The summer darkness rustled1 with the approach of dawn. At the foot of the lane below the Tracys’ Vance Weston felt the stir as if it were one with the noise in his own temples: a web of sounds too tenuous2 to be defined or isolated3, but something so different from the uniform silence which had enveloped4 the world an hour earlier that every blade of grass and feather of bird now seemed sighing and ruffling5 in the darkness.
Vance had crept unheard out of the sleeping house, and now, in the obscurity of the lane, sat on a stone under a twisted thorn tree and listened for the splutter of the Eaglewood motor. Miss Spear might forget him again, as she had forgotten him (how he liked her for owning it!) the day before; or the car, which she had said was going on one leg, might fall dead lame6, and leave her stranded7 before she could get down the mountain. But he did not really believe that either of these things would happen. There are days which give you, in the very moment of waking, the assurance that they were born for you, are yours to do as you please with; this was one of them for Vance.
He had been, not offended, but hurt and a little bewildered, at Miss Spear’s failure to come to the Willows8 the previous afternoon, after sending him word that if he met her there she would let him spend a long afternoon with the books. She had taken the trouble to ask for Upton at the nursery, where she had called to pick up a basket of plants for her mother, and had instructed him to tell his cousin Vance to be at the Willows punctually at three, and to let her know in case he could not come. It was the tenth day after Vance’s arrival, and that very morning he had made up his mind to go to New York. He was going alone, for Upton could only get away on Sundays; moreover, Vance knew by this time that as a guide his cousin would be of little use. All that Upton seemed to know of the metropolis9 was where the wholesale10 seedmen and nurserymen had their offices; as a means of introducing Vance to the world of journalism11 Laura Lou would have been about as helpful. Vance therefore meant to go alone, not with any hope of arriving within speaking distance of an editor, but to slake12 his curiosity with a sight of the outside of some of the big newspaper offices, and get an impression of the general aspect of the city. He had waited for over a week, partly because of the oppressive heat (his mother was right, it was worse than Chicago) and his own lingering physical weakness, but chiefly because his afternoon in the library at the Willows, and the brief apparition13 there of the girl who might have been old Miss Lorburn’s reincarnation, had thrown him into a sort of prolonged daydream14, which was broken only by intervals15 of frenzied17 composition.
When the summons came from Miss Spear to meet Miss Spear again at the Willows he threw New York to the winds, and lived through the next twenty-four hours in a tremor18 of expectation. Long before three he was unlocking the gate of the deserted19 place and pushing his bicycle through the grass and clover of the drive. The day was cooler — it would have been a good day for New York — and the green air under the willows trembled with a delicious freshness. Vance sat down on the doorstep. From where he sat he could get a glimpse of the gate through the shimmering20 branches, and watch the shadows of the trees wheel slowly across the lawn. The air was rich with the smell of syringas, that smell which is so like the sound of bees on a thundery day. Vance leaned his head back against a pillar of the porch and waited . . . .
He had been sincere in saying to Miss Spear that while he waited he had not been impatient or angry. He had always had a habit of rumination21 unusual at his age, and everything in this new life was so strange, so unreal, that even in its disappointments and denials he found food for his imagination. The spell of Miss Lorburn’s house was stronger now than on his first visit, because in the interval16 he had lived among people, plain unimaginative people, who nevertheless took old houses for granted, took age and permanence for granted, seemed in fact to live with one foot in the grave of the past, like the people pushing back their tombstones in a queer stiff sculpture of the Last Judgment22 that he had seen reproduced in some illustrated23 travel paper. The fact that the Tracys, who never thought of anything but the present, were yet so tacitly imbued24 with the past, so acquiescent25 in its power and its fatality26, that they attached such a ritual significance to phrases like “a very long time ago,” and “it’s always been so,” and “nothing will be changed as long as any of the family are alive,” had completely altered Vance’s perspective, transforming his world from the staring flatness of a movie “close-up” to a many-vistaed universe reaching away on all sides from this empty and silent house. Even the thought of the books inside the house, so close yet inaccessible27, did not long tantalize28 him. It was enough to sit there waiting, listening for the noise of the motor, and in the intervals straining his ear to catch the secret coming and going of the Past behind the barred threshold.
It was only when dusk fell that he roused himself to the fact that Miss Spear had failed him. Then his boyish pride reasserted itself, and for a moment he felt sore and humiliated29. He remembered things Upton had said: “She never stays anywhere more than five minutes. . . . A gentleman friend called for her in his car . . . .” and subsequent allusions30 picked up from Mrs. Tracy, who had been speechless with surprise when she learned that Miss Spear intended to devote an afternoon to showing Vance the books at the Willows. “Well, I never! Anyhow, she’s got the right to — I guess some day the place will be hers,” was one of the things Mrs. Tracy had said; and Laura Lou, breaking her habitual31 silence, had added in her quick fluttering way: “I don’t believe she’ll ever live at Paul’s Landing. She says she means to travel all the time when she’s married . . . .”
All this wove itself into Vance’s own picture of the pale dark~haired young woman who had appeared to him so suddenly, and taken up the verse of “Kubla Khan” in her rich chanting voice. He had assumed her to be some years older than himself, and at nineteen, and to a mind as ignorant of class distinctions as his, such a difference of age put a much greater distance between them than the fact that Miss Spear lived at “the big house” (as the Tracys called Eaglewood), or even that she was to inherit the Willows, or meant to travel all the time when she was married. . . . Vance thought of her as goddesslike and remote, mistress of the keys of knowledge and experience; her notice had flushed him with pride, but it seemed a part of the mysterious unreality of everything in this new world. As he got to his feet and walked back to the gate of the Willows he felt his first pang33 of wounded pride. She had forgotten him; forgotten him because he was too young and insignificant34 to be remembered; because fellows called for her and carried her off in their cars; because she never stayed anywhere more than five minutes . . . .
Ah, how differently he thought of her now! Since her breathless arrival at the Tracy house on the previous evening, her summoning him out to the porch to accuse and excuse herself, the goddess had become woman again, and he was sure that the woman was to be trusted. She still seemed to him a good deal older than himself, but that now gave him a happy sense of ease and freedom, instead of the feverish35 excitement which the advances of a girl of his own age would have occasioned . . . .
As he waited in the darkness the early noises of awakening36 life began to stir. He heard the long eerie37 scream of a train far away; then the rumble38 of a motor truck down the turnpike at the foot of the hill, followed by the jolt39 of a lame farm horse coming in with garden produce; and lastly, close by, the cluck-cluck of the Eaglewood motor — and she was there.
“Vance!” she called gaily40, half under her breath, as though instinctively41 adapting her voice to the whispered sounds of the hour. He had his hand on the door of the car, and in a moment was sitting at her side. “Now if she’ll only start!” the girl sighed. The car kicked and jibbed and stood stock still, as it had the evening before; then it was off with a rush, as if aware of the challenge to its powers, and amused at so unusual an adventure.
Vance was too full of happy emotion to speak. When Miss Spear said: “Did you think I was going to forget you again?” he merely answered: “No,” and she laughed, as if the simplicity43 of the answer pleased her, and then fell silent too.
When they started up the wooded road to the mountain there still lingered so much of night under the branches that she had to turn on the headlights, and the white stretch of illumination on each side of the motor was filled with layer upon layer of delicately drawn44 motionless leaves, between which the ruts of the road seemed to Vance to rise up and meet them as they climbed. All these details burnt themselves into his brain with a curious precision, as if he had been crawling at a snail’s pace through an eternity45 of overarching foliage46, while at the same time the wheezy car seemed to be whirling him breathlessly to unknown distances; so that when the headlights painted the sudden picture of two gateposts of gray stone flanking a drive he was startled to hear Miss Spear say: “There’s Eaglewood,” for he thought they must long since have reached the ridge47 of the mountain above it.
They still mounted; the air was growing cooler; at last it was almost cold. The headlights paled gradually in the imperceptible growth of dawn, and when Miss Spear remembered to turn them out the road was scarcely less distinct, though everything appeared farther away and softer to the eye. At last the motor came out of the woodland, high up on a stretch of rough country road between fields. The sky arched overhead dim and pallid48, with here and there a half-drowned star like a petal49 in gray water. They passed once more under trees, the world grew all dark again, and Miss Spear, stopping the motor, said: “Here.”
They were in a tree-shadowed trail leading from the road to the foot of a steep overhanging rock. “There’s Thundertop,” Miss Spear said. She jumped out, and Vance after her. They scrambled50 up from ledge32 to ledge and finally reached a projecting rocky spur from which they saw, far below and around, the outspread earth, its lonely mountain masses and habitable slopes, and hollows still indistinct, all waiting inanimate for the light.
“If it shouldn’t happen!” Miss Spear exclaimed. Vance turned to her in wonder. She had spoken his very thought; and to youth such coincidences are divine.
“Or if it had never happened before — if we were actually looking at the very first. . . . Ah!” she broke off on a deep breath; for a faint vibration53, less of light than of air, a ripple54 of coming life, had begun to flow over the sky and the opposite mountains, hushing every incipient55 sound. There was a lull56 after that first tremor; a lull lasting57 so long that it seemed as if, after all, nothing in the landscape had moved or altered. Then Miss Spear, laying her hand on Vance’s shoulder, turned him about toward a break in the swarthy fell of the eastern mountains; and through it came the red edge of the sun. They watched in silence as it hung there apparently58 unmoving; then they glanced away for a moment, and when they looked back they saw that it had moved; saw the forerunning glow burn away the ashen59 blur60 in the forest hollows, the upper sky whiten, and daylight take possession of the air. Again they turned westward61, looking toward the Hudson, and now the tawny62 suffusion63 was drawing down the slopes of the farther shore, till gradually, very gradually, the river hollows also were washed of their mists, and the great expanse of the river shone bright as steel in the clear shadow.
Vance drew a deep breath. His lips were parted, but no word came. He met Miss Spear’s smiling eyes with a vague stare. “Kubla Khan?” she said. He nodded.
“You’d never seen one of our sunrises?”
“No, only over the prairies.”
“Well, that must be rather splendid too. But very different — like seeing it over the sea.”
He made no response, for he had never seen the sea, and there was no room in his soul for more new visions.
“It’s less of an effort to see the sun rise in Illinois, I suppose?” Miss Spear continued. “You only have to look out of your window. Here it involves mountaineering, and it’s given me a mountaineer’s appetite; hasn’t it you?”
He didn’t know; he supposed so; but he hardly heard what she said. His whole sentient64 self was still away from him, in the blue and gold of the uprolling. He would have liked to lie down there on the edge of Thundertop between the misty65 splendours below and the pure light above, and let the hours drift by while the chariot of the day described its great circuit before him. At such moments he was almost disembodied.
“Come along, Vance! I’m ravening66. Ham and eggs over a gipsy fire!” She slipped a comrade-arm through his, and they started to scramble51 down from their eminence67, leaving at each step a fragment of the mighty68 spectacle behind them. Vance, reluctantly following, thought to himself: “She never stays anywhere more than five minutes — ”
But by the time they had reached the motor hunger had seized him too, and he was laughing with her while she made sure that the lunch basket and thermos69 were somewhere among the odds70 and ends under the seat, and thinking he had never met anybody who made things so easy, yet was somehow so gaily aloof71. With a fresh expenditure72 of persuasion73 and violence she got the motor going, and they backed out of the trail, and started down the mountain. About halfway74 of the descent Miss Spear turned into another trail, deeply shadowed, and they took out their provisions, and began to climb through the forest. Presently the little woodland noises, twitter of birds and stir of leaf, were all merged75 in the tinkle76 of an unseen brook77, and a little farther on they met the brook itself, leaping down wet ledges78 in a drip of ferns and grasses, till it led them to the rocky pool encircled with turf of which Miss Spear had told him. There she unpacked79 the basket, and Vance brought two stones, and some twigs80 to lay across them; but they could find no dry fuel in that mossy dripping place, and had to eat their eggs raw, and munch81 the ham between slices of stale bread. Luckily the coffee was piping hot, and when Vance had drained his cup his tongue was loosened, and there poured from him all that he had been revolving82 in his mind, and thirsting to utter, since his first encounter with Miss Spear at the Willows. He could hardly keep the thread of the talk in his hands, so quickly did one idea tumble out after another, and so many new trains of thought did Miss Spear’s answers start in the coverts83 of his mind.
Afterward84, in looking back at the adventure, he wondered at the fact that he had hardly been conscious of his companion’s age or sex, hardly aware of the grave beauty of her face, had felt her only as the mysterious vehicle of all the new sensations pouring into his soul — as if she had been the element harmonizing the scene, or a being born of the sunrise and the forest.
Yet afterward he saw nothing ethereal or remote about her; to his memory she became again a dark-haired girl with thoughtful eyes and animated85 lips, who leaned back, her hat tossed off, her bare arms folded behind her head, and plied86 him with friendly questions. The trouble was that every one of the questions, though to her so evidently simple and matter-of-course for him, called a new vision out of the unknown, as the car’s headlights, while they climbed the mountain, had kept on painting pictures on the darkness. The simplest things she said presupposed a familiarity with something or other that he was ignorant of: allusions to people and books, associations of ideas, images and metaphors87, each giving an electric shock to his imagination, and making him want to linger and question before she hurried him on to the next point.
What she wanted, for her part, was evidently just to be helpful and friendly. She had guessed, perhaps, that there was not much nourishment89 for him in life at the Tracys’, and wondered what direction he would take when that interval was over, as she assumed it would be soon. He acknowledged that he had accepted his parents’ proposal to send him to his cousins for his convalescence90 because it was a way of being brought nearer New York, which at the moment was the place he most wanted to get to; and when she asked why — whether just as a big sight, or with some special object? he answered, feeling himself hot from feet to forehead at the confession91, yet unable to hold it back, that, yes, what he wanted was to live in New York and be a writer.
“A writer? I see. But that’s interesting.” Miss Spear raised herself on her elbow and reached for a cigarette, while her eyes continued to rest on his crimson92 countenance93. “Tell me more about it. What do you want to write?”
He threw back his head and gave back her look with a thumping94 heart. “Poetry.”
Her face lit up. “Oh, but that’s splendid! You’ve written a lot already, I suppose?”
“Not a lot. Some.” How flat the monosyllables sounded! And all the while his brain rustled with rich many-branching words that were too tangled95 up with each other to be extricated96. Miss Spear smiled, and said: “This is just the place for poetry, isn’t it? Do repeat something of yours.”
Vance’s heart dropped back to silence. No one had ever before asked him to recite his verses. The inside of his mouth grew parched97 and there was a buzzing in his head. This girl had commanded him, here in this magical place, to recite to her something he had written! His courage began to ebb98 away now that he was confronted with this formidable opportunity.
He moistened his dry lips, closed his mind’s eyes as if preparing to leap into space, and said: “‘Trees.’”
“Is that the title?”
“Yes. They were the first things that struck me when I got here — the trees. They’re different from ours, thicker, there are more of them . . . I don’t know . . .”
“Yes, and so — ”
He began: “Arcane, aloof, and secret as the soul . . .”
She sat motionless, resting her chin on her lifted hand. Her cigarette went out, and dropped to the damp mosses99 of the poolside. “Secret as the soul,” she murmured. “Yes.” She nodded softly, but did not speak again, and at times, as he went on, he forgot her presence and seemed alone with his own imagination; then again he felt her so close that her long meditative100 face, drooping101 slightly, seemed to interpose itself between his eyes and what he was saying, and he was chilled by the thought that when, in a moment, he ceased reciting, the face would be there, unescapable, rhadamanthine, like death at the end of life. He poured out the last words of the poem in a rush, and there was a long silence, an endless silence, it seemed to the poet, before his hearer spoke52.
“You recite too fast; you swallow half the words. Oh, why aren’t people in our country taught —? But there are beautiful things . . .” She paused, and seemed to muse42 discriminatingly upon them. “That about the city of leaves . . . I wish you’d write it out for me, will you? Then I can read it over to myself. If you have a bit of paper, do write it now.”
Vance had the inevitable102 bit of paper, and the fountain pen from which he was never parted. He pulled out the paper, spread it on a stone, and began to write. He was mortified103 that she thought his reading so bad, and his hand shook so that he feared she would hardly find the poem more intelligible104 than when he had recited it. At last he handed her the paper, and she held it to her short~sighted eyes during another awful interval of silence.
“Yes — there are beautiful things in it. That image of the city of leaves . . . and the soul’s city being built of all the murmurs105 and rustlings of our impressions, emotions, instincts . . .” She laid the page down, and lifted her head, drawing her eyelids106 together meditatively107. “By the way, do you know what the first temple at Delphi was built of?” She paused, smiling in expectation of his enjoyment108. “Of birds’ feathers and honey. Singing and humming! Sweetness and lightness! Isn’t that magical?”
Vance gazed at her, captivated but bewildered. Did he understand — or did he not? Birds’ feathers and honey? His heart beat with the strange disturbing beauty of the metaphor88 — for metaphor it must be, of course. Yet bodying forth109 what? In his excitement over the phrase, his perplexity at the question, he felt himself loutish110 and unresponsive for not answering. But he could not think of anything to say.
“The First Church of Christ at Delphi? Christian111 Science, you mean? I’m afraid I don’t understand,” he stammered112 at length.
She stared as if she didn’t either; then she gave a little laugh. “Well, no, nothing quite so recent. The legend is about the first temple of Delphi — (I mean the GREEK Delphi, the famous shrine113, where Apollo’s oracle114 was) — well, the legend is that the first temple was only a hut of feathers and honey, built in that uninhabited place by the bees and birds, who knew there was a god there long before man came and discovered him . . . .” She broke off, and folded up the paper. “That’s a subject for another poem, isn’t it? . . . But this one,” she added, rousing herself, and turning again to Vance with her look of eager encouragement, “this I do like immensely. You’ll let me keep it? I have a great friend who really cares for poetry, and I want to show it to him. And won’t you repeat another? Please do. I love lying here and listening to beautiful words all mixed up with the sound of water and leaves . . . Only you know, Vance,” she added, fixing him suddenly with a piercing humorous glance, “I should leave ‘urge’ as a noun to the people who write blurbs115 for book jackets; and ‘dawn’ and lorn’ do NOT rhyme in English poetry, not yet . . . .”
A silence followed. The girl’s praise and understanding — above all, her understanding — had swung Vance so high above his everyday self that it was as if, at her touch, wings had grown from him. And now, abruptly116, her verbal criticism, suggesting other possibilities of the same kind, hinting at abysses of error into which he might drop unawares at any moment, brought him down like a shot bird. He hardly understood what she meant, did not know what there was to find fault with in the English of the people who wrote for book jackets — it was indeed the sort of thing he aspired117 to excel in some day himself — and still less understood what she meant when she attacked the validity of rhymes as self-evident to the ear as “lorn” and “dawn.” Perverse118 and arbitrary as she evidently was — and sound-deaf, probably — she might as well have said (very likely would, if challenged) that “morn” and “gone” did not rhyme in English poetry! He was so passionately119 interested in everything concerning the material and the implements120 of his art that at another time he would have welcomed a discussion of the sort; but in this hour of creative exaltation, when his imagination was still drenched121 with the wonder of the adventure, and the girl’s praise, as she listened, had already started a twitter of new rhythms and images in his brain, it was like falling from a mortal height to have such praise qualified122 by petty patronizing comments, which were all the more disturbing because he found no answer to them.
“Don’t rhyme — in English poetry?” he stammered, paling under the blow. But Miss Spear had sprung to her feet and stood looking down on him with the sportive but remote radiance of some woodland spirit.
“Oh, but what does all that matter? I don’t know what made me even speak of it.” She continued to look at him, and as she did so, the anxious groping expression of her short-sighted eyes, as she tried to read his, suddenly humanized her face and brought her close again. “It was just my incurable123 mania124 for taking everything to pieces. Gilding125 the lily — who was the fool who said THAT wasn’t worth doing? . . . But I shouldn’t have spoken, you know, Vance, if I didn’t believe you have the gift . . . the real gift . . . ‘the sublime126 awkwardness that belittles127 talent,’ as George Frenside calls it . . .”
His heart swelled128 as he listened. How she knew how to bind129 up the hurts she made! “The sublime awkwardness . . .” He trembled with the shock of the phrase. Who talked or wrote like that, he wondered? Was it anyone he could see, or whose books he could get hold of — in the Willows library, perhaps? “Who’s that you spoke of?” he asked breathlessly.
“The man who can talk to you better than anybody else about English poetry.”
“Oh, do you know him? Can I see him? Is he alive?”
To each question Miss Spear, still looking down on him, nodded her assent130. “He’s the friend I spoke of just now. He’s staying at Eaglewood. He’s the literary critic of The Hour.” She watched the effect of this announcement with her sleepy narrowed glance. “I’ll bring him down to see you some day — the day I show you the Willows library,” she said.
Vance had never heard of Frenside, or the paper called The Hour; but the assurance with which she pronounced the names stamped them with immediate131 importance. His heart was beating furiously; but such shining promises were no longer enough for him. Upton’s allusions to Miss Spear’s unreliability and elusiveness132 came back to him; and he remembered with a new resentfulness his hours of waiting at Miss Lorburn’s door. Perhaps something of this incredulity showed in his eyes, for Miss Spear added, with one of her sudden touches of gentleness: “I can’t tell you now just what day; but I’ll leave word with Upton at the nursery, I promise I will. And now come, Vance, we must pack up and start. Our sunrise isn’t ours any longer. It belongs to the whole stupid world . . . .”
收听单词发音 |
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rustled
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| v.发出沙沙的声音( rustle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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tenuous
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| adj.细薄的，稀薄的，空洞的 | |
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isolated
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| adj.与世隔绝的 | |
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enveloped
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| v.包围，笼罩，包住( envelop的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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ruffling
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| 弄皱( ruffle的现在分词 )； 弄乱； 激怒； 扰乱 | |
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lame
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| adj.跛的，(辩解、论据等)无说服力的 | |
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stranded
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| a.搁浅的，进退两难的 | |
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willows
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| n.柳树( willow的名词复数 )；柳木 | |
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metropolis
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| n.首府；大城市 | |
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wholesale
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| n.批发；adv.以批发方式；vt.批发，成批出售 | |
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journalism
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| n.新闻工作，报业 | |
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slake
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| v.解渴，使平息 | |
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apparition
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| n.幽灵，神奇的现象 | |
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daydream
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| v.做白日梦，幻想 | |
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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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interval
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| n.间隔，间距；幕间休息，中场休息 | |
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frenzied
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| a.激怒的；疯狂的 | |
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tremor
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| n.震动，颤动，战栗，兴奋，地震 | |
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deserted
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| adj.荒芜的，荒废的，无人的，被遗弃的 | |
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shimmering
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| v.闪闪发光，发微光( shimmer的现在分词 ) | |
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rumination
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| n.反刍，沉思 | |
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judgment
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| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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illustrated
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| adj. 有插图的，列举的 动词illustrate的过去式和过去分词 | |
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imbued
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| v.使（某人/某事）充满或激起（感情等）( imbue的过去式和过去分词 )；使充满；灌输；激发（强烈感情或品质等） | |
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acquiescent
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| adj.默许的，默认的 | |
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fatality
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| n.不幸，灾祸，天命 | |
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inaccessible
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| adj.达不到的，难接近的 | |
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tantalize
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| vt.使干着急，逗弄 | |
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humiliated
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| 感到羞愧的 | |
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allusions
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| 暗指，间接提到( allusion的名词复数 ) | |
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31
habitual
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| adj.习惯性的；通常的，惯常的 | |
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32
ledge
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| n.壁架，架状突出物；岩架，岩礁 | |
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33
pang
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| n.剧痛，悲痛，苦闷 | |
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34
insignificant
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| adj.无关紧要的，可忽略的，无意义的 | |
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35
feverish
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| adj.发烧的，狂热的，兴奋的 | |
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36
awakening
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| n.觉醒，醒悟 adj.觉醒中的；唤醒的 | |
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37
eerie
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| adj.怪诞的；奇异的；可怕的；胆怯的 | |
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38
rumble
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| n.隆隆声；吵嚷；v.隆隆响；低沉地说 | |
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39
jolt
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| v.（使）摇动，（使）震动，（使）颠簸 | |
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40
gaily
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| adv.欢乐地，高兴地 | |
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41
instinctively
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| adv.本能地 | |
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42
muse
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| n.缪斯（希腊神话中的女神），创作灵感 | |
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43
simplicity
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| n.简单，简易；朴素；直率，单纯 | |
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44
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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45
eternity
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| n.不朽，来世；永恒，无穷 | |
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46
foliage
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| n.叶子，树叶，簇叶 | |
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47
ridge
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| n.山脊；鼻梁；分水岭 | |
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48
pallid
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| adj.苍白的，呆板的 | |
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49
petal
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| n.花瓣 | |
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50
scrambled
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| v.快速爬行( scramble的过去式和过去分词 )；攀登；争夺；（军事飞机）紧急起飞 | |
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51
scramble
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| v.爬行，攀爬，杂乱蔓延，碎片，片段，废料 | |
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52
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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53
vibration
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| n.颤动，振动；摆动 | |
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54
ripple
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| n.涟波，涟漪，波纹，粗钢梳；vt.使...起涟漪，使起波纹； vi.呈波浪状，起伏前进 | |
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55
incipient
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| adj.起初的，发端的，初期的 | |
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56
lull
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| v.使安静，使入睡，缓和，哄骗；n.暂停，间歇 | |
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57
lasting
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| adj.永久的，永恒的；vbl.持续，维持 | |
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58
apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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59
ashen
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| adj.灰的 | |
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60
blur
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| n.模糊不清的事物；vt.使模糊，使看不清楚 | |
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61
westward
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| n.西方，西部；adj.西方的，向西的；adv.向西 | |
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62
tawny
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| adj.茶色的，黄褐色的；n.黄褐色 | |
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63
suffusion
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| n.充满 | |
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64
sentient
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| adj.有知觉的，知悉的；adv.有感觉能力地 | |
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65
misty
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| adj.雾蒙蒙的，有雾的 | |
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66
ravening
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| a.贪婪而饥饿的 | |
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67
eminence
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| n.卓越，显赫；高地，高处；名家 | |
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68
mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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69
thermos
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| n.保湿瓶，热水瓶 | |
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70
odds
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| n.让步，机率，可能性，比率；胜败优劣之别 | |
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71
aloof
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| adj.远离的；冷淡的，漠不关心的 | |
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72
expenditure
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| n.(时间、劳力、金钱等)支出；使用，消耗 | |
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73
persuasion
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| n.劝说；说服；持有某种信仰的宗派 | |
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74
halfway
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| adj.中途的，不彻底的，部分的；adv.半路地，在中途，在半途 | |
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75
merged
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| （使）混合( merge的过去式和过去分词 )； 相融； 融入； 渐渐消失在某物中 | |
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76
tinkle
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| vi.叮当作响；n.叮当声 | |
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77
brook
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| n.小河，溪；v.忍受，容让 | |
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78
ledges
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| n.（墙壁，悬崖等）突出的狭长部分( ledge的名词复数 )；（平窄的）壁架；横档；（尤指）窗台 | |
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79
unpacked
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| v.从（包裹等）中取出（所装的东西），打开行李取出( unpack的过去式和过去分词 )；拆包；解除…的负担；吐露（心事等） | |
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80
twigs
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| 细枝，嫩枝( twig的名词复数 ) | |
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81
munch
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| v.用力嚼，大声咀嚼 | |
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82
revolving
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| adj.旋转的，轮转式的；循环的v.（使）旋转( revolve的现在分词 )；细想 | |
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83
coverts
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| n.隐蔽的，不公开的，秘密的( covert的名词复数 )；复羽 | |
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84
afterward
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| adv.后来；以后 | |
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85
animated
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| adj.生气勃勃的，活跃的，愉快的 | |
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86
plied
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| v.使用（工具）( ply的过去式和过去分词 )；经常供应（食物、饮料）；固定往来；经营生意 | |
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87
metaphors
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| 隐喻( metaphor的名词复数 ) | |
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88
metaphor
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| n.隐喻，暗喻 | |
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89
nourishment
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| n.食物，营养品；营养情况 | |
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90
convalescence
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| n.病后康复期 | |
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91
confession
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| n.自白，供认，承认 | |
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92
crimson
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| n./adj.深(绯)红色(的)；vi.脸变绯红色 | |
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93
countenance
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| n.脸色，面容；面部表情；vt.支持，赞同 | |
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94
thumping
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| adj.重大的，巨大的；重击的；尺码大的；极好的adv.极端地；非常地v.重击(thump的现在分词)；狠打；怦怦地跳；全力支持 | |
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95
tangled
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| adj. 纠缠的，紊乱的 动词tangle的过去式和过去分词 | |
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96
extricated
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| v.使摆脱困难，脱身( extricate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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97
parched
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| adj.焦干的；极渴的；v.（使）焦干 | |
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98
ebb
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| vi.衰退，减退；n.处于低潮，处于衰退状态 | |
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99
mosses
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| n. 藓类, 苔藓植物 名词moss的复数形式 | |
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100
meditative
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| adj.沉思的，冥想的 | |
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101
drooping
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| adj. 下垂的，无力的 动词droop的现在分词 | |
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102
inevitable
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| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
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103
mortified
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| v.使受辱( mortify的过去式和过去分词 )；伤害（人的感情）；克制；抑制（肉体、情感等） | |
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104
intelligible
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| adj.可理解的，明白易懂的，清楚的 | |
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105
murmurs
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| n.低沉、连续而不清的声音( murmur的名词复数 )；低语声；怨言；嘀咕 | |
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106
eyelids
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| n.眼睑( eyelid的名词复数 )；眼睛也不眨一下；不露声色；面不改色 | |
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107
meditatively
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| adv.冥想地 | |
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108
enjoyment
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| n.乐趣；享有；享用 | |
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109
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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110
loutish
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| adj.粗鲁的 | |
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111
Christian
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| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
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112
stammered
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| v.结巴地说出( stammer的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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113
shrine
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| n.圣地，神龛，庙；v.将...置于神龛内，把...奉为神圣 | |
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114
oracle
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| n.神谕，神谕处，预言 | |
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115
blurbs
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| n.（尤指印在书籍等护封上的）简介，推荐广告( blurb的名词复数 ) | |
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116
abruptly
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| adv.突然地，出其不意地 | |
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117
aspired
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| v.渴望，追求( aspire的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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118
perverse
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| adj.刚愎的；坚持错误的，行为反常的 | |
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119
passionately
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| ad.热烈地，激烈地 | |
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120
implements
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| n.工具( implement的名词复数 )；家具；手段；[法律]履行（契约等）v.实现( implement的第三人称单数 )；执行；贯彻；使生效 | |
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121
drenched
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| adj.湿透的；充满的v.使湿透( drench的过去式和过去分词 )；在某人（某物）上大量使用（某液体） | |
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122
qualified
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| adj.合格的，有资格的，胜任的，有限制的 | |
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123
incurable
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| adj.不能医治的，不能矫正的，无救的；n.不治的病人，无救的人 | |
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124
mania
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| n.疯狂；躁狂症，狂热，癖好 | |
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125
gilding
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| n.贴金箔，镀金 | |
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126
sublime
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| adj.崇高的，伟大的；极度的，不顾后果的 | |
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127
belittles
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| 使显得微小，轻视，贬低( belittle的第三人称单数 ) | |
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128
swelled
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| 增强( swell的过去式和过去分词 )； 肿胀； （使）凸出； 充满（激情） | |
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129
bind
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| vt.捆，包扎；装订；约束；使凝固；vi.变硬 | |
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130
assent
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| v.批准，认可；n.批准，认可 | |
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131
immediate
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| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
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132
elusiveness
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| 狡诈 | |
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