They are still-burning, homely7 particles of night, that light the huge tent of the dark with their remembered fire, recalling the familiar hill, the native earth from which we came, from which we could have laid our finger on them, and making the great earth and home seem near, most near, to wanderers; and filling them with naked desolations of doorless, houseless, timeless, and unmeasured vacancy8.
And everywhere that year there was something secret, lonely, and immense that waited, that impended9, that was still. Something that promised numbly10, hugely, in the fog-numb air, and that never broke to any open sharpness, and that was almost keen and frosty October in remembered hills — oh, there was something there incredibly near and most familiar, only a word, a stride, a room, a door away — only a door away and never opened, only a door away and never found.
At night, in the lounging rooms of the old inn, crackling fires were blazing cheerfully, and people sat together drinking small cups of the black bitter liquid mud that they called coffee.
The people were mostly family groups who had come to visit their son or brother in the university. They were the most extraordinary, ugly, and distinguished11-looking people Eugene had ever seen. There was the father, often the best-looking of the lot: a man with a ruddy weathered face, a cropped white moustache, iron-grey hair — an open, driving, bull-dog look of the country carried with tremendous style. The mother was very ugly with a long horse-face and grimly weathered cheek-flanks that seemed to have the tough consistency12 of well-tanned leather. Her grim bare smile shone in her weathered face and was nailed for ever round the gauntness of her grinning teeth. She had a neighing voice, a shapeless figure, distinguished by the bony and angular width of the hip13 structure, clothed with fantastic dowdiness14 — fantastic because the men were dressed so well, and because everything they wore, no matter how old and used it might be, seemed beautiful and right.
The daughter had the mother’s look: a tall gawky girl with a bony, weathered face and a toothy mouth; she wore an ill-fitting evening or party dress of a light unpleasant blue, with a big meaningless rosette of ruffles15 at the waist. She had big feet, bony legs and arms, and she was wearing pumps of dreary16 grey and grey silk stockings.
The son was a little fellow with ruddy apple-cheeks, crisp, fair, curly hair, and baggy17 grey trousers; and there was another youth, one of his college friends, of the same cut and quality, who paid a dutiful but cold attention to the daughter, which she repaid in kind, and with which everyone was completely satisfied.
They had to be seen to be believed, but even then, one could only say, like the man who saw the giraffe: “I don’t believe it.” The young men sat stiffly on the edges of their chairs, holding their little cups of coffee in their hands, bent18 forward in an attitude of cold but respectful attentiveness19, and the conversation that went on among them was incredible. For their manner was impregnable; they were cold, remote, and formal almost to the point of military curtness21, and yet Eugene felt among them constantly an utter familiarity of affection, a strange secret warmth, past words or spoken vows23, that burned in them like glacial fire.
When you got ten or fifteen feet away from them their language could not have been more indecipherable if they had spoken in Chinese; but it was fascinating just to listen to the sounds. For there would be long mounting horse-like neighs, and then there would be reedy flute-like notes, and incisive24 cold finalities and clipped ejaculations and sometimes a lovely and most musical speech. But the horse-like neighs and clipped ejaculations would predominate; and suddenly Eugene understood how strange these people seemed to other races, and why Frenchmen, Germans, and Italians would sometimes stare at them with gape-mouthed stupefaction when they heard them talking.
Once when he passed by them they had the family vicar or some clergyman of their acquaintance with them. He was a mountain of a man, and he too, was hardly credible20: the huge creature was at least six and a half feet tall, and he must have weighed three hundred pounds. He had a flaming moon of face and jowl, at once most animal and delicate, and he peered out keenly with luminous25 smoke-grey eyes beneath a bushy hedge-growth of grey brows. He was dressed in the clerical garb26 and his bulging27 grossly sensual calves28 were encased in buttoned gaiters. As Eugene went by, he was leaning forward with his little cup of muddy coffee held delicately in the huge mutton of his hand, peering keenly out beneath his beetling29 bush of brow. And what he said was this:
“Did you ever read — that is, in recent y?hs — the concluding chaptahs in ‘The Vicah of Wakefield’?” Carefully he set the little cup down in its saucer. “I was reading it just the other day. It’s an extraordinary thing!” he said.
It is impossible to reproduce the sound of these simple words, or the effect they wrought30 upon Eugene’s senses.
For, first, the words “Did you ever” were delivered in a delicate rising-and-falling neigh, the word “read” really came out with a long reedy sound, the words “that is, in recent y?hs,” in a parenthesis31 of sweetly gentle benevolence32, the phrase “the concluding chaptahs in ‘The Vicah of Wakefield’” in full, deliberate, satisfied tones of titular33 respect, the phrase “I was reading it just the other day,” thoughtfully, reedily, with a subdued34, gentle, and mellow35 reminiscence, and the final decisive phrase, “It’s an extraordinary thing,” with passionate conviction and sincerity36 that passed at the end into such an unction of worshipful admiration37 that the words “extraordinary thing” were not spoken but breathed out passionately38, and had the sound “‘STRAWD’N’RY thing!”
“Ow!” the young man answered distantly, and in a rather surprised tone, with an air of coldly startled interest, “Now! I can’t say that I have — not since my nursery days, at any rate!” He laughed metallically39.
“You should read it again,” the mountainous creature breathed unctuously40. “A ‘STRAWD’N’RY thing! A ‘STRAWD’N’RY thing.” Delicately he lifted the little cup of muddy black in his huge hand again and put it to his lips.
“But FRIGHTFULLY sentimental41, down’t you think?” the girl neighed sharply at this point. “I mean all the lovely-woman-stoops-to-folly42 sawt of thing, you know. After all, it is a bit thick to expect people to swallow THAT nowadays,” she neighed, “particularly after all that’s happened in the last twenty y?hs. I suppose it mattuhed in the eighteenth centureh, but after all,” she neighed with an impatient scorn, “who cares today? Who cares,” she went on recklessly, “WHAT lovely woman stoops to? I cawn’t see that it makes the SLIGHTEST difference. It’s not as if it mattuhed any longah! No one cares!”
“Ow!” the young man said with his air of coldly startled interest. “Yes, I think I follow you, but I don’t entirely43 agree. How can we be certain what IS sentimental and what’s not?”
“But it seems to me that he misses the whole point!” the girl exclaimed with one full, mouth-like rush. “After all,” she went on scornfully, “no one is interested in woman’s folly any longah — the ruined-maiden broken-vows sawt of thing. If that was what she got she should have jolly well known what she wanted to begin with! I’LL not waste any pity on her,” she said grimly. “The greatest folly is not knowin’ what you want to do! The whole point today is to live as cleveleh as possible! That’s the only thing that mattahs! If you know what you want and go about it cleveleh, the rest of it will take care of itself.”
“Um,” the mother now remarked, her gaunt bare smile set grimly, formidably, on her weathered face. “That takes a bit of doin’, DOESN’T it?” And as she spoke22 these quiet words her grim smile never faltered44 for an instant and there was a hard, an obdurate45, an almost savage46 irony47 in her intonation48, which left them all completely unperturbed.
“Oh, a ‘STRAWD’N’RY thing! A ‘STRAWD’N’RY thing!” the huge clerical creature whispered dreamily at this point, as if he had not heard them. And delicately he set his little cup back on the saucer.
Eugene’s first impulse when he saw and heard them was to shout with an astounded49 laughter — and yet, somehow, one never laughed. They had a formidable and impregnable quality that silenced laughter: a quality that was so assured in its own sense of inevitable50 rightness that it saw no other way except its own, and was so invincibly51 sure in its own way that it was indifferent to all others. It could be taken among strange lands and alien faces, and to the farthest and most savage colonies on earth, and would never change or alter by a jot52.
Yes, they had found a way, a door, a room to enter, and there were walls about them now, and the way was theirs. The mark of dark time and the architecture of unnumbered centuries of years were on them, and had made them what they were; and what they were, they were, and would not change.
Eugene did not know if their way was a good way, but he knew it was not his. Their door was one he could not enter. And suddenly the naked empty desolation filled his life again, and he was walking on beneath the timeless sky, and had no wall at which to hurl53 his strength, no door to enter by, and no purpose for the furious unemployment of his soul. And now the worm was eating at his heart again. He felt the slow interminable waste and wear of grey time all about him and his life was passing in the darkness, and all the time a voice kept saying: “Why? Why am I here now? And where shall I go?”
When Eugene got out into the High Street after dinner, the dark air would be thronging54 with the music of great bells, and there would be a smell of fog and smoke and old October in the air, the premonitory thrill and menace of some intolerable and nameless joy. Often at night, the visage of the sky would by some magic be released from the thick greyness that had covered it by day, and would shine forth55 barely, blazing with flashing and magnificent stars.
And, as the old bells thronged56 through the smoky air, the students would be passing along the street, singly or in groups of two or three, briskly, and with the eager haste that told of meetings to come, appointments to be kept, the expectation of some good fortune, happiness, or pleasure toward which they hurried on.
The soft glow of lights would shine from the ancient windows of the colleges, and one could hear the faint sounds of voices, laughter, sometimes music.
Then Eugene would go to different pubs and drink until the closing time. Sometimes the proctors would come into a pub where he was drinking, speak amicably57 to everyone, and in a moment more go out again.
Somehow he always hoped that they would take him for a student. He could see them stepping up to him, as he stood there at the bar, saying courteously58, yet gravely and sternly:
“Your name and college, sir?”
Then he could see the look of astonished disbelief on their grim red faces when he told them he was not a student, and at last, when he had convinced them, he could hear their crestfallen60 muttered-out apologies, and would graciously excuse them.
But the proctors never spoke to him, and the bar-man, seeing him look at them as they went out one night, misunderstood the look and laughed with cheerful reassurance61:
“You’ve nothing at all to worry about, sir. They won’t bother you. It’s only the gentlemen at the university they’re after.”
“How do they know I’m not there?”
“That I couldn’t tell you, sir,” he answered cheerfully, “but they ‘ave a way of knowin’! Ah, yes!” he said with satisfaction, slapping a wet cloth down upon the bar. “They ‘ave a way of knowin’, right enough! They’re a clever lot, those chaps. A very clever lot, sir, and they always ‘ave a way of knowin’ when you’re not.” And smiling cheerfully, he made a vigorous parting swipe across the wood, and put the cloth away below the counter.
Eugene’s glass was almost empty and he looked at it, and wondered if he ought to have another. He thought they made them very small, and kept thinking of the governors of North and South Carolina. It was a fine, warm, open sort of pub, and there was a big fire-place just behind him, crackling smartly with a fire of blazing coals: he could feel the warmth upon his back. Outside, in the fog-numb air, people came by with lonely rapid footsteps and were lost in fog-numb air again.
At this moment the bar-maid, who had bronze-red hair and the shrewd witty62 visage of a parrot, turned and called out in a cheerful, crisply peremptory63 tone: “Time, please, gentlemen. Closing time.”
Eugene put the glass down empty on the bar again. He wondered what the way of knowing was.
It was October, about the middle of the month, at the opening of the Michaelmas term. Everywhere there was the exultant thrill and bustle64 of returning, of a new life, a new adventure beginning in an ancient and beautiful place that was itself enriched by the countless65 lives and adventures of hundreds of years which had come and gone. In the morning there was the smoky old-gold yellow of the sun, the numb excitement of the foggy air, a smell of good tobacco, beer, grilled66 kidneys, ham and sausages, and grilled tomatoes, a faint nostalgic smell of tea, and incredibly, somehow, in that foggy old-gold light, a smell of coffee — an intolerable, maddening, false, delusive67 smell, for when one went to find the coffee it would not be there: the coffee was black liquid mud, bitter, lifeless, and undrinkable.
Everything was very expensive and yet it made you feel rich yourself just to look at it. The little shops, the wine shops with their bay windows of small leaded glass, and the crusty opulence68 of the bottles of old port and sherry and the burgundies, the mellow homely warmth and quietness of the interior, the tailor shops, the tobacco shops with their selected grades of fine tobacco stored in ancient crocks, the little bell that tinkled69 thinly as you went in from the street, the decorous, courteous59, yet suavely71 good-natured proprietor72 behind the counter, who had the ruddy cheeks, the flowing brown moustache and the wing-collar of the shopkeeper of solid substance, and who would hold the crock below your nose to let you smell the moist fragrance73 of a rare tobacco before you bought, and would offer you one of his best cigarettes before you left — all of this gave somehow to the simplest acts of life and business a ritualistic warmth and sanctity, and made you feel wealthy and secure.
And everywhere around Eugene in the morning there was the feeling of an imminent74 recovery, a recapture of a life that had always been his own. The buildings seemed to come from some essence of reality he had always known, but had never seen, and could scarcely believe in now, even when he put his hand upon the weathered surface of the stone.
And this look kept shining at him through the faces of the people. Sometimes it was in the faces of the college boys, but more often he saw it in the people of the town. It was in the faces of tradesmen — people in butcher shops, wine shops, clothing stores — and sometimes it was in the faces of women, at once common, fine, familiar, curiously75 delicate and serene76, going to the markets, in the foggy old-bronze light of morning, and of men who passed by wearing derby hats and with wing collars. It was in the faces of a man and his son, good-humoured little red-faced bullocks, packed with life, who ran a pub in the Cowley Road near the house where, later, he went to live.
It was a look round, full, ruddy, and serene in its good nature and had more openness and mellow humour in it than Eugene had found in the faces of the people in New England. It was more like the look of country people and small-town people in the South. Sometimes it had the open tranquil77 ruddiness, the bovine78 and self-satisfied good humour of his uncle, Crockett Pentland, and sometimes it was like Mr. Bailey, the policeman, whom the negro killed one winter’s night, when snow was on the ground and all the bells began to ring. And then it was full and hearty79 like the face of Mr. Ernest Pegram, who was the City Plumber80 and lived next door to Eugene’s father, or it was plump, common, kindly81, invincibly provincial82, ignorant and domestic, like the face of Mrs. Higginson, who lived across the street, and had herself been born in England, who had a family of eight children and three baking days a week, and was a playing, singing, and fanatic83 Baptist; yet on her common kindly face was the same animal, gentle, smoke-like delicacy84 of expression round the mouth that some of these men and women had.
It was a life that seemed so near to Eugene that he could lay his hand on it and make it his at any moment. He seemed to have returned to a room he had always known, and to have paused for a moment, without any doubt or perturbation of the soul, outside the door.
But he never found the door, or turned the knob, or stepped into the room. When he got there he couldn’t find it. It was as near as his hand if he could only reach it, only as high as his heart and yet he could not reach it, only a hand’s breadth off if he would span it, a word away if he would speak it. Only a stride, a move, a step away was all the peace, the certitude, the joy — and home for ever — for which his life was panting, and he was drowning in the darkness.
He never found it. The old smoke-gold of morning would be full of hope and joy and imminent discovery but afternoon would come and the soft grey humid skies pressed down on him with their huge numb waste and weight and weariness of intolerable time, and the empty naked desolation filled his body.
He would walk that legendary85 street past all those visible and enchanted86 substances of time and see the students passing through the college gates, the unbelievable velvet87 green of college quads88, and see the huge dark room of peace and joy that time had made, and he had no way of getting into it.
Each day he walked about the town and breathed the accursed languid softness of grey foreign air, that had no bite or sparkle in it, and went by all their fabulous89 age-encrusted walls of Gothic time, and wondered what in the name of God he had to do with all their walls or towers, or how he could feed his hunger on the portraits of the Spanish king, and why he was there, why he had come!
Sometimes it was just a word, the intonation of a phrase — the way they would say “VERY” or “AMERican,” which chilled and withered90 all the ardours of the heart, or the way they would say “Thank YOU!” when you paid for something, crisply, courteously, yet with a quick, cautious, and obdurate finality, as if someone had swiftly and firmly closed a door lest you should try to enter it. Eugene could listen to them talk and hear all the words, the moods and tones of life and humour that he had known all his life, until it seemed that he could foresee the very stories they were going to tell, the very situations they were going to describe — and then in an instant all the familiar pattern of their speech would vanish, and their words could not have been stranger to him had they spoken in a foreign tongue.
Thus, as Eugene looked at the young undergraduates playing in the fields below the house, their shouts and cries, the boyish roughness of their play, their strong scurfed knees, and panting breath, evoked91 the image of a life so familiar to him that he felt all he had to do to enter it again was to walk across the velvet width of lawn that separated him from it. But if he passed these same people two hours later in the High Street, their lives, their words were stranger than in a dream, or they seemed to have an incredible fictitious92 quality that made everything they did or said seem false, mannered, and affected93, so that when he listened to them he had a feeling of resentment94 and contempt for them as if they spoke and moved with the palpable falseness of actors.
Eugene would see two young fellows before a college gate, and one, fragile of structure, with a small lean head, a sheaf of straight blond hair and thin sensitive features which were yet sharply and strongly marked, would be talking to another youth, his hands thrust jauntily95 into the pockets of his baggy grey trousers as he talked and the worn elegance96 of his baggy coat falling across his hands in folds of jaunty97 well-worn smartness.
“I say!” the youth would be saying in his crisp, rapid, sharply blurred98 inflections that seemed to come out of lips that barely moved. “Where WERE you last night? We missed you at the party in old Lambert’s rooms, you know. Everyone wondered why you didn’t turn up.”
“Oh,” the other said (but the way he said this word sounded almost like “Ow” to Eugene). “Did they? I’m frightfully sorry to have missed it, but I simply couldn’t get th?h. Had dinner with a chap I know at Magdalen. His sister’s down for a day or so, and later on I simply couldn’t break away. — How was the party?”
“Ow!” the other cried, casting his head back with a strong quick movement and an exultant little laugh. “Ripping! Simply ripping! What a shame you had to miss it! Old Fenton got quite squiffy about ten o’clock,” he went on affectionately and with his exultant little laugh, “and really it was priceless! He insisted on doing an imitation of Queen Victoria sitting down to read The Times — Ow!” he cried exultantly99 again, casting his head up with a sharp strong movement, “the whole thing was convulsing! — To see old Fenton SETTLE down!” he cried, “to see him LOOK round SUSPICIOUSLY,” he whispered, still maintaining the perfect dramatic sharpness of his inflection as he looked round with a descriptive gesture, “to see him wait UNEASILY to see what’s going to happen — finally to see the look of BLISSFUL satisfaction and contentment gradually STEALING over his face,” he whispered rapturously, “as he settles back to read The Times in peace — OW!” he cried again, as he cast back his small head with an exultant laugh, “— the whole thing was really TOO superb! — it really was, you know! Lambert was quite convulsed! We had to lift him up and stretch him out upon the bed before he got his breath again.”
In conversations such as these, in the choice and accent of the words, the sharp crisp and yet blurred inflections of the speech, even in the jaunty nonchalance100 of hands in pockets, the hang and fold of the coat, in the exultant little laugh and the sharp strong upward movement of the small lean head, there was something alien, suave70, and old. To Eugene it seemed to be the style of a life that was far older, more suavely knowing and mature, than any he had ever known, so that at such a time as this, these young boys who on the playing fields had almost the appearance of tousled overgrown urchins101, now seemed far more assured and sophisticated than he could ever be.
At the same time, the sound and inflection of their words — their assured exercise of a style of language that knew exactly where to use and how to inflect such words as “very,” “quite,” “superb,” “priceless,” “terribly,” “marvellous,” and so on — this style and use seemed to Eugene almost false, fictional102, affected, and theatrical103.
He felt this way chiefly because he had read about such people all his life in books and for the most part had heard them speak in this manner only in smart plays upon the stage. He was always connecting these young Englishmen with actors in the theatre, and for a moment his mind would resentfully accuse them of being nothing but cheap and affected actors themselves and, bitterly, of “trying to talk with an English accent”— a phrase which obviously had no meaning, since they were only speaking their own language in the way they had been taught to speak it.
But then, at tea-time, Eugene would see these youths again in Buol’s, flirting104, with the clumsy na?veté of a grubby schoolboy, with a leering rawboned hag of a waitress, and obviously getting the thrill of their lives from the spurious grins which this dilapidated strumpet flashed at them through her artificial teeth. Or, as he went up the road towards his house at night, he would pass them standing105 in the dark shadows of the stormy trees, with their arms clumsily clasped around the buttocks of a servant girl, and their lives seemed unbelievably young, naked, and innocent again.
Around Eugene was the whole structure of an enchanted life — a life hauntingly familiar and just the way he had always known it would be-and now that he was there, he had no way of getting into it. The inn itself was ancient, legendary, beautiful, elfin, like all the inns he had ever read about, and yet all of the cheer, the warmth, the joy and comfort he had dreamed of finding in an inn was lacking.
Upstairs the halls went crazily up and down at different levels, one mounted steps, went down again, got lost and turned around in the bewildering design of the ancient added-on-to structure — and this was the way he had always known it would be. But the rooms were small, cold, dark, and dreary, the lights were dim and dismal106, you stayed out of your room as much as possible and when you went to bed at night you crawled in trembling between clammy sheets, and huddled107 there until the bed was warm. When you got up in the morning there was a small jug108 of warm water at your door with which to shave, but the jug was too small, you poured it out into the bowl and shaved yourself and added cold water from the pitcher109, then, in order to get enough to wash your face and hands. Then you got out of the room and went downstairs as quickly as you could.
Downstairs it would be fine. There would be a brisk fire crackling in the hearth110, the old smoke-gold of morning and the smell of fog, the crisp cheerful voices of the people and their ruddy competent morning look, and the cheerful smells of breakfast, which was always liberal and good, the best meal that they had: kidneys and ham and eggs and sausages and toast and marmalade and tea.
But at night there would come the huge boiled-flannel111 splendour of the dinner, the magnificent and prayerful service of the waiter, who served you with such reverent112 grace from heavy silver platters that you felt the food must be as good as everything looked. But it never was.
Eugene ate at a large table, in the centre of the dining-room, provided by a thoughtful management for such isolated113 waifs and strays as himself. The food looked very good, and was, according to the genius of the nation, tasteless. How they ever did it he could never tell: everything was of the highest quality and you chewed upon it mournfully, wearily, swallowing it with the dreary patience of a man who has been condemned114 for ever to an exclusive diet of boiled unseasoned spinach115. There was a kind of evil sorcery, a desolate116 and fathomless117 mystery in the way they could take the choicest meats and vegetables and extract all the succulence and native flavour from them, and then serve them up to you magnificently with every atom of their former life reduced to the general character of stewed118 hay or well-boiled flannel.
There would be a thick heavy soup of dark mahogany, a piece of boiled fish covered with a nameless, tasteless sauce of glutinous119 white, roast beef that had been done to death in dish-water, and solid, perfect, lovely brussels sprouts120 for whose taste there was no name whatever. It might have been the taste of boiled wet ashes, or the taste of stewed green leaves, with all the bitterness left out, pressed almost dry of moisture, or simply the taste of boiled clouds and rain and fog. For dessert, there would be a pudding of some quivery yellow substance, beautifully moulded, which was surrounded by a thin sweetish fluid of a sticky pink. And at the end there would be a cup of black, bitter, liquid mud.
Eugene felt as if these dreary ghosts of food would also come to life at any moment, if he could only do some single simple thing — make the gesture of an incantation, or say a prayer, or speak a magic word, a word he almost had, but couldn’t quite remember.
The food plagued his soul with misery121, bitter disappointment, and bewilderment. For Eugene liked to eat, and they had written about food better than anyone on earth. Since his childhood there had burned in his mind a memory of the food they wrote about. It was a memory drawn122 from a thousand books (of which Quentin Durward, curiously, was one), but most of all it came from that tremendous scene in Tom Brown at Rugby, which described the boy’s ride with his father through the frosty darkness, in an English stage-coach, the pause for breakfast at an inn, and the appearance of the host, jolly, red-faced, hospitable123, who had rushed out to welcome them.
Eugene could remember with a gluttonous124 delight the breakfast which that hungry boy had devoured125. It was a memory so touched with the magic relish126 of frost and darkness, smoking horses, the thrill, the ecstasy127 of the journey and a great adventure, the cheer, the warmth, the bustle of the inn, and the delicious abundance of the food they gave the boy, that the whole thing was evoked with blazing vividness, and now it would almost drive Eugene mad with hunger when he thought of it.
Now it seemed to him that these people had written so magnificently about good food not because they always had it, but because they had it rarely and therefore made great dreams and fantasies about it, and it seemed to him that this same quality — the quality of LACK rather than of POSSESSION, of desire rather than fulfilment — had got into everything they did, and made them dream great dreams, and do heroic acts, and had enriched their lives immeasurably.
They had been the greatest poets in the world because the love and substance of great poetry were so rare among them. Their poems were so full of the essential quality of sunlight because their lives had known sunlight briefly128, and so shot through with the massy substance of essential gold (a matchless triumph of light and colour and material in which they have beaten the whole world by every standard of comparison) because their lives had known so much fog and rain, so little gold. And they had spoken best of April because April was so brief with them.
Thus from the grim grey of their skies they had alchemied gold, and from their hunger, glorious food, and from the raw bleakness129 of their lives and weathers they had drawn magic. And what was good among them had been won sternly, sparely, bitterly, from all that was ugly, dull, and painful in their lives, and, when it came, was more rare and beautiful than anything on earth.
But that also was theirs: it was another door Eugene could not enter.
点击
收听单词发音
收听单词发音 |
1
numb
|
|
| adj.麻木的，失去感觉的；v.使麻木 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
2
exultant
|
|
| adj.欢腾的，狂欢的，大喜的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
3
secrecies
|
|
| 保密（secrecy的复数形式） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
|
4
impending
|
|
| a.imminent, about to come or happen | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
5
passionate
|
|
| adj.热情的，热烈的，激昂的，易动情的，易怒的，性情暴躁的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
6
dilemma
|
|
| n.困境，进退两难的局面 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
7
homely
|
|
| adj.家常的，简朴的；不漂亮的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
8
vacancy
|
|
| n.（旅馆的）空位，空房，（职务的）空缺 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
9
impended
|
|
| v.进行威胁，即将发生( impend的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
10
numbly
|
|
| adv.失去知觉，麻木 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
11
distinguished
|
|
| adj.卓越的，杰出的，著名的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
12
consistency
|
|
| n.一贯性，前后一致，稳定性；(液体的)浓度 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
13
hip
|
|
| n.臀部，髋；屋脊 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
14
dowdiness
|
|
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
15
ruffles
|
|
| 褶裥花边( ruffle的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
16
dreary
|
|
| adj.令人沮丧的，沉闷的，单调乏味的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
17
baggy
|
|
| adj.膨胀如袋的，宽松下垂的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
18
bent
|
|
| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
19
attentiveness
|
|
| [医]注意 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
20
credible
|
|
| adj.可信任的，可靠的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
21
curtness
|
|
| n.简短；草率；简略 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
22
spoke
|
|
| 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 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
23
vows
|
|
| 誓言( vow的名词复数 )； 郑重宣布，许愿 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
24
incisive
|
|
| adj.敏锐的，机敏的，锋利的，切入的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
25
luminous
|
|
| adj.发光的，发亮的；光明的；明白易懂的；有启发的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
26
garb
|
|
| n.服装，装束 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
27
bulging
|
|
| 膨胀； 凸出（部）； 打气； 折皱 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
28
calves
|
|
| n.(calf的复数)笨拙的男子，腓；腿肚子( calf的名词复数 )；牛犊；腓；小腿肚v.生小牛( calve的第三人称单数 )；（冰川）崩解；生（小牛等），产（犊）；使（冰川）崩解 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
29
beetling
|
|
| adj.突出的，悬垂的v.快速移动( beetle的现在分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
30
wrought
|
|
| v.引起；以…原料制作；运转；adj.制造的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
31
parenthesis
|
|
| n.圆括号，插入语，插曲，间歇，停歇 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
32
benevolence
|
|
| n.慈悲，捐助 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
33
titular
|
|
| adj.名义上的，有名无实的；n.只有名义（或头衔）的人 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
34
subdued
|
|
| adj. 屈服的，柔和的，减弱的 动词subdue的过去式和过去分词 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
35
mellow
|
|
| adj.柔和的；熟透的；v.变柔和；(使)成熟 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
36
sincerity
|
|
| n.真诚，诚意；真实 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
37
admiration
|
|
| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
38
passionately
|
|
| ad.热烈地，激烈地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
39
metallically
|
|
| 金属的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
40
unctuously
|
|
| adv.油腻地，油腔滑调地；假惺惺 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
|
41
sentimental
|
|
| adj.多愁善感的，感伤的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
42
folly
|
|
| n.愚笨，愚蠢，蠢事，蠢行，傻话 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
43
entirely
|
|
| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
44
faltered
|
|
| （嗓音）颤抖( falter的过去式和过去分词 )； 支吾其词； 蹒跚； 摇晃 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
45
obdurate
|
|
| adj.固执的，顽固的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
46
savage
|
|
| adj.野蛮的；凶恶的，残暴的；n.未开化的人 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
47
irony
|
|
| n.反语，冷嘲；具有讽刺意味的事，嘲弄 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
48
intonation
|
|
| n.语调，声调；发声 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
49
astounded
|
|
| v.使震惊(astound的过去式和过去分词)；愕然；愕；惊讶 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
50
inevitable
|
|
| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
51
invincibly
|
|
| adv.难战胜地，无敌地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
52
jot
|
|
| n.少量；vi.草草记下；vt.匆匆写下 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
53
hurl
|
|
| vt.猛投，力掷，声叫骂 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
54
thronging
|
|
| v.成群，挤满( throng的现在分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
55
forth
|
|
| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
56
thronged
|
|
| v.成群，挤满( throng的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
57
amicably
|
|
| adv.友善地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
58
courteously
|
|
| adv.有礼貌地，亲切地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
59
courteous
|
|
| adj.彬彬有礼的，客气的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
60
crestfallen
|
|
| adj. 挫败的，失望的，沮丧的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
61
reassurance
|
|
| n.使放心，使消除疑虑 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
62
witty
|
|
| adj.机智的，风趣的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
63
peremptory
|
|
| adj.紧急的，专横的，断然的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
64
bustle
|
|
| v.喧扰地忙乱，匆忙，奔忙；n.忙碌；喧闹 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
65
countless
|
|
| adj.无数的，多得不计其数的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
66
grilled
|
|
| adj. 烤的, 炙过的, 有格子的 动词grill的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
67
delusive
|
|
| adj.欺骗的，妄想的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
68
opulence
|
|
| n.财富，富裕 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
69
tinkled
|
|
| （使）发出丁当声，（使）发铃铃声( tinkle的过去式和过去分词 )； 叮当响着发出，铃铃响着报出 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
70
suave
|
|
| adj.温和的；柔和的；文雅的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
71
suavely
|
|
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
72
proprietor
|
|
| n.所有人；业主；经营者 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
73
fragrance
|
|
| n.芬芳，香味，香气 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
74
imminent
|
|
| adj.即将发生的，临近的，逼近的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
75
curiously
|
|
| adv.有求知欲地；好问地；奇特地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
76
serene
|
|
| adj. 安详的，宁静的，平静的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
77
tranquil
|
|
| adj. 安静的, 宁静的, 稳定的, 不变的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
78
bovine
|
|
| adj.牛的；n.牛 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
79
hearty
|
|
| adj.热情友好的；衷心的；尽情的，纵情的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
80
plumber
|
|
| n.(装修水管的)管子工 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
81
kindly
|
|
| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
82
provincial
|
|
| adj.省的，地方的；n．外省人，乡下人 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
83
fanatic
|
|
| n.狂热者，入迷者；adj.狂热入迷的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
84
delicacy
|
|
| n.精致，细微，微妙，精良；美味，佳肴 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
85
legendary
|
|
| adj.传奇（中）的，闻名遐迩的；n.传奇（文学） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
86
enchanted
|
|
| adj. 被施魔法的，陶醉的，入迷的 动词enchant的过去式和过去分词 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
87
velvet
|
|
| n.丝绒，天鹅绒；adj.丝绒制的，柔软的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
88
quads
|
|
| n.四倍( quad的名词复数 )；空铅；（大学的）四周有建筑物围绕的方院；四胞胎之一 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
89
fabulous
|
|
| adj.极好的；极为巨大的；寓言中的，传说中的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
90
withered
|
|
| adj. 枯萎的，干瘪的，（人身体的部分器官）因病萎缩的或未发育良好的 动词wither的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
91
evoked
|
|
| [医]诱发的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
92
fictitious
|
|
| adj.虚构的，假设的；空头的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
93
affected
|
|
| adj.不自然的，假装的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
94
resentment
|
|
| n.怨愤，忿恨 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
95
jauntily
|
|
| adv.心满意足地；洋洋得意地；高兴地；活泼地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
96
elegance
|
|
| n.优雅；优美，雅致；精致，巧妙 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
97
jaunty
|
|
| adj．愉快的，满足的；adv.心满意足地，洋洋得意地；n.心满意足；洋洋得意 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
98
blurred
|
|
| v.（使）变模糊( blur的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）难以区分；模模糊糊；迷离 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
99
exultantly
|
|
| adv.狂欢地，欢欣鼓舞地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
100
nonchalance
|
|
| n.冷淡，漠不关心 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
101
urchins
|
|
| n.顽童( urchin的名词复数 )；淘气鬼；猬；海胆 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
102
fictional
|
|
| adj.小说的，虚构的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
103
theatrical
|
|
| adj.剧场的，演戏的；做戏似的，做作的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
104
flirting
|
|
| v.调情，打情骂俏( flirt的现在分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
105
standing
|
|
| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
106
dismal
|
|
| adj.阴沉的，凄凉的，令人忧郁的，差劲的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
107
huddled
|
|
| 挤在一起（huddle的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
108
jug
|
|
| n.(有柄，小口，可盛水等的)大壶，罐，盂 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
109
pitcher
|
|
| n.(有嘴和柄的)大水罐；(棒球)投手 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
110
hearth
|
|
| n.壁炉炉床，壁炉地面 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
111
flannel
|
|
| n.法兰绒；法兰绒衣服 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
112
reverent
|
|
| adj.恭敬的，虔诚的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
113
isolated
|
|
| adj.与世隔绝的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
114
condemned
|
|
| adj. 被责难的, 被宣告有罪的 动词condemn的过去式和过去分词 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
115
spinach
|
|
| n.菠菜 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
116
desolate
|
|
| adj.荒凉的，荒芜的；孤独的，凄凉的；v.使荒芜，使孤寂 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
117
fathomless
|
|
| a.深不可测的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
118
stewed
|
|
| adj.焦虑不安的，烂醉的v.炖( stew的过去式和过去分词 )；煨；思考；担忧 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
119
glutinous
|
|
| adj.粘的，胶状的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
120
sprouts
|
|
| n.新芽，嫩枝( sprout的名词复数 )v.发芽( sprout的第三人称单数 )；抽芽；出现；（使）涌现出 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
121
misery
|
|
| n.痛苦，苦恼，苦难；悲惨的境遇，贫苦 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
122
drawn
|
|
| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
123
hospitable
|
|
| adj.好客的；宽容的；有利的，适宜的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
124
gluttonous
|
|
| adj.贪吃的，贪婪的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
125
devoured
|
|
| 吞没( devour的过去式和过去分词 )； 耗尽； 津津有味地看； 狼吞虎咽地吃光 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
126
relish
|
|
| n.滋味，享受，爱好，调味品；vt.加调味料，享受，品味；vi.有滋味 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
127
ecstasy
|
|
| n.狂喜，心醉神怡，入迷 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
128
briefly
|
|
| adv.简单地，简短地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
129
bleakness
|
|
| adj. 萧瑟的, 严寒的, 阴郁的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
| 欢迎访问英文小说网 |