His father was dead, and now it seemed to him that he had never found him. His father was dead, and yet he sought him everywhere, and could not believe that he was dead, and was sure that he would find him. It was October and that year, after years of absence and of wandering, he had come home again.
He could not think that his father had died, but he had come home in October, and all the life that he had known there was strange and sorrowful as dreams. And yet he saw it all in shapes of deathless brightness — the town, the streets, the magic hills, and the plain prognathous faces of the people he had known. He saw them all in shapes of deathless brightness, and everything was instantly familiar as his father’s face, and stranger, more phantasmal than a dream.
Their words came to him with the accents of an utter naturalness, and yet were sorrowful and lost and strange like voices speaking in a dream, and in their eyes he read a lost and lonely light, as if they were all phantoms6 and all lost, or as if he had revisited the shores of this great earth again with a heart of fire, a cry of pain and ecstasy7, a memory of intolerable longing8 and regret for all the glorious and exultant9 life that he had known and which he must visit now for ever as a fleshless ghost, never to touch, to hold, to have its palpable warmth and substance for his own again. He had come home again, and yet he could not believe his father was dead, and he thought he heard his great voice ringing in the street again, and that he would see him striding toward him across the Square with his gaunt earth-devouring stride, or find him waiting every time he turned the corner, or lunging toward the house bearing the tremendous provender10 of his food and meat, bringing to them all the deathless security of his strength and power and passion, bringing to them all again the roaring message of his fires that shook the fire-full chimney-throat with their terrific blast, giving to them all again the exultant knowledge that the good days, the magic days, the golden weather of their lives would come again, and that this dreamlike and phantasmal world in which they found themselves would waken instantly, as it had once, to all the palpable warmth and glory of the earth, if only his father would come back to make it live, to give them life, again.
Therefore, he could not think that he was dead, and yet it was October, and that year he had come home again. And at night, in his mother’s house, he would lie in his bed in the dark, hearing the wind that rattled11 dry leaves along the empty pavement, hearing, far-off across the wind, the barking of a dog, feeling dark time, strange time, dark secret time, as it flowed on around him, remembering his life, this house, and all the million strange and secret visages of time, dark time, thinking, feeling, thinking:
“October has come again, has come again. . . . I have come home again and found my father dead . . . and that was time . . . time . . . time. . . . Where shall I go now? What shall I do? For October has come again, but there has gone some richness from the life we knew, and we are lost.”
Storm shook the house at night — the old house, his mother’s house — where he had seen his brother die. The old doors swung and creaked in darkness, darkness pressed against the house, the darkness filled them, filled the house at night, it moved about them soft and secret, palpable, filled with a thousand secret presences of sorrowful time and memory, moving about him as he lay below his brother’s room in darkness, while storm shook the house in late October, and something creaked and rattled in the wind’s strong blast. It was October, and he had come home again: he could not believe that his father was dead.
Wind beat at them with burly shoulders in the night. The darkness moved there in the house like something silent, palpable — a spirit breathing in his mother’s house, a demon12 and a friend — speaking to him its silent and intolerable prophecy of flight, of darkness and the storm, moving about him constantly, prowling about the edges of his life, ever beside him, with him, in him, whispering:
“Child, child — come with me — come with me to your brother’s grave tonight. Come with me to the places where the young men lie whose bodies have long since been buried in the earth. Come with me where they walk and move again tonight, and you shall see your brother’s face again, and hear his voice, and see again, as they march toward you from their graves the company of the young men who died, as he did, in October, speaking to you their messages of flight, of triumph, and the all-exultant darkness, telling you that all will be again as it was once.”
October had come again, and he would lie there in his mother’s house at night, and feel the darkness moving softly all about him, and hear the dry leaves scampering13 on the street outside, and the huge and burly rushes of the wind. And then the wind would rush away with huge caprice, and he could hear it far off roaring with remote demented cries in the embraces of great trees, and he would lie there thinking:
“October has come again — has come again”— feeling the dark around him, not believing that his father could be dead, thinking: “The strange and lonely years have come again. . . . I have come home again . . . come home again . . . and will it not be with us all as it has been?”— feeling the darkness as it moved about him, thinking: “Is it not the same darkness that I knew in childhood, and have I not lain here in bed before and felt this darkness moving all about me? . . . Did we not hear dogs that barked in darkness, in October?” he then thought. “Were not their howls far broken by the wind? . . . And hear dry leaves that scampered14 on the streets at night . . . and the huge and burly rushes of the wind . . . and hear huge limbs that stiffly creak in the remote demented howlings of the burly wind . . . and something creaking in the wind at night . . . and think, then, as we think now, of all the men who have gone and never will come back again, and of our friends and brothers who lie buried in the earth? . . . Oh, has not October now come back again?” he cried. “As always — as it always was?”— and hearing the great darkness softly prowling in his mother’s house at night, and thinking, feeling, thinking, as he lay there in the dark:
“Now October has come again which in our land is different from October in the other lands. The ripe, the golden month has come again, and in Virginia the chinkapins are falling. Frost sharps the middle music of the seasons, and all things living on the earth turn home again. The country is so big you cannot say the country has the same October. In Maine, the frost comes sharp and quick as driven nails; just for a week or so the woods, all of the bright and bitter leaves, flare15 up: the maples16 turn a blazing bitter red, and other leaves turn yellow like a living light, falling about you as you walk the woods, falling about you like small pieces of the sun, so that you cannot say where sunlight shakes and flutters on the ground and where the leaves.
“Meanwhile the Palisades are melting in massed molten colours, the season swings along the nation, and a little later in the South dense17 woodings on the hill begin to glow and soften18, and when they smell the burning wood-smoke in Ohio children say: ‘I’ll bet that there’s a forest fire in Michigan.’ And the mountaineer goes hunting down in North Carolina; he stays out late with mournful flop-eared hounds, a rind of moon comes up across the rude lift of the hills: what do his friends say to him when he stays out late? Full of hoarse19 innocence20 and laughter, they will say: ‘Mister, yore ole woman’s goin’ to whup ye if ye don’t go home.’”
Oh, return, return!
“October is the richest of the seasons: the fields are cut, the granaries are full, the bins21 are loaded to the brim with fatness, and from the cider-press the rich brown oozings of the York Imperials run. The bee bores to the belly22 of the yellowed grape, the fly gets old and fat and blue, he buzzes loud, crawls slow, creeps heavily to death on sill and ceiling, the sun goes down in blood and pollen3 across the bronzed and mown fields of old October.
“The corn is shocked: it sticks out in hard yellow rows upon dried ears, fit now for great red barns in Pennsylvania and the big stained teeth of crunching23 horses. The indolent hooves kick swiftly at the boards, the barn is sweet with hay and leather, wood and apples — this, and the clean dry crunching of the teeth is all: the sweat, the labour, and the plough are over. The late pears mellow24 on a sunny shelf; smoked hams hang to the warped25 barn rafters; the pantry shelves are loaded with 300 jars of fruit. Meanwhile the leaves are turning, turning, up in Maine, the chestnut26 burrs plop thickly to the earth in gusts27 of wind and in Virginia the chinkapins are falling.
“There is a smell of burning in small towns in afternoon, and men with buckles28 on their arms are raking leaves in yards as boys come by with straps29 slung30 back across their shoulders. The oak leaves, big and brown, are bedded deep in yard and gutter31: they make deep wadings to the knee for children in the streets. The fire will snap and crackle like a whip, sharp acrid32 smoke will sting the eyes, in mown fields the little vipers33 of the flame eat past the black coarse edges of burned stubble like a line of locusts34. Fire drives a thorn of memory in the heart.
“The bladed grass, a forest of small spears of ice, is thawed35 by noon: summer is over but the sun is warm again, and there are days throughout the land of gold and russet. But summer is dead and gone, the earth is waiting, suspense36 and ecstasy are gnawing37 at the hearts of men, the brooding prescience of frost is there. The sun flames red and bloody39 as it sets, there are old red glintings on the battered40 pails, the great barn gets the ancient light as the boy slops homeward with warm foaming42 milk. Great shadows lengthen43 in the fields, the old red light dies swiftly, and the sunset barking of the hounds is faint and far and full of frost: there are shrewd whistles to the dogs, and frost and silence — this is all. Wind stirs and scuffs44 and rattles45 up the old brown leaves, and through the night the great oak leaves keep falling.
“Trains cross the continent in a swirl46 of dust and thunder, the leaves fly down the tracks behind them: the great trains cleave47 through gulch48 and gulley, they rumble49 with spoked50 thunder on the bridges over the powerful brown wash of mighty51 rivers, they toil52 through hills, they skirt the rough brown stubble of shorn fields, they whip past empty stations in the little towns and their great stride pounds its even pulse across America. Field and hill and lift and gulch and hollow, mountain and plain and river, a wilderness53 with fallen trees across it, a thicket54 of bedded brown and twisted undergrowth, a plain, a desert, and a plantation55, a mighty landscape with no fenced niceness, an immensity of fold and convolution that can never be remembered, that can never be forgotten, that has never been described — weary with harvest, potent56 with every fruit and ore, the immeasurable richness embrowned with autumn, rank, crude, unharnessed, careless of scars or beauty, everlasting57 and magnificent, a cry, a space, an ecstasy! — American earth in old October.
“And the great winds howl and swoop58 across the land: they make a distant roaring in great trees, and boys in bed will stir in ecstasy, thinking of demons59 and vast swoopings through the earth. All through the night there is the clean, the bitter rain of acorns60, and the chestnut burrs are plopping to the ground.
“And often in the night there is only the living silence, the distant frosty barking of a dog, the small clumsy stir and feathery stumble of the chickens on limed roosts, and the moon, the low and heavy moon of autumn, now barred behind the leafless poles of pines, now at the pine-woods’ brooding edge and summit, now falling with ghost’s dawn of milky61 light upon rimed clods of fields and on the frosty scurf on pumpkins62, now whiter, smaller, brighter, hanging against the steeple’s slope, hanging the same way in a million streets, steeping all the earth in frost and silence.
“Then a chime of frost-cold bells may peal63 out on the brooding air, and people lying in their beds will listen. They will not speak or stir, silence will gnaw38 the darkness like a rat, but they will whisper in their hearts:
“‘Summer has come and gone, has come and gone. And now —?’ But they will say no more, they will have no more to say: they will wait listening, silent and brooding as the frost, to time, strange ticking time, dark time that haunts us with the briefness of our days. They will think of men long dead, of men now buried in the earth, of frost and silence long ago, of a forgotten face and moment of lost time, and they will think of things they have no words to utter.
“And in the night, in the dark, in the living sleeping silence of the towns, the million streets, they will hear the thunder of the fast express, the whistles of great ships upon the river.
“What will they say then? What will they say?”
Only the darkness moved about him as he lay there thinking, feeling in the darkness: a door creaked softly in the house.
“October is the season for returning: the bowels64 of youth are yearning65 with lost love. Their mouths are dry and bitter with desire: their hearts are torn with the thorns of spring. For lovely April, cruel and flowerful, will tear them with sharp joy and wordless lust66. Spring has no language but a cry; but crueller than April is the asp of time.
“October is the season for returning: even the town is born anew,” he thought. “The tide of life is at the full again, the rich return to business or to fashion, and the bodies of the poor are rescued out of heat and weariness. The ruin and horror of the summer are forgotten — a memory of hot cells and humid walls, a hell of ugly sweat and labour and distress67 and hopelessness, a limbo68 of pale greasy69 faces. Now joy and hope have revived again in the hearts of millions of people, they breathe the air again with hunger, their movements are full of life and energy. The mark of their summer’s suffering is still legible upon their flesh, there is something starved and patient in their eyes, and a look that has a child’s hope and expectation in it.
“All things on earth point home in old October: sailors to sea, travellers to walls and fences, hunters to field and hollow and the long voice of the hounds, the lover to the love he has forsaken70 — all things that live upon this earth return, return: Father, will you not, too, come back again?
“Where are you now, when all things on the earth come back again? For have not all these things been here before, have we not seen them, heard them, known then, and will they not live again for us as they did once, if only you come back again?
“Father, in the night-time, in the dark, I have heard the thunder of the fast express. In the night, in the dark, I have heard the howling of the winds among great trees, and the sharp and windy raining of the acorns. In the night, in the dark, I have heard the feet of rain upon the roofs, the glut71 and gurgle of the gutter spouts72, and the soaking gulping73 throat of all the mighty earth, drinking its thirst out in the month of May — and heard the sorrowful silence of the river in October. The hill-streams foam41 and welter in a steady plunge74, the mined clay drops and melts and eddies75 in the night, the snake coils cool and glistening76 under dripping ferns, the water roars down past the mill in one sheer sheet-like plunge, making a steady noise like wind, and in the night, in the dark, the river flows by us to the sea.
“The great maw slowly drinks the land as we lie sleeping: the mined banks cave and crumble77 in the dark, the earth melts and drops into its tide, great horns are baying in the gulph of night, great boats are baying at the river’s mouth. Thus, darkened by our dumpings, thickened by our stains, rich, rank, beautiful, and unending as all life, all living, the river, the dark immortal78 river, full of strange tragic79 time is flowing by us — by us — by us — to the sea.
“All this has been upon the earth and will abide80 for ever. But you are gone; our lives are ruined and broken in the night, our lives are mined below us by the river, our lives are whirled away into the sea and darkness and we are lost unless you come to give us life again.
“Come to us, Father, in the watches of the night, come to us as you always came, bringing to us the invincible81 sustenance82 of your strength, the limitless treasure of your bounty83, the tremendous structure of your life that will shape all lost and broken things on earth again into a golden pattern of exultancy and joy. Come to us, Father, while the winds howl in the darkness, for October has come again, bringing with it huge prophecies of death and life and the great cargo84 of the men who will return. For we are ruined, lost, and broken if you do not come, and our lives, like rotten chips, are whirled about us onward85 in darkness to the sea.”
So, thinking, feeling, speaking, he lay there in his mother’s house, but there was nothing in the house but silence and the moving darkness: storm shook the house and huge winds rushed upon them, and he knew then that his father would not come again and that all the life that he had known was now lost and broken as a dream.
点击收听单词发音
1 hues | |
色彩( hue的名词复数 ); 色调; 信仰; 观点 | |
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2 drowsy | |
adj.昏昏欲睡的,令人发困的 | |
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3 pollen | |
n.[植]花粉 | |
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4 haze | |
n.霾,烟雾;懵懂,迷糊;vi.(over)变模糊 | |
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5 exultancy | |
n.大喜,狂喜 | |
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6 phantoms | |
n.鬼怪,幽灵( phantom的名词复数 ) | |
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7 ecstasy | |
n.狂喜,心醉神怡,入迷 | |
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8 longing | |
n.(for)渴望 | |
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9 exultant | |
adj.欢腾的,狂欢的,大喜的 | |
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10 provender | |
n.刍草;秣料 | |
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11 rattled | |
慌乱的,恼火的 | |
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12 demon | |
n.魔鬼,恶魔 | |
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13 scampering | |
v.蹦蹦跳跳地跑,惊惶奔跑( scamper的现在分词 ) | |
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14 scampered | |
v.蹦蹦跳跳地跑,惊惶奔跑( scamper的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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15 flare | |
v.闪耀,闪烁;n.潮红;突发 | |
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16 maples | |
槭树,枫树( maple的名词复数 ); 槭木 | |
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17 dense | |
a.密集的,稠密的,浓密的;密度大的 | |
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18 soften | |
v.(使)变柔软;(使)变柔和 | |
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19 hoarse | |
adj.嘶哑的,沙哑的 | |
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20 innocence | |
n.无罪;天真;无害 | |
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21 bins | |
n.大储藏箱( bin的名词复数 );宽口箱(如面包箱,垃圾箱等)v.扔掉,丢弃( bin的第三人称单数 ) | |
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22 belly | |
n.肚子,腹部;(像肚子一样)鼓起的部分,膛 | |
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23 crunching | |
v.嘎吱嘎吱地咬嚼( crunch的现在分词 );嘎吱作响;(快速大量地)处理信息;数字捣弄 | |
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24 mellow | |
adj.柔和的;熟透的;v.变柔和;(使)成熟 | |
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25 warped | |
adj.反常的;乖戾的;(变)弯曲的;变形的v.弄弯,变歪( warp的过去式和过去分词 );使(行为等)不合情理,使乖戾, | |
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26 chestnut | |
n.栗树,栗子 | |
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27 gusts | |
一阵强风( gust的名词复数 ); (怒、笑等的)爆发; (感情的)迸发; 发作 | |
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28 buckles | |
搭扣,扣环( buckle的名词复数 ) | |
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29 straps | |
n.带子( strap的名词复数 );挎带;肩带;背带v.用皮带捆扎( strap的第三人称单数 );用皮带抽打;包扎;给…打绷带 | |
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30 slung | |
抛( sling的过去式和过去分词 ); 吊挂; 遣送; 押往 | |
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31 gutter | |
n.沟,街沟,水槽,檐槽,贫民窟 | |
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32 acrid | |
adj.辛辣的,尖刻的,刻薄的 | |
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33 vipers | |
n.蝰蛇( viper的名词复数 );毒蛇;阴险恶毒的人;奸诈者 | |
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34 locusts | |
n.蝗虫( locust的名词复数 );贪吃的人;破坏者;槐树 | |
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35 thawed | |
解冻 | |
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36 suspense | |
n.(对可能发生的事)紧张感,担心,挂虑 | |
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37 gnawing | |
a.痛苦的,折磨人的 | |
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38 gnaw | |
v.不断地啃、咬;使苦恼,折磨 | |
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39 bloody | |
adj.非常的的;流血的;残忍的;adv.很;vt.血染 | |
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40 battered | |
adj.磨损的;v.连续猛击;磨损 | |
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41 foam | |
v./n.泡沫,起泡沫 | |
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42 foaming | |
adj.布满泡沫的;发泡 | |
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43 lengthen | |
vt.使伸长,延长 | |
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44 scuffs | |
v.使磨损( scuff的第三人称单数 );拖着脚走 | |
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45 rattles | |
(使)发出格格的响声, (使)作嘎嘎声( rattle的第三人称单数 ); 喋喋不休地说话; 迅速而嘎嘎作响地移动,堕下或走动; 使紧张,使恐惧 | |
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46 swirl | |
v.(使)打漩,(使)涡卷;n.漩涡,螺旋形 | |
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47 cleave | |
v.(clave;cleaved)粘着,粘住;坚持;依恋 | |
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48 gulch | |
n.深谷,峡谷 | |
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49 rumble | |
n.隆隆声;吵嚷;v.隆隆响;低沉地说 | |
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50 spoked | |
辐条 | |
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51 mighty | |
adj.强有力的;巨大的 | |
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52 toil | |
vi.辛劳工作,艰难地行动;n.苦工,难事 | |
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53 wilderness | |
n.杳无人烟的一片陆地、水等,荒漠 | |
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54 thicket | |
n.灌木丛,树林 | |
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55 plantation | |
n.种植园,大农场 | |
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56 potent | |
adj.强有力的,有权势的;有效力的 | |
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57 everlasting | |
adj.永恒的,持久的,无止境的 | |
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58 swoop | |
n.俯冲,攫取;v.抓取,突然袭击 | |
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59 demons | |
n.恶人( demon的名词复数 );恶魔;精力过人的人;邪念 | |
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60 acorns | |
n.橡子,栎实( acorn的名词复数 ) | |
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61 milky | |
adj.牛奶的,多奶的;乳白色的 | |
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62 pumpkins | |
n.南瓜( pumpkin的名词复数 );南瓜的果肉,南瓜囊 | |
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63 peal | |
n.钟声;v.鸣响 | |
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64 bowels | |
n.肠,内脏,内部;肠( bowel的名词复数 );内部,最深处 | |
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65 yearning | |
a.渴望的;向往的;怀念的 | |
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66 lust | |
n.性(淫)欲;渴(欲)望;vi.对…有强烈的欲望 | |
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67 distress | |
n.苦恼,痛苦,不舒适;不幸;vt.使悲痛 | |
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68 limbo | |
n.地狱的边缘;监狱 | |
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69 greasy | |
adj. 多脂的,油脂的 | |
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70 Forsaken | |
adj. 被遗忘的, 被抛弃的 动词forsake的过去分词 | |
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71 glut | |
n.存货过多,供过于求;v.狼吞虎咽 | |
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72 spouts | |
n.管口( spout的名词复数 );(喷出的)水柱;(容器的)嘴;在困难中v.(指液体)喷出( spout的第三人称单数 );滔滔不绝地讲;喋喋不休地说;喷水 | |
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73 gulping | |
v.狼吞虎咽地吃,吞咽( gulp的现在分词 );大口地吸(气);哽住 | |
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74 plunge | |
v.跳入,(使)投入,(使)陷入;猛冲 | |
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75 eddies | |
(水、烟等的)漩涡,涡流( eddy的名词复数 ) | |
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76 glistening | |
adj.闪耀的,反光的v.湿物闪耀,闪亮( glisten的现在分词 ) | |
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77 crumble | |
vi.碎裂,崩溃;vt.弄碎,摧毁 | |
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78 immortal | |
adj.不朽的;永生的,不死的;神的 | |
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79 tragic | |
adj.悲剧的,悲剧性的,悲惨的 | |
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80 abide | |
vi.遵守;坚持;vt.忍受 | |
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81 invincible | |
adj.不可征服的,难以制服的 | |
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82 sustenance | |
n.食物,粮食;生活资料;生计 | |
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83 bounty | |
n.慷慨的赠予物,奖金;慷慨,大方;施与 | |
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84 cargo | |
n.(一只船或一架飞机运载的)货物 | |
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85 onward | |
adj.向前的,前进的;adv.向前,前进,在先 | |
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