Halo Spear in a world of shifting standards, had always held fast to her own values. Such and such things were worth so much! a great deal, perhaps; yet no more than so much. It was good, for instance — necessary, indeed — to have a comfortable amount of money; enough to grease the machinery1 of life, to prevent recurring2 family wrangles3, or worse; but even for that there was a price not worth paying. That price was herself; her personality, as the people about her would have called it; the something which made Halo Spear and no other. Of that something, she often told herself, she would never surrender the least jot4.
Looking back now, after three years, she remembered old Tom Lorburn’s perturbed5 face as she left the Willows6 with him, the day the loss of the books was discovered. She had said to herself then: “This business about the books is going to make him change his will,” and, immediately afterward7: “Well, it won’t make me change my mind about Lewis.” For even if her hopes of an inheritance were gone she was not going to offset8 the disappointment by marrying Lewis Tarrant. She was sure she would make life unbearable9 to any man she married for such a reason, and Lewis was too good a fellow to be her victim. It was a pity, of course — for Cousin Tom did die within a few months, and did change his will, leaving the Willows to a distant relative who knew no more what to do with it than he had; and the blow was a bad one for Mr. and Mrs. Spear. Lorry being predestined to ruin them, they had always regarded it as Halo’s r?le to restore their fortunes; they would never have asked her to sacrifice her happiness to do so, but they told her (always in reference to other couples) that when it came to marriage a community of tastes and interests — well, such as there was between herself and Lewis, say — was the only guarantee of happiness, once the first rapture10 was over. “I know, but I want the first rapture,” Halo would answer them inwardly; and to Lewis she said with a smiling firmness: “If I married you you’d want to murder me in a month.”
Yet she had been his wife for nearly three years now, and they had not only spared each other’s lives, but arrived at some kind of mutual11 understanding, so that, had she been suddenly called on to leave her husband’s roof and return to the precarious12 existence at Eaglewood she would have hesitated, and not only on his account. Habit had wound its benumbing web about her, and she was no more the girl she had been than he was the man she had imagined . . . .
“Happy?” she said one day to Frenside, with her quick smile. “No, I’ve never been happy; but I’m content. And being content is so jolly that I sometimes think I couldn’t have stood being happy . . . .”
“Ah, it’s a destructive experience,” Frenside agreed.
Not for a moment would she have admitted to anyone else that her marriage had not brought her happiness, for no one but Frenside would understand, as she did, that life may be “strengthened and fed without the aid of joy.” But the relief of saying it to him was deep; it took her out of a world of suffocating13 dissimulations into a freer air. She looked at him curiously14, at his bumpy15 tormented16 forehead above the thick blunt nose and ironic17 mouth, the eyes barricaded18 by his eternal glasses, the heavy shabby figure. “Yet he speaks about happiness as if he’d known it — poor old George.” Her impulse was to say: “Oh, Frenny, tell me what it’s like!” But though she had once gone up so boldly to every new riddle19 she shrank from this one. “I suppose we each of us have our different Sphinx,” she thought. She had grown a coward, no doubt.
“Life’s so full of things anyhow, isn’t it?” she continued evasively. “I’ve often thought I shouldn’t have time to crowd in anything more . . . even happiness . . . .” She laughed a little, and getting up out of her deep armchair by the fire walked across the library and stood looking out at the sweep of the East River glittering far below through the autumn haze20 in its forest of roofs and spires21 and chimneys. The Tarrant flat was high up in one of the new buildings overhanging the mighty22 prospect23 on which New York had till so lately turned its back. A wide low window filled almost the whole eastern wall of the room; the other three were of a sober grayish-green wherever they were revealed by a break in the bookshelves. Halo Tarrant’s association with the sturdy old house at Eaglewood had saved her from the passing extravagances of fashion. Her room depended for its character on the view from its window, the books on its walls, and the friendly grouping of its lamps and chairs. It seemed neither to exclude experiment nor invite it, but to remain outside the flux24 of novelty like some calm natural object, tree or field.
Frenside said nothing more, and Halo wandered across the room, pausing absently to straighten a paper cutter on the big table laden25 with books; then her glance travelled to an oil sketch26 of her husband which Vuillard had done in Paris, the first year of their marriage: just the head, half averted27, with the thin sensitive nose, the dissatisfied mouth — dissatisfied still — and that excessive fairness of hair and complexion28 which singled Tarrant out in any group, even before the delicacy29 of his features was perceptible. Halo stood in front of the picture, her hands clasped behind her, retravelling the way that he and she had come.
“Well? — ” Frenside queried30.
She turned back to him. “I was thinking how lucky it is that The Hour happened to be for sale, and that I had the nerve to urge Lewis to buy it. It’s going to be exactly the kind of job he likes. I only wish you’d stayed on it, Frenny.”
Frenside shook his head. “Better not. I’m always available as an adviser31, if he needs one. But new blood all round was what was wanted. And now we’ll see — ”
Halo looked up at him a little sharply. “See —?”
“What he’s going to make of it.”
Her lips parted, as if on a quick retort; then they closed again, and with a slight shrug32 she dropped back into her chair. “Of course he’ll make mistakes — ”
“Of course. But that’s sometimes stimulating33.”
She interrupted: “The great thing for a man like Lewis, with rather too much money, and decidedly too many talents, is to canalize both — isn’t it? He’s never before been able to make up his mind, to find anything that entirely35 suited him. I believe this does; I believe it’s going to group his scattered36 interests, and hold him to his job as no . . . no vague sense of duty would . . . .”
“Bless you, the sense of duty is prehistoric37; even that idea of our first duty being to ourselves, which seemed so mad and bad in the ‘nineties, wouldn’t interest a baby nowadays. But I daresay Tarrant’ll take hold — for a while — ”
“Ah, you underrate him!” Halo flashed out, rising again nervously38. People were right, after all, when they said Frenside’s way of encouraging you was like a doctor’s saying: “Nothing will make any difference now.”
But she was vexed39 with herself as soon as the words were spoken. She held no brief for her husband; she didn’t have to. Everyone knew Lewis was brilliantly clever — even those who were put off by his indifference41, his lack of enthusiasm, recognized his superiority. “A fellow who’ll make his mark, my son-in-law,” Mr. Spear described him, leaning back comfortably in an armchair of the cosy42 little flat provided by Lewis for his parents-in-law, and puffing43 at a Corona44 of the thousand Lewis had sent him for Christmas. Being able to escape from Eaglewood for the winter months had singularly softened45 Mr. Spear’s view of human nature, and lent an added lustre46 to his admiration47 for Halo’s husband. “Anyone who doesn’t recognize Tarrant’s ability is simply envious48 of it, that’s all . . . .” Ah, how Halo loved her father for saying that! Poor Frenside’s congenital lack of generosity49 always prevented his predicting for others the success he himself had missed; but Mr. Spear, now that he and his wife had their own little nook in New York, and could gather about them the dowdy50 middle-aged51 conformists whom Mrs. Spear still called revolutionaries — Mr. Spear had become tolerant and even benignant. He still wrote to the papers to denounce what he called crying evils, such as the fact that the consumption of whole wheat bread was not made compulsory52 (“If I may cite my own humble53 experience,” that kind of letter always said), or that no method had been devised for automatically disinfecting the tin cups attached to public fountains. (“An instance of this criminal negligence54 may actually be found within a hundred feet of my own door,” was the formula in such cases — thus revealing to his readers that Mr. Spear HAD a New York door.) But all this was rather by way of a literary exercise than to relieve a burning indignation; now that his life had been reshaped to his satisfaction Mr. Spear was disposed to let others do their own protesting. “After all, there’s something to be said for the constituted authorities,” he had been known to declare, smiling indulgently across his daughter’s dinner table; and if Mrs. Spear’s short-haired satellites (women, Mr. Spear now called them, who had been sexually underfed) had not been forever challenging him to take up his pen in denunciation of one outrage55 or another — “you really ought to, Mr. Spear, with your marvellous way of putting things” — the ink would have coagulated in his Waterman.
Prosperity had affected56 Mrs. Spear differently. It had made her more indignant, more agitated57, more emaciatedly beautiful; while a rising plumpness rounded Mr. Spear’s waistcoat his wife’s garments hung more slackly from her drooping58 shoulders and restless arms. While there was so much misery59 in the world, how was it possible, she asked her daughter, for those in happier circumstances not to strain every nerve . . .?
“But you strained yours to a frazzle long ago, mother; and the world still goes on in its old juggernaut way.”
“Halo! I hate to hear you echo that cheap cynicism of George Frenside’s. As long as I have a voice left to protest with I shall cry out against human savagery60 in all its forms.” Mrs. Spear had just discovered from a humanitarian61 leaflet that the truffle~hunting pigs of southwestern France perform their task in muzzles62, and are never permitted the least morsel63 of the delicacies64 they unearth65. (“Well, I should hope not,” murmured Mr. Spear, unfolding his napkin at the approach of a crab-mayonnaise, “and anyhow, in the raw state in which the poor animals would eat them, they’d probably taste like old india-rubber.”) And George Frenside added, with a malicious66 glint behind his glasses: “What seems to me a good deal worse is the fate of the cormorants67 in the China seas. . . . You know the Chinese train them to catch fish . . . carry ’em on their wrists like hawks69 . . . .” “Well?” Mrs. Spear gasped70, in anguished71 anticipation72. “No cormorant68 is ever allowed to taste a fish — much less a mayonnaise of crab,” Frenside grinned, with a side-glance at Halo.
The recollection of the little scene flashed through Halo’s mind as she looked up at Vuillard’s sketch of her husband. It was for the sake of her parents that she had married him; she was too honest to disguise it from herself; and whenever she saw Mr. Spear sipping73 his champagne74 critically but complacently75, and Mrs. Spear, in black velvet76 and old lace, bending her beautiful shortsighted eyes above an appetizing dish, or lifting them to heaven in protest at some newly discovered cruelty to pigs or cormorants, Halo said to herself that it had been worthwhile. For Mrs. Spear’s woes77 had become as purely78 a luxury as Mr. Spear’s cigars and champagne. They could treat their indignations like pet animals, feeding them on the fat of the land till they became too bloated to be disturbing; and Halo, looking back on the hard rasping years when her parents’ furious concern for the public welfare had been perpetually fed by personal worries and privations, reflected that there could hardly be a pleasnter life than that of retired79 reformers. “And at least now,” she added, “they’ve stopped borrowing from Lewis; I’m almost sure they have.”
The extent of their borrowings (discovered suddenly, at the precise moment when she had decided34 to break her engagement) had in fact been the direct cause of Halo’s marriage. Tarrant had stepped into the breach80 more often than she had guessed; had not only bought back the books so mysteriously lost from the Willows, but had helped Lorry Spear to start as a theatrical81 decorator, besides filling in the ever-widening gap in the Spear budget. And he had done it all so quietly that when the facts became known to Halo her first movement of exasperation82 was followed by an unexpected feeling of admiration. If he were like that, she thought, she ought to be able to love him; at any rate, she knew she could never willingly cause him any pain. And on this basis they were married . . . .
The years that followed had represented the interest on her husband’s advances. He was far too much of a gentleman to let her feel that she, or any of hers, was in his debt; but there the fact loomed83, the more oppressively because of his studied ignoring of it. She had gradually found out that it had not altered his real nature; but it had imposed on her the obligation to view him always in the light of an accidental magnanimity. It was dreadful, she thought in her rebellious84 moods, to know exactly what one would have to think of one’s husband till one’s dying day. But these rebellions were rare with her. Every morning she told herself anew that he had been incredibly generous to her people, and that the only return she could make was to throw herself with ardour into every new scheme which attracted, and reject with promptitude any enterprise which ceased to please him. Some day, perhaps, he would find his line — and THEN people would see, then even Frenside would have to confess . . .
Poor Frenside! It was natural, she thought, that his own inability to stick to a job should add venom85 to his comments on the instability of others. “Everything I touch turns cold on my hands,” he had once confessed; and that had been the fate of The Hour. After a dazzling start it had grown querulous, faddish86, and then dull; one could feel the creeping chill of inanition as one turned its pages. Subscribers fell off, and the owners, discouraged, offered the paper for sale. Frenside, understanding his own share in the failure, resigned, and went back to free-lance articles for various newspapers and reviews. It was nonsense, he said, his acting87 as literary adviser to anybody, when his honest advice would almost always be: “To the wastepaper basket.” The Hour languished88 along, unread and unbought, for another year; then it occurred to Tarrant to pick it up as a bargain, and once purchased it acquired in his eyes the importance inherent in anything that belonged to him. “Funny — perhaps what I was really meant for was to be an editor,” he said to his wife, with depreciatory89 smile which disguised such a fervour of self-esteem. “Not a very dazzling career — I suppose I might have looked rather higher; but it may give me the chance to make myself known . . . .”
“Of course, Lewis; it’s what I’ve always wanted for you.”
“It is? You’ve thought —?” he began with his look of carefully suppressed avidity.
“Why, for a man who wants a hearing, and has something new to say, I can’t imagine a better chance than an open arena90 like The Hour.” She could reel off things like that as long as he wanted them; and besides, she did think, had forced herself to think, after his various unsuccessful experiments, first in architecture, then in painting, that letters might really be his field. Not creative work, probably (though she knew he aspired91 to be a novelist), but literary criticism, literary history, perhaps — provided he had the patience to pursue any line of investigation92 far enough. “If only he hadn’t any money!” she sometimes found herself reflecting, confronted with the bewildering discovery that abundance may hamper93 talent as much as privation does. “But what is talent made of, then?” she wondered. “Is it really like some shoddy material that can’t stand either rain or sun?”
Frenside still mused94 by the fire. “Yes; I shouldn’t wonder if Tarrant made something out of The Hour, if only he gets the right people for the routine work.” It was unusually generous of Frenside to say that; yet Halo tingled95 with resentment96.
“You mean he’ll never have the perseverance97 himself?”
“My dear child, don’t make me out worse than I am. I mean exactly what I say. Every business enterprise is built on drudgery98 — ”
“Yes, and he’s too brilliant. He is brilliant, Frenny.” She stood looking at her old friend with confident insistent99 eyes; it always fortified100 her faith in her husband to impress it on others. And really she did believe in The Hour, and in what he and she were going to make of it . . . .
The door opened, and there he was, slender, distinguished101, handsomer than ever, she thought, as her eyes challenged the calm face under which she knew such a hunger for approbation102 burned.
“Hallo, Frenside — ” Lewis Tarrant nodded to his wife and strolled up to the fireplace with his unhurried step. “Cold as the devil outdoors.” He bent103 over the flame, stretching his nervous transparent104 hands to it. (“With hands like that,” Halo mused, “why isn’t he a poet?”)
Tarrant dropped into an armchair near the tea-table. “No — a cocktail105, please. I’m frozen to the marrow106. Cursed climate!”
She handed him the cocktail, and in passing laid her hand on his shoulder. “You’re tired, Lewis — you’ve been overworking.” It did her good to be able, in all sincerity107, to rebuke108 him for that!
“Well, it IS hard work — straightening things out. But I think I begin to see my way.” He spoke40 with the cold sparkle of voice and face which was his nearest approach to enthusiasm. “By the way, though — it wasn’t all just hacking109 and hewing110. I’ve made a find.” He picked up a bundle of papers he had thrown down, and extracted from them a copy of The Hour.
“What about this, Frenside? I never heard of it before — it must have come out while we were honeymooning111, Halo.”
The word startled her, on his lips. Was it all so long ago that he seemed to be speaking a dead language? She shook off the chill and put out her hand for the review — an old number, as Lewis said, battered112 from long kicking about in the office. “What? Oh — this: ‘One Day’? A story, is it?” She wrinkled her brows over her shortsighted eyes. “Lewis! Why, it’s by that boy: the Tracys’ cousin. The one . . .” She broke off, and felt the colour rising to her temples. Vance Weston — she had not thought of Vance Weston since her marriage. Yet what a score he had against her! She had never been able to acquit113 herself of that; if ever the chance to do so arose, how gladly she would seize it! She bent above the page, curious, excited, with the little half articulate murmurs114 of the born reader. “How queer that I never heard of this. . . . Yes, it came out the winter we were in Egypt.” (Her chronology of her married life was more topographic than sentimental115.) She looked up at Frenside. “I suppose he sent it to you, Frenny, after that time you met him at Eaglewood?”
Frenside seemed to be groping in a heap of dusty recollections. “Yes — sure enough. It comes back to me. He turned up at the office one day, and unloaded a lot of fool poetry.” (Halo remembered too, and winced116.) “Then, when I told him the stuff wouldn’t do, he pulled this out. Let me see: yes, that’s it. I thought it better than most things of the kind; and anyhow the boy looked so starved and scared that I took it. Never saw him but that once, as well as I can remember.”
Halo was no longer listening: she had plunged117 again into her reading. Yes; Frenside was right — the poetry, though it had possibilities (or seemed to, by that mountain pool at sunrise) was a poor parrotlike effort compared to this blunt prose, almost telegraphic in its harsh directness. She read on, absorbed.
“Well —?” Lewis queried, triumphant118.
She came back to him from a long way. “What a strange thing it is — how terrible!”
“Fine, though? That fellow ought to be watched. Don’t you think so, Frenny?”
Frenside rose, throwing his cigar end into the embers. “Well, it’s a toss-up. This is the early morning ‘slice-of-life’; out of the boy’s own experience, most likely. Wait and see what happens when he tackles something outside of himself. That’s where the test comes in.”
Halo asked: “Didn’t he send anything else?” and Frenside, rummaging119 among more faded memories, thought that, yes, he had — articles and stories, all raw stuff, unusable. That was the general rule; any chap with a knack120 could usually pull off one good thing at the start . . . .
“This shows more than knack.”
Frenside shrugged121, said he hoped so, wished them goodbye, and shuffled122 out into the hall, getting grumblingly123 into his overcoat with the help of Tarrant, who came back rubbing his hands and smiling. “Well, my dear, there’s your great critic: couldn’t even remember when and how he’d got hold of a thing like this, or whether the boy had sent him anything else as good! No knowing what we’ve lost — or how to get hold of him now. Not a trace of his address on the books. The way that paper was run —!” He sank down by the fire with a dry wrinkling of lips and nostrils124. “I rather flatter myself things will go differently now . . .”
“Oh, Lewis! But of course — with your flair125.”
He stroked his slight moustache lingeringly, using his hand, as she knew, to mask a satisfaction that might have appeared too crude. “Well, I suppose one HAS the instinct or one hasn’t . . . .” he murmured.
“I’m so glad, dear, that you have it. You saw at once what this was worth, didn’t you? But we must get at the boy — a young man now, I suppose,” she mused. “How long ago it all seems! I wonder how we can run him down? Why, through the Tracys, of course! I’ll write to Mrs. Tracy now.”
She started up and went to the writing table, pulling out paper and pen with an impatience126 doubled by her husband’s. “Oh, we’ll wire,” he said in a tone of authority; “I’ll get it off at once. We want something from him for our New York number.” And she thought, deep in herself: “Nothing will be too good for Vance Weston now that he’s Lewis’s own discovery,” and then tingled with shame at her lucidity127. She dashed off the telegram at her husband’s dictation, and while Tarrant went out to send it, dropped down again into her armchair.
“If my boy had lived — ” she said to herself, covering under that elliptical sweep of regret all the things she might have judged differently, all the things she might have forborne to judge, if between her and her husband there had been a presence, warm and troublesome and absorbing, to draw them closer yet screen them a little from each other.
收听单词发音 |
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machinery
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| n.(总称)机械，机器；机构 | |
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recurring
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| adj.往复的，再次发生的 | |
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wrangles
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| n.（尤指长时间的）激烈争吵，口角，吵嘴( wrangle的名词复数 )v.争吵，争论，口角( wrangle的第三人称单数 ) | |
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jot
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| n.少量；vi.草草记下；vt.匆匆写下 | |
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perturbed
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| adj.烦燥不安的v.使（某人）烦恼，不安( perturb的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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willows
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| n.柳树( willow的名词复数 )；柳木 | |
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afterward
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offset
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| n.分支，补偿；v.抵消，补偿 | |
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unbearable
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rapture
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mutual
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| adj.相互的，彼此的；共同的，共有的 | |
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precarious
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| adj.不安定的，靠不住的；根据不足的 | |
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suffocating
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| a.使人窒息的 | |
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curiously
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| adv.有求知欲地；好问地；奇特地 | |
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bumpy
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tormented
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ironic
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| adj.讽刺的，有讽刺意味的，出乎意料的 | |
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barricaded
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| 设路障于，以障碍物阻塞( barricade的过去式和过去分词 )； 设路障[防御工事]保卫或固守 | |
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riddle
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| n.谜，谜语，粗筛；vt.解谜，给…出谜，筛，检查，鉴定，非难，充满于；vi.出谜 | |
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haze
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| n.霾，烟雾；懵懂，迷糊；vi.(over)变模糊 | |
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spires
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mighty
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prospect
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flux
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| n.流动；不断的改变 | |
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laden
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sketch
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averted
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| 防止，避免( avert的过去式和过去分词 )； 转移 | |
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complexion
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| n.肤色；情况，局面；气质，性格 | |
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delicacy
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| n.精致，细微，微妙，精良；美味，佳肴 | |
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queried
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| v.质疑，对…表示疑问( query的过去式和过去分词 )；询问 | |
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adviser
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| n.劝告者，顾问 | |
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shrug
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| v.耸肩(表示怀疑、冷漠、不知等) | |
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stimulating
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decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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scattered
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prehistoric
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nervously
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39
vexed
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| adj.争论不休的；（指问题等）棘手的；争论不休的问题；烦恼的v.使烦恼( vex的过去式和过去分词 )；使苦恼；使生气；详细讨论 | |
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40
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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41
indifference
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| n.不感兴趣，不关心，冷淡，不在乎 | |
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42
cosy
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| adj.温暖而舒适的，安逸的 | |
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43
puffing
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| v.使喷出( puff的现在分词 )；喷着汽（或烟）移动；吹嘘；吹捧 | |
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44
corona
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| n.日冕 | |
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45
softened
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| （使）变软( soften的过去式和过去分词 )； 缓解打击； 缓和； 安慰 | |
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46
lustre
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| n.光亮，光泽；荣誉 | |
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47
admiration
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| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
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48
envious
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| adj.嫉妒的，羡慕的 | |
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49
generosity
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| n.大度，慷慨，慷慨的行为 | |
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50
dowdy
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| adj.不整洁的；过旧的 | |
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51
middle-aged
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| adj.中年的 | |
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52
compulsory
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| n.强制的，必修的；规定的，义务的 | |
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53
humble
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| adj.谦卑的，恭顺的；地位低下的；v.降低，贬低 | |
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54
negligence
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| n.疏忽，玩忽，粗心大意 | |
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55
outrage
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| n.暴行，侮辱，愤怒；vt.凌辱，激怒 | |
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56
affected
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| adj.不自然的，假装的 | |
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57
agitated
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| adj.被鼓动的，不安的 | |
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58
drooping
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| adj. 下垂的，无力的 动词droop的现在分词 | |
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59
misery
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| n.痛苦，苦恼，苦难；悲惨的境遇，贫苦 | |
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60
savagery
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| n.野性 | |
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61
humanitarian
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| n.人道主义者，博爱者，基督凡人论者 | |
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62
muzzles
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| 枪口( muzzle的名词复数 )； （防止动物咬人的）口套； （四足动物的）鼻口部； （狗）等凸出的鼻子和口 | |
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63
morsel
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| n.一口，一点点 | |
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64
delicacies
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| n.棘手( delicacy的名词复数 )；精致；精美的食物；周到 | |
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65
unearth
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| v.发掘，掘出，从洞中赶出 | |
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66
malicious
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| adj.有恶意的，心怀恶意的 | |
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67
cormorants
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| 鸬鹚，贪婪的人( cormorant的名词复数 ) | |
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68
cormorant
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| n.鸬鹚，贪婪的人 | |
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69
hawks
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| 鹰( hawk的名词复数 )； 鹰派人物，主战派人物 | |
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70
gasped
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| v.喘气( gasp的过去式和过去分词 )；喘息；倒抽气；很想要 | |
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71
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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72
anticipation
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| n.预期，预料，期望 | |
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73
sipping
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| v.小口喝，呷，抿( sip的现在分词 ) | |
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74
champagne
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| n.香槟酒；微黄色 | |
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75
complacently
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| adv. 满足地, 自满地, 沾沾自喜地 | |
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76
velvet
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| n.丝绒，天鹅绒；adj.丝绒制的，柔软的 | |
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77
woes
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| 困境( woe的名词复数 )； 悲伤； 我好苦哇； 某人就要倒霉 | |
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78
purely
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| adv.纯粹地，完全地 | |
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79
retired
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| adj.隐退的，退休的，退役的 | |
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80
breach
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| n.违反，不履行；破裂；vt.冲破，攻破 | |
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81
theatrical
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| adj.剧场的，演戏的；做戏似的，做作的 | |
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82
exasperation
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| n.愤慨 | |
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83
loomed
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| v.隐约出现，阴森地逼近( loom的过去式和过去分词 )；隐约出现，阴森地逼近 | |
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84
rebellious
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| adj.造反的，反抗的，难控制的 | |
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85
venom
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| n.毒液，恶毒，痛恨 | |
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86
faddish
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| adj.好赶时髦的；一时流行的 | |
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87
acting
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| n.演戏，行为，假装；adj.代理的，临时的，演出用的 | |
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88
languished
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| 长期受苦( languish的过去式和过去分词 )； 受折磨； 变得（越来越）衰弱； 因渴望而变得憔悴或闷闷不乐 | |
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89
depreciatory
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| adj.贬值的，蔑视的 | |
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90
arena
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| n.竞技场，运动场所；竞争场所，舞台 | |
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91
aspired
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| v.渴望，追求( aspire的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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92
investigation
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| n.调查，调查研究 | |
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93
hamper
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| vt.妨碍，束缚，限制；n.(有盖的)大篮子 | |
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94
mused
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| v.沉思，冥想( muse的过去式和过去分词 )；沉思自语说（某事） | |
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95
tingled
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| v.有刺痛感( tingle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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96
resentment
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| n.怨愤，忿恨 | |
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97
perseverance
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| n.坚持不懈，不屈不挠 | |
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98
drudgery
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| n.苦工，重活，单调乏味的工作 | |
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99
insistent
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| adj.迫切的，坚持的 | |
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100
fortified
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| adj. 加强的 | |
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101
distinguished
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| adj.卓越的，杰出的，著名的 | |
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102
approbation
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| n.称赞；认可 | |
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103
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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104
transparent
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| adj.明显的，无疑的；透明的 | |
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105
cocktail
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| n.鸡尾酒；餐前开胃小吃；混合物 | |
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106
marrow
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| n.骨髓；精华；活力 | |
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107
sincerity
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| n.真诚，诚意；真实 | |
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108
rebuke
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| v.指责，非难，斥责 [反]praise | |
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109
hacking
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| n.非法访问计算机系统和数据库的活动 | |
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110
hewing
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| v.（用斧、刀等）砍、劈( hew的现在分词 )；砍成；劈出；开辟 | |
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111
honeymooning
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| 度蜜月（honeymoon的现在分词形式） | |
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112
battered
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| adj.磨损的；v.连续猛击；磨损 | |
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113
acquit
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| vt.宣判无罪；(oneself)使(自己)表现出 | |
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114
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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115
sentimental
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| adj.多愁善感的，感伤的 | |
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116
winced
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| 赶紧避开，畏缩( wince的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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117
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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118
triumphant
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| adj.胜利的，成功的；狂欢的，喜悦的 | |
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119
rummaging
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| 翻找，搜寻( rummage的现在分词 )； 海关检查 | |
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120
knack
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| n.诀窍，做事情的灵巧的，便利的方法 | |
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121
shrugged
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| vt.耸肩（shrug的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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122
shuffled
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| v.洗（纸牌）( shuffle的过去式和过去分词 )；拖着脚步走；粗心地做；摆脱尘世的烦恼 | |
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123
grumblingly
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| 喃喃报怨着，发牢骚着 | |
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124
nostrils
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| 鼻孔( nostril的名词复数 ) | |
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125
flair
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| n.天赋，本领，才华；洞察力 | |
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126
impatience
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| n.不耐烦，急躁 | |
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127
lucidity
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| n.明朗，清晰，透明 | |
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