As time went by our need to fight for the ideal increased to an unquestioning possession, riding with spur and rein6 over our doubts. Willy-nilly it became a faith. We had sold ourselves into its slavery, manacled ourselves together in its chain-gang, bowed ourselves to serve its holiness with all our good and ill content. The mentality7 of ordinary human slaves is terrible — they have lost the world — and we had surrendered, not body alone, but soul to the overmastering greed of victory. By our own act we were drained of morality, of volition8, of responsibility, like dead leaves in the wind.
The everlasting9 battle stripped from us care of our own lives or of others’. We had ropes about our necks, and on our heads prices which showed that the enemy intended hideous10 tortures for us if we were caught. Each day some of us passed; and the living knew themselves just sentient11 puppets on God’s stage: indeed, our taskmaster was merciless, merciless, so long as our bruised12 feet could stagger forward on the road. The weak envied those tired enough to die; for success looked so remote, and failure a near and certain, if sharp, release from toil13. We lived always in the stretch or sag14 of nerves, either on the crest15 or in the trough of waves of feeling. This impotency was bitter to us, and made us live only for the seen horizon, reckless what spite we inflicted16 or endured, since physical sensation showed itself meanly transient. Gusts17 of cruelty, perversions18, lusts19 ran lightly over the surface without troubling us; for the moral laws which had seemed to hedge about these silly accidents must be yet fainter words. We had learned that there were pangs20 too sharp, griefs too deep, ecstasies21 too high for our finite selves to register. When emotion reached this pitch the mind choked; and memory went white till the circumstances were humdrum22 once more.
Such exaltation of thought, while it let adrift the spirit, and gave it licence in strange airs, lost it the old patient rule over the body. The body was too coarse to feel the utmost of our sorrows and of our joys. Therefore, we abandoned it as rubbish: we left it below us to march forward, a breathing simulacrum, on its own unaided level, subject to influences from which in normal times our instincts would have shrunk. The men were young and sturdy; and hot flesh and blood unconsciously claimed a right in them and tormented23 their bellies24 with strange longings25. Our privations and dangers fanned this virile26 heat, in a climate as racking as can be conceived. We had no shut places to be alone in, no thick clothes to hide our nature. Man in all things lived candidly27 with man.
The Arab was by nature continent; and the use of universal marriage had nearly abolished irregular courses in his tribes. The public women of the rare settlements we encountered in our months of wandering would have been nothing to our numbers, even had their raddled meat been palatable28 to a man of healthy parts. In horror of such sordid29 commerce our youths began indifferently to slake30 one another’s few needs in their own clean bodies — a cold convenience that, by comparison, seemed sexless and even pure. Later, some began to justify31 this sterile32 process, and swore that friends quivering together in the yielding sand with intimate hot limbs in supreme33 embrace, found there hidden in the darkness a sensual co-efficient of the mental passion which was welding our souls and spirits in one flaming effort. Several, thirsting to punish appetites they could not wholly prevent, took a savage34 pride in degrading the body, and offered themselves fiercely in any habit which promised physical pain or filth35.
I was sent to these Arabs as a stranger, unable to think their thoughts or subscribe36 their beliefs, but charged by duty to lead them forward and to develop to the highest any movement of theirs profitable to England in her war. If I could not assume their character, I could at least conceal37 my own, and pass among them without evident friction38, neither a discord39 nor a critic but an unnoticed influence. Since I was their fellow, I will not be their apologist or advocate. To-day in my old garments, I could play the bystander, obedient to the sensibilities of our theatre . . . but it is more honest to record that these ideas and actions then passed naturally. What now looks wanton or sadic seemed in the field inevitable40, or just unimportant routine.
Blood was always on our hands: we were licensed41 to it. Wounding and killing42 seemed ephemeral pains, so very brief and sore was life with us. With the sorrow of living so great, the sorrow of punishment had to be pitiless. We lived for the day and died for it. When there was reason and desire to punish we wrote our lesson with gun or whip immediately in the sullen43 flesh of the sufferer, and the case was beyond appeal. The desert did not afford the refined slow penalties of courts and gaols44.
Of course our rewards and pleasures were as suddenly sweeping45 as our troubles; but, to me in particular, they bulked less large. Bedouin ways were hard even for those brought up to them, and for strangers terrible: a death in life. When the march or labour ended I had no energy to record sensation, nor while it lasted any leisure to see the spiritual loveliness which sometimes came upon us by the way. In my notes, the cruel rather than the beautiful found place. We no doubt enjoyed more the rare moments of peace and forgetfulness; but I remember more the. agony, the terrors, and the mistakes. Our life is not summed up in what I have written (there are things not to be repeated in cold blood for very shame); but what I have written was in and of our life. Pray God that men reading the story will not, for love of the glamour46 of strangeness, go out to prostitute themselves and their talents in serving another race.
A man who gives himself to be a possession of aliens leads a Yahoo life, having bartered47 his soul to a brute-master. He is not of them. He may stand against them, persuade himself of a mission, batter48 and twist them into something which they, of their own accord, would not have been. Then he is exploiting his old environment to press them out of theirs. Or, after my model, he may imitate them so well that they spuriously imitate him back again. Then he is giving away his own environment: pretending to theirs; and pretences49 are hollow, worthless things. In neither case does he do a thing of himself, nor a thing so clean as to be his own (without thought of conversion), letting them take what action or reaction they please from the silent example.
In my case, the effort for these years to live in the dress of Arabs, and to imitate their mental foundation, quitted me of my English self, and let me look at the West and its conventions with new eyes: they destroyed it all for me. At the same time I could not sincerely take on the Arab skin: it was an affectation only. Easily was a man made an infidel, but hardly might he be converted to another faith. I had dropped one form and not taken on the other, and was become like Mohammed’s coffin50 in our legend, with a resultant feeling of intense loneliness in life, and a contempt, not for other men, but for all they do. Such detachment came at times to a man exhausted51 by prolonged physical effort and isolation52. His body plodded53 on mechanically, while his reasonable mind left him, and from without looked down critically on him, wondering what that futile54 lumber55 did and why. Sometimes these selves would converse56 in the void; and then madness was very near, as I believe it would be near the man who could see things through the veils at once of two customs, two educations, two environments.
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fermented
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v.(使)发酵( ferment的过去式和过去分词 );(使)激动;骚动;骚扰 | |
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devoted
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adj.忠诚的,忠实的,热心的,献身于...的 | |
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creeds
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(尤指宗教)信条,教条( creed的名词复数 ) | |
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ravenous
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adj.极饿的,贪婪的 | |
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devoured
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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 | |
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rein
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n.疆绳,统治,支配;vt.以僵绳控制,统治 | |
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mentality
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n.心理,思想,脑力 | |
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volition
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n.意志;决意 | |
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everlasting
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adj.永恒的,持久的,无止境的 | |
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hideous
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adj.丑陋的,可憎的,可怕的,恐怖的 | |
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sentient
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adj.有知觉的,知悉的;adv.有感觉能力地 | |
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bruised
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[医]青肿的,瘀紫的 | |
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toil
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vi.辛劳工作,艰难地行动;n.苦工,难事 | |
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sag
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v.下垂,下跌,消沉;n.下垂,下跌,凹陷,[航海]随风漂流 | |
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crest
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n.顶点;饰章;羽冠;vt.达到顶点;vi.形成浪尖 | |
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inflicted
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把…强加给,使承受,遭受( inflict的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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17
gusts
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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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18
perversions
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n.歪曲( perversion的名词复数 );变坏;变态心理 | |
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19
lusts
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贪求(lust的第三人称单数形式) | |
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20
pangs
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突然的剧痛( pang的名词复数 ); 悲痛 | |
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ecstasies
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狂喜( ecstasy的名词复数 ); 出神; 入迷; 迷幻药 | |
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humdrum
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adj.单调的,乏味的 | |
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tormented
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饱受折磨的 | |
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bellies
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n.肚子( belly的名词复数 );腹部;(物体的)圆形或凸起部份;腹部…形的 | |
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longings
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渴望,盼望( longing的名词复数 ) | |
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virile
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adj.男性的;有男性生殖力的;有男子气概的;强有力的 | |
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candidly
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adv.坦率地,直率而诚恳地 | |
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palatable
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adj.可口的,美味的;惬意的 | |
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sordid
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adj.肮脏的,不干净的,卑鄙的,暗淡的 | |
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slake
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v.解渴,使平息 | |
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justify
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vt.证明…正当(或有理),为…辩护 | |
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32
sterile
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adj.不毛的,不孕的,无菌的,枯燥的,贫瘠的 | |
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supreme
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adj.极度的,最重要的;至高的,最高的 | |
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savage
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adj.野蛮的;凶恶的,残暴的;n.未开化的人 | |
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35
filth
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n.肮脏,污物,污秽;淫猥 | |
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36
subscribe
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vi.(to)订阅,订购;同意;vt.捐助,赞助 | |
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37
conceal
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v.隐藏,隐瞒,隐蔽 | |
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friction
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n.摩擦,摩擦力 | |
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discord
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n.不和,意见不合,争论,(音乐)不和谐 | |
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inevitable
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adj.不可避免的,必然发生的 | |
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licensed
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adj.得到许可的v.许可,颁发执照(license的过去式和过去分词) | |
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killing
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n.巨额利润;突然赚大钱,发大财 | |
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43
sullen
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adj.愠怒的,闷闷不乐的,(天气等)阴沉的 | |
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gaols
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监狱,拘留所( gaol的名词复数 ) | |
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45
sweeping
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adj.范围广大的,一扫无遗的 | |
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46
glamour
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n.魔力,魅力;vt.迷住 | |
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47
bartered
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v.作物物交换,以货换货( barter的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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48
batter
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v.接连重击;磨损;n.牛奶面糊;击球员 | |
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49
pretences
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n.假装( pretence的名词复数 );作假;自命;自称 | |
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50
coffin
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n.棺材,灵柩 | |
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51
exhausted
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adj.极其疲惫的,精疲力尽的 | |
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52
isolation
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n.隔离,孤立,分解,分离 | |
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53
plodded
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v.沉重缓慢地走(路)( plod的过去式和过去分词 );努力从事;沉闷地苦干;缓慢进行(尤指艰难枯燥的工作) | |
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54
futile
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adj.无效的,无用的,无希望的 | |
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55
lumber
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n.木材,木料;v.以破旧东西堆满;伐木;笨重移动 | |
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56
converse
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vi.谈话,谈天,闲聊;adv.相反的,相反 | |
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