‘Windmill’ terms. . .”
“Yes; I know. But that’s not my line. Honest to God, it isn’t, as you say in the States.” The young man looked at Vance with a whimsical smile. “I wish it were — for my bank-account. The human touch is worth its weight in gold, and outlives all the fashions. But all I care about is ideas; or else the world in which they are completely non-existent. And I prefer the latter, only it’s too expensive for me.” He paused, and then added: “My name’s Christopher Churley, by the way.”
“Oh — you live up the hill, then?”
“Well, if you call it living. I say, can I have my talk now? The ‘Windmill’ people are rather in a hurry. But of course if it’s not convenient — ”
Vance was looking at him with compassionate142 interest. This was the sombre Colonel’s son. The sombreness was there — Vance perceived it instantly, under a surface play of chaff143 and self-derision that was sadder than the father’s open gloom; but the youth’s look of flaming intelligence had no counterpart in the Colonel’s heavy stare.
“I was going for a tramp. But if you’d rather come in now and have a talk — ”
“Thanks a lot. You’ll let me, then?” Chris Churley’s eyes were illuminated144. “But I don’t mind walking, you know; not if I can take it easy, on account of my limp; and if you’ll let me take the landscape for granted.”
“Oh, you can, can you? Take all this for granted?” Vance interrupted.
“Yes. Rather a pity, I suppose. I daresay there are lots of poor devils looking at cats on a tin roof through a fog who’d expand in this Virgilian setting. But I can’t. Give me the tin roof and the cats, if they’re in a metropolis145. Though what I really prefer is artifice146 and luxury. I revel147 in a beautiful landscape transformed by the very rich; not just the raw material, like this. . .” He waved a contemptuous hand toward the bright sea and fretted148 coast~line. “What I care about, you see, is the landscape of the mind; the intellectual Alps. Or else cocottes and oil kings round a baccarat table.”
“Well, you’ve a wide range,” said Vance, somewhat distressingly149 reminded of the stale paradoxes150 dear to Rebecca Stram’s familiars and the satellites of Lorry’s studio.
Young Churley flushed up, and Vance saw his eyes darken as if in physical pain. “I suppose this sort of talk bores you. I daresay you’ve had everything. . .”
“Oh, have I? Look here,” said Vance good-naturedly, “come upstairs, and we’ll talk shop as much as you like, since Oubli doesn’t provide the other alternatives.” He pulled out his cigarettes, and offered them to young Churley. Decidedly the sight of the Colonel had not prepared him for the Colonel’s son.
Chapter 17
On the threshold of the low-ceilinged study, with its rough yellow~washed walls, Chris Churley stopped to glance curiously151 about at the books and papers; the blossoming almond-branch in a big jar, the old brown Bokhara with the help of which Halo had contrived152 a divan153 piled with brown cushions. “I say — this is jolly!”
“Not much luxury,” Vance grinned, always gratified at the admiration154 provoked by Halo’s upholstery.
The other shrugged155. “I wish you could see Les Mimosas — no, I don’t,” he corrected himself hastily; and immediately drew from his pocket a letter which he handed to Vance. It was in a girl’s hand, dated from London, under the letter-head: “Zélide Spring, Literary Agent and Adviser156.” It ran: “Darling Chris, the ‘Windmill’ people have just rung up to say they hear Vance Weston, who wrote ‘The Puritan in Spain,’ is at Oubli, and they’d like an article about him if you can get it done in time for the next number. Some one has failed them, and they want to shove this in at once. Of course that means doing it in a rush. Now, Chris, please, you simply MUST, or I’ll never speak to you again — ” and then: “P.S. You must see him, of course, and get him to talk to you about his books. How frightfully exciting for you! Get me an autograph, darling.”
Vance laughed as he returned the letter. “This means, I suppose, that you don’t like doing things in a rush.”
“Do YOU?” said young Churley, looking enviously at the divan. “The very word makes me want to go and stretch out over there.”
“Well, do,” said Vance, tossing a fresh packet of cigarettes in the direction of the divan.
“Honestly? You don’t mind? Sprawling158 here while you’re sitting in a chair makes me feel like a vamp in a talkie. But then that’s the way I really like to feel — luxurious159 and vicious,” Churley confessed, shaking up the cushions before he plunged160 his glowing head into them. “Match? Oh, thanks! Now, then — I suppose I ought to begin by asking you about ‘The Puritan in Spain’.”
“No, don’t,” said Vance, lighting161 a cigarette, and dropping into the chair by his writing-table. He was beginning to be interested and stirred by this vivid youth, who set his ideas tumbling about excitedly, as Savignac had in the early days in Paris. Sometimes he felt that he needed a sort of padded cell of isolation162 to work in, and then again, when a beam of understanding flashed through his shuttered solitude163, a million sparks of stimulation164 rushed in with it.
“Oh, but I’ve got to! You said I might,” Churley protested.
“I didn’t say I’d answer. Not about ‘The Puritan’, anyhow.”
Young Churley, with a glance of curiosity, raised himself on his elbow. “No? Why?”
“Because I hate it,” said Vance carelessly.
“Oh, good! I mean — well, hang it, now I’ve seen you, I begin to wonder . . .”
“Why I did it? Yes . . . If I only knew —! What’s that thing in Tennyson, about ‘little flower in the crannied wall’, if I knew what put you there, I’d know all there is to know; or something of that sort. Well, I was in Spain, and the subject caught me. What I call one of the siren-subjects . . . I never stir now without cotton in my ears.”
Churley laughed. “Righto! Glad I don’t have to ask you solemn questions about the book. I’m in rather a difficulty about you American novelists. Your opportunity’s so immense, and . . . well, you always seem to write either about princesses in Tuscan villas165, or about gaunt young men with a ten-word vocabulary who spend their lives sweating and hauling wood. Haven’t you got any subject between the two? There’s really nothing as limited as the primitive166 passions — except perhaps those of the princesses. I believe the novelist’s richest stuff is in the middle class, because it lies where its name says, exactly in the middle, and reaches out so excitingly and unexpectedly in both directions. But I suppose you haven’t a middle class in America, though you do sometimes have princesses — ”
“I rather think we’ve got a middle class too. But no one wants to admit belonging to it, because we all do. It’s not so picturesque167 — ”
“Just so! There’s its immense plastic advantage. Absolute safety from picturesqueness168 — you don’t even have to be on your guard against it. Why don’t you write a novel about the middle class, and call it ‘Meridian’?” cried young Churley, with an inspired wave of his hand, which closed on the packet of cigarettes.
“Because I’m writing one about all mankind called: ‘Colossus’.”
“You’re not? I say . . . where have those matches gone? Thanks. But that IS a subject! Does it bore you to talk about your things while they’re on the stocks?”
“N— no,” said Vance, hesitatingly. All at once he felt the liberating169 thrill of the question. Of course it wouldn’t bore him to talk about “Colossus” to anybody with those eager eyes and that lightning up-take. Here was a fellow with whom you could argue and theorize by the hour, and so develop the muscles of your ideas. It was queer he should ever have imagined he could grind out a big book in a smiling desert like Oubli-sur-Mer. But the desert animated170 by one responsive intelligence became exactly what his mood required. And he began to talk. . .
Churley listened avidly171, his head thrown back, his eyes fixed, through the curl of incessant cigarettes, on the luminous glitter beyond the windows. As Vance talked on he was aware, in his listener, of a curious mental immaturity172 combined with flashes of precocious173 insight. Compared with his friend Savignac, in whose disciplined intelligence there were so few gaps and irregularities, this youth’s impatient brain was as uncertain as the sea; but it had the sea’s bright sallies and sudden irresistible174 onslaughts. Arguing with him about “Colossus” reminded Vance of the hour he had spent in the unknown church during a thunderstorm, when the obscurity was torn by flashes that never lasted long enough for him to do more than guess at what they lit up.
Chris Churley was probably not more than three or four years younger than himself; yet a world seemed to divide them. Churley still lived on the popular catchwords of which Vance had already wearied; yet he appeared to have discarded many of the ideas which were the very substance of Vance’s mind.
They talked on and on, till the radiance faded into dusk and Halo came with a lamp and the suggestion of tea or cocktails175. Churley, in her presence, was as easy and natural as with Vance. “I’ve come to make an article out of Mr. Weston for the ‘Windmill’,” he explained, smiling; “it’s a tremendous chance for me,” and Vance saw that Halo felt, as he had, the happy simplicity176 of the youth’s manner. In the last few months he had grown more observant of Halo’s changes of expression, and quicker in divining her response to the persons they were thrown with. She was going to like Chris Churley, Vance thought, listening to her friendly questions, and to their easy interchange of talk. The mere177 fact that the newcomer was going to write an article about Vance in a review of such standing113 as the “Windmill” was a sufficient recommendation to Halo; but, apart from that, Vance saw that she and Churley talked the same language, and would always be at ease with each other.
“I was wondering whether you were going to take to that chap or not,” he said, when Churley, roused to the lateness of the hour, had sprung up exclaiming that he must hurry home and get to work. “I’ll bring the article in a couple of days if I may,” he called back from the threshold. “It’s my chance, you know; if this thing suits them I hope they’ll take me on regularly; and it’s just conceivable that in time that might mean: London!” He pronounced the word with a mystical stress that lit up his whole face.
“Of course I take to him,” Halo responded to Vance’s question. “Poor boy! What life at Les Mimosas must be! I could see how he shied away from questions, about his family . . . I suppose they’re miserably178 poor, and gloomy and ill. We must have him here as much as possible; you must do all you can to help him with the article.”
Young Churley reappeared punctually in two days; but he did not bring the article. It had taken, he explained, more thinking over than he had foreseen. And, if Weston didn’t mind, there were just a few more questions he’d like to put.
This was the prelude179 to another long and exhilarating talk. The actual questions were not, as far as Vance could recall, ever put, either then or later; but the big psychological panorama180 which he was attempting in “Colossus” was the point of departure for an absorbing discussion of the novelist’s opportunities and limitations. Young Churley seemed to have read everything, and thought about most things, without ever reaching any intellectual conclusions; the elasticity181 of his judgments was as startling to Vance as his uncanny quickness of apprehension182. Good talk was doubtless a rare luxury to him, and he was evidently determined183 to make the most of his opportunity. Day after day he returned to the pink villa, at first apologetically, soon as a matter of course; and while he lolled on the brown divan, or lay outstretched on the sand of one of the rocky coves184 along the bay, every allusion185 that Vance made, every point on which he touched, started a new hare for young Churley’s joyful186 pursuit. At one moment he seemed full of interest in Vance’s idea of celebrating the splendour and misery187 of the average man, and produced a great Pascalian aphorism188 for his title-page; but the next he was declaring that the only two things in the world he really loathed189 were Oubli-sur-Mer and the Categorical Imperative190, and urging Vance to write a novel about a wealthy, healthy and perfectly191 happy young man who murders his best friend simply to show he is above middle-class prejudices.
Halo, as her way was with Vance’s friends, came and went about her daily occupations, sometimes joining the two on their picnics, sometimes finding a pretext192 for remaining at home. Young Churley continued to amuse and stimulate193 her, and she often urged him to come to dine, and sat late with the young men over the fire of olive-wood; but Vance noticed that she seemed increasingly anxious, as the months passed, to make him feel that he was free to come and go without consulting her, or seeking her company. Even where his work was concerned she had relaxed her jealous vigilance. She no longer asked how the book was getting on, or playfully clamoured for fresh copy; she waited till he brought her his manuscript, betraying neither impatience194 nor disappointment if the intervals195 of waiting were protracted. At times her exquisite115 detachment almost made it seem as if she were quietly preparing for a friendly parting; once or twice, with a start of fear, he wondered if, as he had once imagined, her husband were not trying to persuade her to come back; but whenever she and Vance were alone together she was so entirely her old self, so simply and naturally the friend and lover of always, that the possibility became inconceivable.
Meanwhile the days passed, and no more was said of Churley’s article. Vance himself, in the rapid growth of his new friendship, had already lost sight of its first occasion; it was Halo who, a fortnight or so after the youth’s first appearance, said one night, as he took leave: “Aren’t we to be allowed to see the article, after all?”
“The article — the article?” Churley’s brilliant eyes met hers in genuine perplexity. “Oh, that ‘Windmill’ thing? Glad you reminded me! It ought to have been done long ago, oughtn’t it?” he added, in a tone of disarming196 confidence.
“Well, you told us it might be a chance — an opening; that if you could secure a regular job with the ‘Windmill’ you might be able to get away.”
“Oh — if I could! If I only could! You’re perfectly right; I DID say so. I was all on fire to do the article. . .” He hesitated, wrinkling his brows, his eyes still wistfully on hers. “But the fact is — I wonder if you’ll understand? — I’m in a frightful157 dilemma197. I can’t write here; and I can’t make enough money to get away unless I do write. Can you suggest a way out, I wonder?”
Halo laughed. “The only one, I should say, is that you should want to get away badly enough to force yourself to write, whether you want to or not.”
His eyes widened. “Oh, you really think one can force one’s self to write? That’s interesting. Do you think so too, Weston?” he asked, turning toward Vance a smile of elfin malice198.
Vance reddened. Halo’s answer seemed to him inconceivably stupid. If only outsiders wouldn’t give advice to fellows who were trying to do things! But probably you could never cure a woman of that. All his sympathy, at the moment, was with Churley. . .
“That remark of Halo’s was meant for me,” he said, laughing. “But I suppose if you were to shut yourself up and set your teeth . . . that is, if you still feel you want to do the article,” he added, remembering that Churley might affect inertia199 as a pretext for dropping a subject he was tired of. The other seemed to guess his idea.
“Want to do it? I’ve got it all blazing away in my head at this very minute! I never wanted to do a thing more. But when I look out at this empty grimacing200 sea . . . or think of Miss Pamela Plummet reading ‘Ships That Pass In The Night’ for the hundredth time, or Mrs. Dorman picking up knitting stitches for Lady Dayes~Dawes — for heaven’s sake, Weston, how can a fellow do anything in this place but lie on his back and curse his God?” He looked from one to the other with a comic plaintiveness201. “But there; you think me a poor thing, both of you. And so I am — pitiable. Only, hang it all, even the worm can turn — can turn out an article! And so can I. You’ll see. Now that I think of it, I had a desperate wire from Zélide this morning. The ‘Windmill’ people say they MUST have something about you, and they offer to give me till the end of this week if I’ll produce it. When IS the end of this week? I had an idea today was already the beginning of next . . . but that’s just a dastardly pretext for not doing the article . . . By Jove, I’ll go home and start tonight — and finish it too! Or at least, I’ll do it this morning, because it’s already morning. I say, Weston, can I drop in with it tomorrow after dinner?”
Churley did not drop in that evening, nor for the two days following. “He’s really buckled202 down to it,” Halo hopefully prophesied203; but on the third day he reappeared, and said he had started writing the article and then torn up the beastly thing because it read so precisely like what every other literary critic had already said about every other novelist. “If only there was a new language perhaps we’d have new thoughts; if there was a new alphabet, even! When I try to harness together those poor broken~winded spavined twenty-six letters, and think of the millions and millions of ways they’ve already been combined into platitudes204, my courage fails me, and I haven’t the heart to thrash them onto their shaky old legs again. Why on earth don’t you inventive fellows begin by inventing a new language?”
Vance shrugged. “I guess there’d be people turning out platitudes in it the very first week.”
“Oh, I know what comes next. You’re going to tell me that all the big geniuses have managed to express themselves in new ways with the old material. But, after all, history does show that every now and then culture has reached a dead level of stagnation205, and then . . .”
“Well, go home now, and write that down!” Vance laughingly proposed; but Churley laughed too, and said he wasn’t in the mood for writing, and if they were going on a picnic, as Mrs. Weston had suggested, was there any objection to his going with them?
Late that night Vance, as he often did at that hour, sat on his balcony looking out over the darkening waters. He liked these southern nights without a moon, when the winter constellations206 ruled in a dark blue heaven and rained their strong radiance on the sea. His inspiration, which had begun to flag before Chris Churley’s appearance, now flowed with a strong regular beat. The poor boy’s talk had done for Vance what Vance’s society had failed to do for him. Vance knew that his creative faculty207 had grown strong enough to draw stimulus from contradiction instead of being disturbed by it. To the purely208 analytical209 intelligence such questions as their talks had raised might be unsettling and sterilizing210; but, as always in the full tide of invention, he felt himself possessed211 by a brooding spirit of understanding, some mystic reassurance212 which sea and sky and the life of men transmitted from sources deeper than the reason. He had never been able to formulate213 it, but he had caught, in the pages of all the great creative writers, hints of that mysterious subjection and communion, impossible to define, but clear to the initiated214 as the sign exchanged between members of some secret brotherhood215. Ah, they were the happy people — the only happy people, perhaps — these through whom the human turmoil216 swept not to ravage217 but to fertilize218. He leaned on the balcony, looking out at the sea, and pondered on his task, and blessed it.
收听单词发音 |
1
azure
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| adj.天蓝色的，蔚蓝色的 | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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mermaids
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| n.（传说中的）美人鱼( mermaid的名词复数 ) | |
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dodge
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| v.闪开，躲开，避开；n.妙计，诡计 | |
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guardian
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| n.监护人；守卫者，保护者 | |
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promontories
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| n.岬，隆起，海角( promontory的名词复数 ) | |
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flails
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| v.鞭打( flail的第三人称单数 )；用连枷脱粒；（臂或腿）无法控制地乱动；扫雷坦克 | |
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8
luminous
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| adj.发光的，发亮的；光明的；明白易懂的；有启发的 | |
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placid
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| adj.安静的，平和的 | |
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perpendicular
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| adj.垂直的，直立的；n.垂直线，垂直的位置 | |
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eldest
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| adj.最年长的，最年老的 | |
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plummet
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| vi.(价格、水平等)骤然下跌；n.铅坠；重压物 | |
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13
chapel
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| n.小教堂，殡仪馆 | |
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anemones
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| n.银莲花( anemone的名词复数 )；海葵 | |
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maiden
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| n.少女，处女；adj.未婚的，纯洁的，无经验的 | |
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continental
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| adj.大陆的，大陆性的，欧洲大陆的 | |
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landladies
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| n.女房东，女店主，女地主( landlady的名词复数 ) | |
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precisely
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| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
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19
Mediterranean
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| adj.地中海的；地中海沿岸的 | |
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crammed
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| adj.塞满的，挤满的；大口地吃；快速贪婪地吃v.把…塞满；填入；临时抱佛脚( cram的过去式) | |
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21
eastward
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| adv.向东；adj.向东的；n.东方，东部 | |
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stranded
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| a.搁浅的，进退两难的 | |
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dent
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| n.凹痕，凹坑；初步进展 | |
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hemmed
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| 缝…的褶边( hem的过去式和过去分词 )； 包围 | |
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rusty
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| adj.生锈的；锈色的；荒废了的 | |
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colonists
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| n.殖民地开拓者，移民，殖民地居民( colonist的名词复数 ) | |
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annually
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| adv.一年一次，每年 | |
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dwindled
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| v.逐渐变少或变小( dwindle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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vertical
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| adj.垂直的，顶点的，纵向的；n.垂直物，垂直的位置 | |
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30
ambling
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| v.（马）缓行( amble的现在分词 )；从容地走，漫步 | |
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31
tightened
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| 收紧( tighten的过去式和过去分词 )； （使）变紧； （使）绷紧； 加紧 | |
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dual
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| adj.双的；二重的，二元的 | |
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symbolized
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| v.象征，作为…的象征( symbolize的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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34
distress
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| n.苦恼，痛苦，不舒适；不幸；vt.使悲痛 | |
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landlady
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| n.女房东，女地主 | |
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privately
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| adv.以私人的身份，悄悄地，私下地 | |
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heartily
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| adv.衷心地，诚恳地，十分，很 | |
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concurred
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| 同意（concur的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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bishop
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| n.主教，（国际象棋）象 | |
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thereby
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| adv.因此，从而 | |
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disastrous
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| adj.灾难性的，造成灾害的；极坏的，很糟的 | |
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protracted
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| adj.拖延的；延长的v.拖延“protract”的过去式和过去分词 | |
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43
gale
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| n.大风，强风，一阵闹声（尤指笑声等） | |
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stereotyped
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| adj.(指形象、思想、人物等)模式化的 | |
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45
hissed
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| 发嘶嘶声( hiss的过去式和过去分词 )； 发嘘声表示反对 | |
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46
foliage
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| n.叶子，树叶，簇叶 | |
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afterward
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| adv.后来；以后 | |
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confidentially
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| ad.秘密地，悄悄地 | |
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49
retired
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| adj.隐退的，退休的，退役的 | |
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50
cavalry
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| n.骑兵；轻装甲部队 | |
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51
melancholy
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| n.忧郁，愁思；adj.令人感伤（沮丧）的，忧郁的 | |
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52
drooping
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| adj. 下垂的，无力的 动词droop的现在分词 | |
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53
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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54
steadily
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| adv.稳定地；不变地；持续地 | |
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55
accosted
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| v.走过去跟…讲话( accost的过去式和过去分词 )；跟…搭讪；（乞丐等）上前向…乞讨；（妓女等）勾搭 | |
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56
rubicund
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| adj.(脸色)红润的 | |
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57
rheumatism
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| n.风湿病 | |
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58
solitary
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| adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士 | |
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59
rambles
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| （无目的地）漫游( ramble的第三人称单数 )； （喻）漫谈； 扯淡； 长篇大论 | |
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60
embarrassment
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| n.尴尬；使人为难的人(事物)；障碍；窘迫 | |
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61
sage
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| n.圣人，哲人；adj.贤明的，明智的 | |
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62
invalid
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| n.病人，伤残人；adj.有病的，伤残的；无效的 | |
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dreary
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| adj.令人沮丧的，沉闷的，单调乏味的 | |
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64
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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65
bosom
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| n.胸，胸部；胸怀；内心；adj.亲密的 | |
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obsolete
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| adj.已废弃的，过时的 | |
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evacuated
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| 撤退者的 | |
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68
precipitate
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| adj.突如其来的；vt.使突然发生；n.沉淀物 | |
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69
quay
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| n.码头，靠岸处 | |
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70
persuasiveness
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| 说服力 | |
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71
judgments
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| 判断( judgment的名词复数 )； 鉴定； 评价； 审判 | |
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72
mantle
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| n.斗篷，覆罩之物，罩子；v.罩住，覆盖，脸红 | |
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73
crochet
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| n.钩针织物；v.用钩针编制 | |
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74
honourable
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| adj.可敬的；荣誉的，光荣的 | |
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75
accordion
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| n.手风琴；adj.可折叠的 | |
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76
discreet
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| adj.(言行)谨慎的；慎重的；有判断力的 | |
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77
ascertain
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| vt.发现，确定，查明，弄清 | |
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78
distinguished
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| adj.卓越的，杰出的，著名的 | |
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sects
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| n.宗派，教派( sect的名词复数 ) | |
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80
diversify
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| v.（使）不同，（使）变得多样化 | |
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81
boisterous
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| adj.喧闹的，欢闹的 | |
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82
solidarity
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| n.团结；休戚相关 | |
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83
villa
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| n.别墅，城郊小屋 | |
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84
frugal
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| adj.节俭的，节约的，少量的，微量的 | |
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85
awakened
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| v.（使）醒( awaken的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）觉醒；弄醒；（使）意识到 | |
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willows
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| n.柳树( willow的名词复数 )；柳木 | |
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embodied
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| v.表现( embody的过去式和过去分词 )；象征；包括；包含 | |
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88
scattered
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| adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的 | |
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joyous
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| adj.充满快乐的；令人高兴的 | |
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diligent
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| adj.勤勉的，勤奋的 | |
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91
enviously
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| adv.满怀嫉妒地 | |
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92
glib
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| adj.圆滑的，油嘴滑舌的 | |
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compendium
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| n.简要，概略 | |
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94
transcribe
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| v.抄写，誉写；改编(乐曲)；复制，转录 | |
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95
silhouetted
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| 显出轮廓的，显示影像的 | |
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96
desolate
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| adj.荒凉的，荒芜的；孤独的，凄凉的；v.使荒芜，使孤寂 | |
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97
animation
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| n.活泼，兴奋，卡通片／动画片的制作 | |
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98
shrug
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| v.耸肩(表示怀疑、冷漠、不知等) | |
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99
doorway
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| n.门口，(喻)入门；门路，途径 | |
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100
irresolute
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| adj.无决断的，优柔寡断的，踌躇不定的 | |
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101
joyously
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| ad.快乐地, 高兴地 | |
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102
improvised
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| a.即席而作的,即兴的 | |
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103
dingy
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| adj.昏暗的，肮脏的 | |
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104
craving
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| n.渴望,热望 | |
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105
shudder
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| v.战粟，震动，剧烈地摇晃；n.战粟，抖动 | |
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106
chronic
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| adj.(疾病)长期未愈的，慢性的；极坏的 | |
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107
disorder
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| n.紊乱，混乱；骚动，骚乱；疾病，失调 | |
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108
lair
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| n.野兽的巢穴；躲藏处 | |
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109
linen
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| n.亚麻布，亚麻线，亚麻制品；adj.亚麻布制的，亚麻的 | |
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110
coax
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| v.哄诱，劝诱，用诱哄得到，诱取 | |
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111
beckoning
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| adj.引诱人的，令人心动的v.（用头或手的动作）示意，召唤( beckon的现在分词 ) | |
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112
bungalow
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| n.平房，周围有阳台的木造小平房 | |
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113
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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114
exquisitely
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| adv.精致地；强烈地；剧烈地；异常地 | |
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115
exquisite
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| adj.精美的；敏锐的；剧烈的，感觉强烈的 | |
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116
stifled
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| （使）窒息， （使）窒闷( stifle的过去式和过去分词 )； 镇压，遏制； 堵 | |
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117
incessant
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| adj.不停的，连续的 | |
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118
stimulus
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| n.刺激，刺激物，促进因素，引起兴奋的事物 | |
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119
agitated
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| adj.被鼓动的，不安的 | |
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120
aloofness
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| 超然态度 | |
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121
jaunty
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| adj．愉快的，满足的；adv.心满意足地，洋洋得意地；n.心满意足；洋洋得意 | |
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122
streaked
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| adj.有条斑纹的，不安的v.快速移动( streak的过去式和过去分词 )；使布满条纹 | |
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123
amber
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| n.琥珀；琥珀色；adj.琥珀制的 | |
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124
spinal
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| adj.针的，尖刺的，尖刺状突起的；adj.脊骨的，脊髓的 | |
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125
crimson
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| n./adj.深(绯)红色(的)；vi.脸变绯红色 | |
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126
baggy
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| adj.膨胀如袋的，宽松下垂的 | |
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127
flannel
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| n.法兰绒；法兰绒衣服 | |
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128
abruptly
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| adv.突然地，出其不意地 | |
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129
awfully
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| adv.可怕地，非常地，极端地 | |
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130
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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131
intervention
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| n.介入，干涉，干预 | |
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132
publicity
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| n.众所周知，闻名；宣传，广告 | |
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133
entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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134
abounded
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| v.大量存在，充满，富于( abound的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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135
inborn
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| adj.天生的，生来的，先天的 | |
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136
disdain
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| n.鄙视，轻视；v.轻视，鄙视，不屑 | |
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137
pinnacle
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| n.尖塔，尖顶，山峰；(喻)顶峰 | |
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138
anguished
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| adj.极其痛苦的v.使极度痛苦(anguish的过去式) | |
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139
adverse
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| adj.不利的；有害的；敌对的，不友好的 | |
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140
random
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| adj.随机的；任意的；n.偶然的(或随便的)行动 | |
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141
approbation
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| n.称赞；认可 | |
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142
compassionate
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| adj.有同情心的，表示同情的 | |
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143
chaff
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| v.取笑，嘲笑；n.谷壳 | |
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144
illuminated
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| adj.被照明的；受启迪的 | |
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145
metropolis
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| n.首府；大城市 | |
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146
artifice
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| n.妙计，高明的手段；狡诈，诡计 | |
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147
revel
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| vi.狂欢作乐，陶醉；n.作乐，狂欢 | |
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148
fretted
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| 焦躁的，附有弦马的，腐蚀的 | |
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149
distressingly
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| adv. 令人苦恼地；悲惨地 | |
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150
paradoxes
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| n.似非而是的隽语，看似矛盾而实际却可能正确的说法( paradox的名词复数 )；用于语言文学中的上述隽语；有矛盾特点的人[事物，情况] | |
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151
curiously
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| adv.有求知欲地；好问地；奇特地 | |
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152
contrived
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| adj.不自然的，做作的；虚构的 | |
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153
divan
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| n.长沙发；（波斯或其他东方诗人的）诗集 | |
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154
admiration
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| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
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155
shrugged
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| vt.耸肩（shrug的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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156
adviser
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| n.劝告者，顾问 | |
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157
frightful
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| adj.可怕的；讨厌的 | |
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158
sprawling
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| adj.蔓生的，不规则地伸展的v.伸开四肢坐[躺]( sprawl的现在分词 )；蔓延；杂乱无序地拓展；四肢伸展坐着（或躺着） | |
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159
luxurious
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| adj.精美而昂贵的；豪华的 | |
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160
plunged
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| v.颠簸( plunge的过去式和过去分词 )；暴跌；骤降；突降 | |
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161
lighting
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| n.照明，光线的明暗，舞台灯光 | |
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162
isolation
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| n.隔离，孤立，分解，分离 | |
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163
solitude
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| n. 孤独; 独居,荒僻之地,幽静的地方 | |
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164
stimulation
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| n.刺激，激励，鼓舞 | |
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165
villas
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| 别墅，公馆( villa的名词复数 )； （城郊）住宅 | |
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166
primitive
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| adj.原始的；简单的；n.原(始)人，原始事物 | |
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167
picturesque
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| adj.美丽如画的，（语言）生动的，绘声绘色的 | |
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168
picturesqueness
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169
liberating
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| 解放，释放( liberate的现在分词 ) | |
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170
animated
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| adj.生气勃勃的，活跃的，愉快的 | |
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171
avidly
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| adv.渴望地，热心地 | |
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172
immaturity
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| n.不成熟；未充分成长；未成熟；粗糙 | |
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173
precocious
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| adj.早熟的；较早显出的 | |
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174
irresistible
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| adj.非常诱人的，无法拒绝的，无法抗拒的 | |
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175
cocktails
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| n.鸡尾酒( cocktail的名词复数 )；餐前开胃菜；混合物 | |
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176
simplicity
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| n.简单，简易；朴素；直率，单纯 | |
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177
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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178
miserably
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| adv.痛苦地；悲惨地；糟糕地；极度地 | |
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179
prelude
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| n.序言，前兆，序曲 | |
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180
panorama
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| n.全景，全景画，全景摄影，全景照片[装置] | |
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181
elasticity
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| n.弹性，伸缩力 | |
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182
apprehension
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| n.理解，领悟；逮捕，拘捕；忧虑 | |
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183
determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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184
coves
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| n.小海湾( cove的名词复数 )；家伙 | |
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185
allusion
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| n.暗示，间接提示 | |
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186
joyful
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| adj.欢乐的，令人欢欣的 | |
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187
misery
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| n.痛苦，苦恼，苦难；悲惨的境遇，贫苦 | |
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188
aphorism
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| n.格言，警语 | |
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189
loathed
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| v.憎恨，厌恶( loathe的过去式和过去分词 )；极不喜欢 | |
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190
imperative
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| n.命令，需要；规则；祈使语气；adj.强制的；紧急的 | |
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191
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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192
pretext
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| n.借口，托词 | |
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193
stimulate
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| vt.刺激，使兴奋；激励，使…振奋 | |
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194
impatience
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| n.不耐烦，急躁 | |
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195
intervals
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| n.[军事]间隔( interval的名词复数 )；间隔时间；[数学]区间；（戏剧、电影或音乐会的）幕间休息 | |
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196
disarming
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| adj.消除敌意的，使人消气的v.裁军( disarm的现在分词 )；使息怒 | |
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197
dilemma
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| n.困境，进退两难的局面 | |
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198
malice
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| n.恶意，怨恨，蓄意；[律]预谋 | |
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199
inertia
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| adj.惰性，惯性，懒惰，迟钝 | |
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200
grimacing
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| v.扮鬼相，做鬼脸( grimace的现在分词 ) | |
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201
plaintiveness
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202
buckled
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| a. 有带扣的 | |
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203
prophesied
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| v.预告，预言( prophesy的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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204
platitudes
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| n.平常的话，老生常谈，陈词滥调( platitude的名词复数 )；滥套子 | |
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205
stagnation
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| n. 停滞 | |
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206
constellations
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| n.星座( constellation的名词复数 )；一群杰出人物；一系列（相关的想法、事物）；一群（相关的人） | |
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207
faculty
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| n.才能；学院，系；(学院或系的)全体教学人员 | |
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208
purely
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| adv.纯粹地，完全地 | |
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209
analytical
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| adj.分析的；用分析法的 | |
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210
sterilizing
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| v.消毒( sterilize的现在分词 )；使无菌；使失去生育能力；使绝育 | |
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211
possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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212
reassurance
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| n.使放心，使消除疑虑 | |
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213
formulate
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| v.用公式表示；规划；设计；系统地阐述 | |
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214
initiated
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| n. 创始人 adj. 新加入的 vt. 开始，创始，启蒙，介绍加入 | |
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215
brotherhood
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| n.兄弟般的关系，手中情谊 | |
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216
turmoil
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| n.骚乱，混乱，动乱 | |
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217
ravage
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| vt.使...荒废，破坏...；n.破坏，掠夺，荒废 | |
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218
fertilize
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| v.使受精，施肥于，使肥沃 | |
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