And my mood was autumnal too. Perhaps because, having become a workman, I saw our town life only from the seamy side, it was my lot almost every day to make discoveries which reduced me almost to despair. Those of my fellow-citizens, about whom I had no opinion before, or who had externally appeared perfectly1 decent, turned out now to be base, cruel people, capable of any dirty action. We common people were deceived, cheated, and kept waiting for hours together in the cold entry or the kitchen; we were insulted and treated with the utmost rudeness. In the autumn I papered the reading-room and two other rooms at the club; I was paid a penny three-farthings the piece, but had to sign a receipt at the rate of twopence halfpenny, and when I refused to do so, a gentleman of benevolent2 appearance in gold-rimmed spectacles, who must have been one of the club committee, said to me:
“If you say much more, you blackguard, I’ll pound your face into a jelly!”
And when the flunkey whispered to him what I was, the son of Poloznev the architect, he became embarrassed, turned crimson3, but immediately recovered himself and said: “Devil take him.”
In the shops they palmed off on us workmen putrid4 meat, musty flour, and tea that had been used and dried again; the police hustled5 us in church, the assistants and nurses in the hospital plundered6 us, and if we were too poor to give them a bribe7 they revenged themselves by bringing us food in dirty vessels8. In the post-office the pettiest official considered he had a right to treat us like animals, and to shout with coarse insolence9: “You wait!” “Where are you shoving to?” Even the housedogs were unfriendly to us, and fell upon us with peculiar10 viciousness. But the thing that struck me most of all in my new position was the complete lack of justice, what is defined by the peasants in the words: “They have forgotten God.” Rarely did a day pass without swindling. We were swindled by the merchants who sold us oil, by the contractors11 and the workmen and the people who employed us. I need not say that there could never be a question of our rights, and we always had to ask for the money we earned as though it were a charity, and to stand waiting for it at the back door, cap in hand.
I was papering a room at the club next to the reading-room; in the evening, when I was just getting ready to go, the daughter of Dolzhikov, the engineer, walked into the room with a bundle of books under her arm.
I bowed to her.
“Oh, how do you do!” she said, recognizing me at once, and holding out her hand. “I’m very glad to see you.”
She smiled and looked with curiosity and wonder at my smock, my pail of paste, the paper stretched on the floor; I was embarrassed, and she, too, felt awkward.
“You must excuse my looking at you like this,” she said. “I have been told so much about you. Especially by Dr. Blagovo; he is simply in love with you. And I have made the acquaintance of your sister too; a sweet, dear girl, but I can never persuade her that there is nothing awful about your adopting the simple life. On the contrary, you have become the most interesting man in the town.”
She looked again at the pail of paste and the wallpaper, and went on:
“I asked Dr. Blagovo to make me better acquainted with you, but apparently12 he forgot, or had not time. Anyway, we are acquainted all the same, and if you would come and see me quite simply I should be extremely indebted to you. I so long to have a talk. I am a simple person,” she added, holding out her hand to me, “and I hope that you will feel no constraint13 with me. My father is not here, he is in Petersburg.”
She went off into the reading-room, rustling14 her skirts, while I went home, and for a long time could not get to sleep.
That cheerless autumn some kind soul, evidently wishing to alleviate15 my existence, sent me from time to time tea and lemons, or biscuits, or roast game. Karpovna told me that they were always brought by a soldier, and from whom they came she did not know; and the soldier used to enquire16 whether I was well, and whether I dined every day, and whether I had warm clothing. When the frosts began I was presented in the same way in my absence with a soft knitted scarf brought by the soldier. There was a faint elusive17 smell of scent18 about it, and I guessed who my good fairy was. The scarf smelt19 of lilies-of-the-valley, the favourite scent of Anyuta Blagovo.
Towards winter there was more work and it was more cheerful. Radish recovered, and we worked together in the cemetery20 church, where we were putting the ground-work on the ikon-stand before gilding21. It was a clean, quiet job, and, as our fellows used to say, profitable. One could get through a lot of work in a day, and the time passed quickly, imperceptibly. There was no swearing, no laughter, no loud talk. The place itself compelled one to quietness and decent behaviour, and disposed one to quiet, serious thoughts. Absorbed in our work we stood or sat motionless like statues; there was a deathly silence in keeping with the cemetery, so that if a tool fell, or a flame spluttered in the lamp, the noise of such sounds rang out abrupt22 and resonant23, and made us look round. After a long silence we would hear a buzzing like the swarming24 of bees: it was the requiem25 of a baby being chanted slowly in subdued26 voices in the porch; or an artist, painting a dove with stars round it on a cupola would begin softly whistling, and recollecting27 himself with a start would at once relapse into silence; or Radish, answering his thoughts, would say with a sigh: “Anything is possible! Anything is possible!” or a slow disconsolate28 bell would begin ringing over our heads, and the painters would observe that it must be for the funeral of some wealthy person . . . .
My days I spent in this stillness in the twilight29 of the church, and in the long evenings I played billiards30 or went to the theatre in the gallery wearing the new trousers I had bought out of my own earnings31. Concerts and performances had already begun at the Azhogins’; Radish used to paint the scenes alone now. He used to tell me the plot of the plays and describe the tableaux32 vivants which he witnessed. I listened to him with envy. I felt greatly drawn33 to the rehearsals34, but I could not bring myself to go to the Azhogins’.
A week before Christmas Dr. Blagovo arrived. And again we argued and played billiards in the evenings. When he played he used to take off his coat and unbutton his shirt over his chest, and for some reason tried altogether to assume the air of a desperate rake. He did not drink much, but made a great uproar35 about it, and had a special faculty36 for getting through twenty roubles in an evening at such a poor cheap tavern37 as the Volga.
My sister began coming to see me again; they both expressed surprise every time on seeing each other, but from her joyful38, guilty face it was evident that these meetings were not accidental. One evening, when we were playing billiards, the doctor said to me:
“I say, why don’t you go and see Miss Dolzhikov? You don’t know Mariya Viktorovna; she is a clever creature, a charmer, a simple, good-natured soul.”
I described how her father had received me in the spring.
“Nonsense!” laughed the doctor, “the engineer’s one thing and she’s another. Really, my dear fellow, you mustn’t be nasty to her; go and see her sometimes. For instance, let’s go and see her tomorrow evening. What do you say?”
He persuaded me. The next evening I put on my new serge trousers, and in some agitation39 I set off to Miss Dolzhikov’s. The footman did not seem so haughty40 and terrible, nor the furniture so gorgeous, as on that morning when I had come to ask a favour. Mariya Viktorovna was expecting me, and she received me like an old acquaintance, shaking hands with me in a friendly way. She was wearing a grey cloth dress with full sleeves, and had her hair done in the style which we used to call “dogs’ ears,” when it came into fashion in the town a year before. The hair was combed down over the ears, and this made Mariya Viktorovna’s face look broader, and she seemed to me this time very much like her father, whose face was broad and red, with something in its expression like a sledge-driver. She was handsome and elegant, but not youthful looking; she looked thirty, though in reality she was not more than twenty-five.
“Dear Doctor, how grateful I am to you,” she said, making me sit down. “If it hadn’t been for him you wouldn’t have come to see me. I am bored to death! My father has gone away and left me alone, and I don’t know what to do with myself in this town.”
Then she began asking me where I was working now, how much I earned, where I lived.
“Do you spend on yourself nothing but what you earn?” she asked.
“No.”
“Happy man!” she sighed. “All the evil in life, it seems to me, comes from idleness, boredom41, and spiritual emptiness, and all this is inevitable42 when one is accustomed to living at other people’s expense. Don’t think I am showing off, I tell you truthfully: it is not interesting or pleasant to be rich. ‘Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness’ is said, because there is not and cannot be a mammon that’s righteous.”
She looked round at the furniture with a grave, cold expression, as though she wanted to count it over, and went on:
“Comfort and luxury have a magical power; little by little they draw into their clutches even strong-willed people. At one time father and I lived simply, not in a rich style, but now you see how! It is something monstrous,” she said, shrugging her shoulders; “we spend up to twenty thousand a year! In the provinces!”
“One comes to look at comfort and luxury as the invariable privilege of capital and education,” I said, “and it seems to me that the comforts of life may be combined with any sort of labour, even the hardest and dirtiest. Your father is rich, and yet he says himself that it has been his lot to be a mechanic and an oiler.”
She smiled and shook her head doubtfully: “My father sometimes eats bread dipped in kvass,” she said. “It’s a fancy, a whim43!”
At that moment there was a ring and she got up.
“The rich and well-educated ought to work like everyone else,” she said, “and if there is comfort it ought to be equal for all. There ought not to be any privileges. But that’s enough philosophizing. Tell me something amusing. Tell me about the painters. What are they like? Funny?”
The doctor came in; I began telling them about the painters, but, being unaccustomed to talking, I was constrained44, and described them like an ethnologist, gravely and tediously. The doctor, too, told us some anecdotes45 of working men: he staggered about, shed tears, dropped on his knees, and, even, mimicking46 a drunkard, lay on the floor; it was as good as a play, and Mariya Viktorovna laughed till she cried as she looked at him. Then he played on the piano and sang in his thin, pleasant tenor47, while Mariya Viktorovna stood by and picked out what he was to sing, and corrected him when he made a mistake.
“I’ve heard that you sing, too?” I enquired48.
“Sing, too!” cried the doctor in horror. “She sings exquisitely49, a perfect artist, and you talk of her ‘singing too’! What an idea!”
“I did study in earnest at one time,” she said, answering my question, “but now I have given it up.”
Sitting on a low stool she told us of her life in Petersburg, and mimicked50 some celebrated51 singers, imitating their voice and manner of singing. She made a sketch52 of the doctor in her album, then of me; she did not draw well, but both the portraits were like us. She laughed, and was full of mischief53 and charming grimaces54, and this suited her better than talking about the mammon of unrighteousness, and it seemed to me that she had been talking just before about wealth and luxury, not in earnest, but in imitation of someone. She was a superb comic actress. I mentally compared her with our young ladies, and even the handsome, dignified55 Anyuta Blagovo could not stand comparison with her; the difference was immense, like the difference between a beautiful, cultivated rose and a wild briar.
We had supper together, the three of us. The doctor and Mariya Viktorovna drank red wine, champagne56, and coffee with brandy in it; they clinked glasses and drank to friendship, to enlightenment, to progress, to liberty, and they did not get drunk but only flushed, and were continually, for no reason, laughing till they cried. So as not to be tiresome57 I drank claret too.
“Talented, richly endowed natures,” said Miss Dolzhikov, “know how to live, and go their own way; mediocre58 people, like myself for instance, know nothing and can do nothing of themselves; there is nothing left for them but to discern some deep social movement, and to float where they are carried by it.”
“How can one discern what doesn’t exist?” asked the doctor.
“We think so because we don’t see it.”
“Is that so? The social movements are the invention of the new literature. There are none among us.”
An argument began.
“There are no deep social movements among us and never have been,” the doctor declared loudly. “There is no end to what the new literature has invented! It has invented intellectual workers in the country, and you may search through all our villages and find at the most some lout59 in a reefer jacket or a black frock-coat who will make four mistakes in spelling a word of three letters. Cultured life has not yet begun among us. There’s the same savagery60, the same uniform boorishness61, the same triviality, as five hundred years ago. Movements, currents there have been, but it has all been petty, paltry62, bent63 upon vulgar and mercenary interests—and one cannot see anything important in them. If you think you have discerned a deep social movement, and in following it you devote yourself to tasks in the modern taste, such as the emancipation64 of insects from slavery or abstinence from beef rissoles, I congratulate you, Madam. We must study, and study, and study and we must wait a bit with our deep social movements; we are not mature enough for them yet; and to tell the truth, we don’t know anything about them.”
“You don’t know anything about them, but I do,” said Mariya Viktorovna. “Goodness, how tiresome you are today!”
“Our duty is to study and to study, to try to accumulate as much knowledge as possible, for genuine social movements arise where there is knowledge; and the happiness of mankind in the future lies only in knowledge. I drink to science!”
“There is no doubt about one thing: one must organize one’s life somehow differently,” said Mariya Viktorovna, after a moment’s silence and thought. “Life, such as it has been hitherto, is not worth having. Don’t let us talk about it.”
As we came away from her the cathedral clock struck two.
“Did you like her?” asked the doctor; “she’s nice, isn’t she?”
On Christmas day we dined with Mariya Viktorovna, and all through the holidays we went to see her almost every day. There was never anyone there but ourselves, and she was right when she said that she had no friends in the town but the doctor and me. We spent our time for the most part in conversation; sometimes the doctor brought some book or magazine and read aloud to us. In reality he was the first well-educated man I had met in my life: I cannot judge whether he knew a great deal, but he always displayed his knowledge as though he wanted other people to share it. When he talked about anything relating to medicine he was not like any one of the doctors in our town, but made a fresh, peculiar impression upon me, and I fancied that if he liked he might have become a real man of science. And he was perhaps the only person who had a real influence upon me at that time. Seeing him, and reading the books he gave me, I began little by little to feel a thirst for the knowledge which would have given significance to my cheerless labour. It seemed strange to me, for instance, that I had not known till then that the whole world was made up of sixty elements, I had not known what oil was, what paints were, and that I could have got on without knowing these things. My acquaintance with the doctor elevated me morally too. I was continually arguing with him and, though I usually remained of my own opinion, yet, thanks to him, I began to perceive that everything was not clear to me, and I began trying to work out as far as I could definite convictions in myself, that the dictates65 of conscience might be definite, and that there might be nothing vague in my mind. Yet, though he was the most cultivated and best man in the town, he was nevertheless far from perfection. In his manners, in his habit of turning every conversation into an argument, in his pleasant tenor, even in his friendliness66, there was something coarse, like a divinity student, and when he took off his coat and sat in his silk shirt, or flung a tip to a waiter in the restaurant, I always fancied that culture might be all very well, but the Tatar was fermenting67 in him still.
At Epiphany he went back to Petersburg. He went off in the morning, and after dinner my sister came in. Without taking off her fur coat and her cap she sat down in silence, very pale, and kept her eyes fixed68 on the same spot. She was chilled by the frost and one could see that she was upset by it.
“You must have caught cold,” I said.
Her eyes filled with tears; she got up and went out to Karpovna without saying a word to me, as though I had hurt her feelings. And a little later I heard her saying, in a tone of bitter reproach:
“Nurse, what have I been living for till now? What? Tell me, haven’t I wasted my youth? All the best years of my life to know nothing but keeping accounts, pouring out tea, counting the halfpence, entertaining visitors, and thinking there was nothing better in the world! Nurse, do understand, I have the cravings of a human being, and I want to live, and they have turned me into something like a housekeeper69. It’s horrible, horrible!”
She flung her keys towards the door, and they fell with a jingle70 into my room. They were the keys of the sideboard, of the kitchen cupboard, of the cellar, and of the tea-caddy, the keys which my mother used to carry.
“Oh, merciful heavens!” cried the old woman in horror. “Holy Saints above!”
Before going home my sister came into my room to pick up the keys, and said:
“You must forgive me. Something queer has happened to me lately.”
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收听单词发音
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perfectly
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adv.完美地,无可非议地,彻底地 | |
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benevolent
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adj.仁慈的,乐善好施的 | |
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crimson
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n./adj.深(绯)红色(的);vi.脸变绯红色 | |
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putrid
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adj.腐臭的;有毒的;已腐烂的;卑劣的 | |
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hustled
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催促(hustle的过去式与过去分词形式) | |
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plundered
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掠夺,抢劫( plunder的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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bribe
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n.贿赂;v.向…行贿,买通 | |
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vessels
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n.血管( vessel的名词复数 );船;容器;(具有特殊品质或接受特殊品质的)人 | |
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insolence
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n.傲慢;无礼;厚颜;傲慢的态度 | |
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peculiar
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adj.古怪的,异常的;特殊的,特有的 | |
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contractors
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n.(建筑、监造中的)承包人( contractor的名词复数 ) | |
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apparently
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adv.显然地;表面上,似乎 | |
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constraint
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n.(on)约束,限制;限制(或约束)性的事物 | |
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rustling
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n. 瑟瑟声,沙沙声 adj. 发沙沙声的 | |
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alleviate
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v.减轻,缓和,缓解(痛苦等) | |
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enquire
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v.打听,询问;调查,查问 | |
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elusive
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adj.难以表达(捉摸)的;令人困惑的;逃避的 | |
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scent
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n.气味,香味,香水,线索,嗅觉;v.嗅,发觉 | |
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smelt
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v.熔解,熔炼;n.银白鱼,胡瓜鱼 | |
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cemetery
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n.坟墓,墓地,坟场 | |
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21
gilding
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n.贴金箔,镀金 | |
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abrupt
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adj.突然的,意外的;唐突的,鲁莽的 | |
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23
resonant
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adj.(声音)洪亮的,共鸣的 | |
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swarming
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密集( swarm的现在分词 ); 云集; 成群地移动; 蜜蜂或其他飞行昆虫成群地飞来飞去 | |
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requiem
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n.安魂曲,安灵曲 | |
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subdued
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adj. 屈服的,柔和的,减弱的 动词subdue的过去式和过去分词 | |
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recollecting
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v.记起,想起( recollect的现在分词 ) | |
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disconsolate
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adj.忧郁的,不快的 | |
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twilight
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n.暮光,黄昏;暮年,晚期,衰落时期 | |
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30
billiards
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n.台球 | |
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earnings
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n.工资收人;利润,利益,所得 | |
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32
tableaux
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n.舞台造型,(由活人扮演的)静态画面、场面;人构成的画面或场景( tableau的名词复数 );舞台造型;戏剧性的场面;绚丽的场景 | |
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drawn
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v.拖,拉,拔出;adj.憔悴的,紧张的 | |
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rehearsals
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n.练习( rehearsal的名词复数 );排练;复述;重复 | |
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uproar
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n.骚动,喧嚣,鼎沸 | |
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faculty
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n.才能;学院,系;(学院或系的)全体教学人员 | |
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tavern
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n.小旅馆,客栈;小酒店 | |
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joyful
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adj.欢乐的,令人欢欣的 | |
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agitation
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n.搅动;搅拌;鼓动,煽动 | |
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haughty
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adj.傲慢的,高傲的 | |
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boredom
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n.厌烦,厌倦,乏味,无聊 | |
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inevitable
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adj.不可避免的,必然发生的 | |
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whim
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n.一时的兴致,突然的念头;奇想,幻想 | |
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constrained
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adj.束缚的,节制的 | |
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anecdotes
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n.掌故,趣闻,轶事( anecdote的名词复数 ) | |
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mimicking
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v.(尤指为了逗乐而)模仿( mimic的现在分词 );酷似 | |
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tenor
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n.男高音(歌手),次中音(乐器),要旨,大意 | |
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48
enquired
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打听( enquire的过去式和过去分词 ); 询问; 问问题; 查问 | |
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49
exquisitely
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adv.精致地;强烈地;剧烈地;异常地 | |
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50
mimicked
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v.(尤指为了逗乐而)模仿( mimic的过去式和过去分词 );酷似 | |
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51
celebrated
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adj.有名的,声誉卓著的 | |
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52
sketch
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n.草图;梗概;素描;v.素描;概述 | |
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53
mischief
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n.损害,伤害,危害;恶作剧,捣蛋,胡闹 | |
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54
grimaces
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n.(表蔑视、厌恶等)面部扭曲,鬼脸( grimace的名词复数 )v.扮鬼相,做鬼脸( grimace的第三人称单数 ) | |
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55
dignified
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a.可敬的,高贵的 | |
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56
champagne
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n.香槟酒;微黄色 | |
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57
tiresome
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adj.令人疲劳的,令人厌倦的 | |
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58
mediocre
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adj.平常的,普通的 | |
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lout
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n.粗鄙的人;举止粗鲁的人 | |
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savagery
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n.野性 | |
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61
boorishness
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62
paltry
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adj.无价值的,微不足道的 | |
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63
bent
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n.爱好,癖好;adj.弯的;决心的,一心的 | |
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64
emancipation
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n.(从束缚、支配下)解放 | |
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65
dictates
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n.命令,规定,要求( dictate的名词复数 )v.大声讲或读( dictate的第三人称单数 );口授;支配;摆布 | |
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66
friendliness
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n.友谊,亲切,亲密 | |
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67
fermenting
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v.(使)发酵( ferment的现在分词 );(使)激动;骚动;骚扰 | |
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68
fixed
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adj.固定的,不变的,准备好的;(计算机)固定的 | |
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69
housekeeper
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n.管理家务的主妇,女管家 | |
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70
jingle
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n.叮当声,韵律简单的诗句;v.使叮当作响,叮当响,押韵 | |
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