Rose gets lonely in new places; she wishes she had invitations. She goes out and walks the streetsand looks in the lighted windows at all the Saturday- night parties, the Sunday- night familysuppers. It’s no good telling herself she wouldn’t be long inside there, chattering1 and gettingdrunk, or spooning up the gravy2, before she’d wish she was walking the streets. She thinks shecould take on any hospitality. She could go to parties in rooms hung with posters, lit by lamps withCoca-Cola shades, everything crumbly and askew3; or else in warm professional rooms with lots ofbooks, and brass4 rubbings, and maybe a skull5 or two; even in the recreation rooms she can just seethe6 tops of, through the basement windows: rows of beer stems, hunting horns, drinking horns,guns. She could go and sit on lurex-threaded sofas under hangings of black velvet7 displayingmountains, galleons8, polar bears, executed in brushed wool. She would like very much to bedishing up a costly9 cabinet de diplomate out of a cut-glass bowl in a rich dining room with a biggleaming belly10 of sideboard behind her, and a dim picture of horses feeding, cows feeding, sheepfeeding, on badly painted purple grass. Or she could do as well with batter11 pudding in the eatingnook of a kitchen in a little stucco house by the bus stop, plaster pears and peaches decorating thewall, ivy12 curling out of little brass pots. Rose is an actress; she can fit in anywhere.
She does get asked to parties. About two years ago, she was at a party in a high-rise apartmentbuilding in Kingston. The windows looked out on Lake Ontario and Wolfe Island. Rose didn’t livein Kingston. She lived up-country; she had been teaching drama for two years at a communitycollege. Some people were surprised that she would do this. They did not know how little moneyan actress might make; they thought that being well-known automatically meant being well-off.
She had driven down to Kingston just for this party, a fact which slightely shamed her. She hadnot met the hostess before. She had known the host last year, when he was teaching at thecommunity college and living with another girl.
The hostess, whose name was Shelley, took Rose into the bedroom to put down her coat.
Shelley was a thin, solemn-looking girl, a true blonde, with nearly white eyebrows13, hair long andthick and straight as if cut from a block of wood. It seemed that she took her waif style seriously.
Her voice was low and mournful, making Rose’s own voice, her greeting of a moment ago, soundaltogether too sprightly14 in her own ears.
In a basket at the foot of the bed a tortoiseshell cat was suckling four tiny, blind kittens.
“That’s Tasha,” the hosetess said. “We can look at her kittens but we can’t touch them, else shewouldn’t feed them any more.”
She knelt down by the basket, crooning, talking to the mother cat with an intense devotion thatRose thought affected15. The shawl around her shoulders was black, trimmed with jet beads16. Somebeads were crooked17, some were missing. It was a genuine old shawl, not an imitation. Her limp,slightly yellowed, eyelet-embroidered18 dress was genuine too, though probably a petticoat in thefirst place. Such clothes took looking for.
On the other side of the spool19 bed was a large mirror, hung suspiciously high, and tilted20. Rosetried to get a look at herself when the girl was bent21 over the basket. It is very hard to look in themirror when there is another, and particularly a younger, woman in the room. Rose was wearing aflowered cotton dress, a long dress with a tucked bodice and puffed22 sleeves, which was too short inthe waist and too tight in the bust23 to be comfortable. There was something wrongly youthful ortheatrical about it; perhaps she was not slim enough to wear that style. Her reddish-brown hair wasdyed at home. Lines ran both ways under her eyes, trapping little diamonds of darkened skin.
Rose knew by now that when she found people affected, as she did this girl, and their roomscoyly decorated, their manner of living irritating (that mirror, the patchwork24 quilt, the Japaneseerotic drawings over the bed, the African music coming from the living room), it was usuallybecause she, Rose, hadn’t received and was afraid she wouldn’t receive the attention she wanted,hadn’t penetrated25 the party, felt that she might be doomed26 to hang around on the fringes of things,making judgments27.
She felt better in the living room, where there were some people she knew, and some faces asold as her own. She drank quickly at first, and before long was using the newborn kittens as aspringboard for her own story. She said that something dreadful had happened to her cat that veryday.
“The worst of it is,” she said, “that I never liked my cat much. It wasn’t my idea to have a cat. Itwas his. He followed me home one day and insisted on being taken in. He was just like some bigsneering hulk of an unemployable, set on convincing me I owed him a living. Well, he always hada fondness for the clothes dryer28. He liked to jump in when it was warm, as soon as I’d taken theclothes out. Usually I just have one load but today I had two, and when I reached in to take thesecond load out, I thought I felt something. I thought, what do I have that’s fur?”
People moaned or laughed, in a sympathetically horrified29 way. Rose looked around at themappealingly. She felt much better. The living room, with its lake view, its careful decor (a jukebox,barber-shop mirrors, turn-of-the-century advertisements—Smoke, for your throat’s sake—old silklampshades, farmhouse30 bowls and jugs31, primitive32 masks and sculptures), no longer seemed sohostile. She took another drink of her gin and knew there was a limited time coming now whenshe would feel light and welcome as a hummingbird33, convinced that many people in the roomwere witty34 and many were kind, and some were both together.
“Oh, no, I thought. But it was. It was. Death in the dryer.”
“A warning to all pleasure seekers,” said a little sharp-faced man at her elbow, a man she hadknown slightly for years. He taught in the English department of the university, where the hosttaught now, and the hostess was a graduate student.
“That’s terrible,” said the hostess, with her cold, fixed35 look of sensitivity. Those who hadlaughed looked a bit abashed36, as if they thought they might have seemed heartless. “Your cat.
That’s terrible. How could you come tonight?”
As a matter of fact the incident had not happened today at all; it had happened last week. Rosewondered if the girl meant to put her at a disadvantage. She said sincerely and regretfully that shehadn’t been very fond of the cat and that had made it seem worse, somehow. That’s what she wastrying to explain, she said.
“I felt as if maybe it was my fault. Maybe if I’d been fonder, it wouldn’t have happened.”
“Of course it wouldn’t,” said the man beside her. “It was warmth he was seeking in the dryer. Itwas love. Ah, Rose!”
“Now you won’t be able to fuck the cat any more,” said a tall boy Rose hadn’t noticed before.
He seemed to have sprung up, right in front of her. “Fuck the dog, fuck the cat, I don’t know whatyou do, Rose.”
She was searching for his name. She had recognized him as a student, or former student.
“David,” she said. “Hello, David.” She was so pleased at coming up with the name that she wasslow in registering what he had said.
“Fuck the dog, fuck the cat,” he repeated, swaying over her.
“I beg your pardon,” Rose said, and put on a quizzical, indulgent, charming expression. Thepeople around her were finding it as hard to adjust to what the boy said as she was. The mood ofsociability, sympathy, expectation of goodwill37 was not easy to halt; it rolled on in spite of signsthat there was plenty here it wasn’t going to be able to absorb. Almost everyone was still smiling,as if the boy was telling an anecdote38 or playing a part, the point of which would be made clear in amoment. The hostess cast down her eyes and slipped away.
“Beg yours,” said the boy in a very ugly tone. “Up yours, Rose.” He was white and brittle-looking, desperately39 drunk. He had probably been brought up in a gentle home, where peopletalked about answering Nature’s call and blessed each other for sneezing.
A short, strong man with black curly hair took hold of the boy’s arm just below the shoulder.
“Move it along,” he said, almost maternally40. He spoke41 with a muddled42 European accent, mostlyFrench, Rose thought, though she was not good about accents. She did tend to think, in spite ofknowing better, that such accents spring from a richer and more complicated masculinity than themasculinity to be found in North America and in places like Hanratty, where she had grown up.
Such an accent promised masculinity tinged43 with suffering, tenderness, and guile44.
The host appeared in a velvet jumpsuit and took hold of the other arm, more or lesssymbolically, at the same time kissing Rose’s cheek, because he hadn’t seen her when she camein. “Must talk to you,” he murmured, meaning he hoped he wouldn’t have to, because there was somuch tricky45 territory; the girl he had lived with last year, for one thing, and a night he had spentwith Rose toward the end of term, when there had been a lot of drinking and bragging46 andlamenting about faithlessness, as well as some curiously47 insulting though pleasurable sex. He waslooking very brushed and tended, thinner but softened48, with his flowing hair and suit of bottle-green velvet. Only three years younger than Rose, but look at him. He had shed a wife, a family, ahouse, a discouraging future, set himself up with new clothes and new furniture and a successionof student mistresses. Men can do it.
“My, my,” Rose said and leaned against the wall. “What was that all about?”
The man beside her, who had smiled all the time and looked into his glass, said, “Ah, thesensitive youth of our time! Their grace of language, their depth of feeling! We must bow beforethem.”
The man with the black curly hair came back, didn’t say a word, but handed Rose a fresh drinkand took her glass.
The host came back too.
“Rose baby. I don’t know how he got in. I said no bloody49 students.
There’s got to be some place safe from them.”
“He was in one of my classes last year,” Rose said. That really was all she could remember. Shesupposed they were thinking there must be more to it.
“Did he want to be an actor?” said the man beside her. “I’ll bet he did. Remember the good olddays when they all wanted to be lawyers and engineers and business executives? They tell methat’s coming back. I hope so. I devoutly50 hope so. Rose, I bet you listened to his problems. Youmust never do that. I bet that’s what you did.”
“Oh, I suppose.”
“They come along looking for a parent- substitute. It’s banal51 as can be. They trail aroundworshipping you and bothering you and then bam! It’s parent-substitute rejecting time!”
Rose drank, and leaned against the wall, and heard them take up the theme of what studentsexpected nowadays, how they broke down your door to tell you about their abortions52, their suicideattempts, their creativity crises, their weight problems. Always using the same words: personhood,values, rejection53.
“I’m not rejecting you, you silly bugger, I’m flunking54 you!” said the little sharp man, recalling atriumphant confrontation56 he had had with one such student. They laughed at that and at the youngwoman who said, “God, the difference when I was at university! You wouldn’t have mentioned anabortion in a professor’s office any more than you would have shit on the floor. Shat on the floor.”
Rose was laughing too, but felt smashed, under the skin. It would be better, in a way, if therewere something behind this such as they suspected. If she had slept with that boy. If she hadpromised him something, if she had betrayed him, humiliated57 him. She could not rememberanything. He had sprung out of the floor to accuse her. She must have done something, and shecould not remember it. She could not remember anything to do with her students; that was thetruth. She was solicitous58 and charming, all warmth and acceptance; she listened and advised; thenshe could not get their names straight. She could not remember a thing she had said to them.
A woman touched her arm. “Wake up,” she said, in a tone of sly intimacy59 that made Rose thinkshe must know her. Another student? But no, the woman introduced herself.
“I’m doing a paper on female suicide,” she said. “I mean, the suicide of female artists.” She saidshe had seen Rose on television and was longing60 to talk to her. She mentioned Diane Arbus,Virginia Woolf, Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, Christiane Pflug. She was well informed. She lookedlike a prime candidate herself, Rose thought: emaciated61, bloodless, obsessed62. Rose said she washungry, and the woman followed her out to the kitchen.
“And too many actresses to count—” the woman said. “Margaret Sullavan—”
“I’m just a teacher now.”
“Oh, nonsense. I’m sure you are an actress to the marrow63 of your bones.”
The hostess had made bread: glazed64 and braided and decorated loaves. Rose wondered at thepains taken here. The bread, the p?té, the hanging plants, the kittens, all on behalf of a mostprecarious and temporary domesticity. She wished, she often wished, that she could take suchpains, that she could make ceremonies, impose herself, make bread.
She noticed a group of younger members of the faculty65 — she would have thought themstudents, except for what the host had said about students not being let in—who were sitting on thecounters and standing66 in front of the sink. They were talking in low, serious voices. One of themlooked at her. She smiled. Her smile was not returned. A couple of others looked at her, and theywent on talking. She was sure they were talking about her, about what had happened in the livingroom. She urged the woman to try some bread and p?té. Presumably that would keep her quiet, sothat Rose could overhear what was being said.
“I never eat at parties.”
The woman’s manner toward her was turning dark and vaguely67 accusing. Rose had learned thatthis was a department wife. Perhaps it had been a political move, inviting68 her. And promising69 herRose; had that been part of the move?
“Are you always so hungry?” the woman said. “Are you never ill?” “I am when there’ssomething this good to eat,” Rose said. She was only trying to set an example, and could hardlychew or swallow, in her anxiety to hear what was being said of her. “No, I’m not often ill,” shesaid. It surprised her to realize that was true. She used to get sick with colds and flu and crampsand headaches; those definite ailments70 had now disappeared, simmered down into a low, steadyhum of uneasiness, fatigue71, apprehension72.
Fucked-up jealous establishment.
Rose heard that, or thought she heard it. They were giving her quick, despising looks. Or so shethought; she could not look directly at them. Establishment. That was Rose. Was it? Was thatRose? Was that Rose who had taken a teaching job because she wasn’t getting enough acting73 jobsto support herself, was granted the teaching job because of her experience on stage and television,but had to accept a cut in pay because she lacked degrees? She wanted to go over and tell themthat. She wanted to state her case. The years of work, the exhaustion74, the traveling, the high schoolauditoriums, the nerves, the boredom75, the never knowing where your next pay was coming from.
She wanted to plead with them, so they would forgive her and love her and take her on their side.
It was their side she wanted to be on, not the side of the people in the living room who had takenup her cause. But that was a choice made because of fear, not on principle. She feared them. Shefeared their hard- hearted virtue76, their cool despising faces, their secrets, their laughter, theirobscenities.
She thought of Anna, her own daughter. Anna was seventeen. She had long fair hair and wore afine gold chain around her throat. It was so fine you had to look closely to make sure it was achain, not just a glinting of her smooth bright skin. She was not like these young people but shewas equally remote. She practised ballet and rode her horse every day but she didn’t plan to ride incompetitions or be a ballerina. Why not?
“Because it would be silly.”
Something about Anna’s style, the fine chain, her silences, made Rose think of her grandmother,Patrick’s mother. But then, she thought, Anna might not be so silent, so fastidious, sounforthcoming, with anybody but her mother.
The man with the black curly hair stood in the kitchen doorway78 giving her an impudent79 andironic look.
“Do you know who that is?” Rose said to the suicide woman. “The man who took the drunkaway?”
“That’s Simon. I don’t think the boy was drunk, I think he’s on drugs.”
“What does he do?”
“Well, I expect he’s a student of sorts.”
“No,” said Rose. “That man—Simon?”
“Oh, Simon. He’s in the classics department. I don’t think he’s always been a teacher.”
“Like me,” Rose said, and turned the smile she had tried on the young people on Simon. Tiredand adrift and witless as she was, she was beginning to feel familiar twinges, tidal promises.
If he smiles back, things will start to be all right.
He did smile, and the suicide woman spoke sharply. “Look, do you come to a party just to meetmen?”
WHEN SIMON WAS FOURTEEN, he and his older sister and another boy, a friend of theirs,were hidden in a freight car, traveling from occupied to unoccupied France. They were on theirway to Lyons, where they would be looked after, redirected to safe places, by members of anorganization that was trying to save Jewish children. Simon and his sister had already been sentout of Poland, at the beginning of the war, to stay with French relatives. Now they had to be sentaway again.
The freight car stopped. The train was standing still, at night somewhere out in the country.
They could hear French and German voices. There was some commotion80 in the cars ahead. Theyheard the doors grinding open, heard and felt the boots striking on the bare floors of those cars. Aninspection of the train. They lay down under some sacks, but did not even try to cover their faces;they thought there was no hope. The voices were getting closer and they heard the boots on thegravel beside the track. Then the train began to move. It moved so slowly that they did not noticefor a moment or so, and even then they thought it was just a shunting of the cars. They expected itto stop, so that the inspection81 could continue. But the train kept moving. It moved a little faster,then faster; it picked up its ordinary speed, which was nothing very great. They were moving, theywere free of the inspection, they were being carried away. Simon never knew what had happened.
The danger was past.
Simon said that when he realized they were safe he suddenly felt that they would get through,that nothing could happen to them now, that they were particularly blessed and lucky. He tookwhat happened for a lucky sign.
Rose asked him, had he ever seen his friend and his sister again? “No. Never. Not after Lyons.”
“So, it was only lucky for you.”
Simon laughed. They were in bed, in Rose’s bed in an old house, on the outskirts83 of acrossroads village; they had driven there straight from the party. It was April, the wind was cold,and Rose’s house was chilly84. The furnace was inadequate85. Simon put a hand to the wallpaperbehind the bed, made her feel the draft.
“What it needs is some insulation86.”
“I know. It’s awful. And you should see my fuel bills.”
Simon said she should get a wood stove. He told her about various kinds of firewood. Maple87, hesaid, was a lovely wood to burn. Then he held forth77 on different kinds of insulation. Styrofoam,Micafil, fiberglass. He got out of bed and padded around naked, looking at the walls of her house.
Rose shouted after him.
“Now I remember. It was a grant.”
“What? I can’t hear you.”
She got out of bed and wrapped herself in a blanket. Standing at the top of the stairs, she said,“That boy came to me with an application for a grant. He wanted to be a playwright88. I just thisminute remembered.”
“What boy?” said Simon. “Oh.”
“But I recommended him. I know I did.” The truth was she recommended everybody. If shecould not see their merits, she believed it might just be a case of their having merits she wasunable to see.
“He must not have got it. So he thought I shafted89 him.”
“Well, suppose you had,” said Simon, peering down the cellarway.
“That would be your right.”
“I know. I’m a coward about that lot. I hate their disapproval90. They are so virtuous91.”
“They are not virtuous at all,” said Simon. “I’m going to put my shoes on and look at yourfurnace. You probably need the filters cleaned. That is just their style. They are not much to befeared, they are just as stupid as anybody. They want a chunk92 of the power. Naturally.”
“But would you get such venomous—” Rose had to stop and start the word again—“suchvenomousness, simply from ambition?”
“What else?” said Simon, climbing the stairs. He made a grab for the blanket, wrapped himselfup with her, pecked her nose. “Enough of that, Rose. Have you no shame? I’m a poor fellow cometo look at your furnace. Your basement furnace. Sorry to bump into you like this, ma’am.” Shealready knew a few of his characters. This was The Humble93 Workman. Some others were The OldPhilosopher, who bowed low to her, Japanese style, as he came out of the bathroom, murmuringmemento mori, memento94 mori; and, when appropriate, The Mad Satyr, nuzzling and leaping,making triumphant55 smacking95 noises against her navel.
At the crossroads store she bought real coffee instead of instant, real cream, bacon, frozenbroccoli, a hunk of local cheese, canned crabmeat, the best- looking tomatoes they had,mushrooms, long-grained rice. Cigarettes as well. She was in that state of happiness which seemsperfectly natural and unthreatened. If asked, she would have said it was because of the weather—the day was bright, in spite of the harsh wind—as much as because of Simon.
“You must’ve brought home company,” said the woman who kept the store. She spoke with nosurprise or malice96 or censure97, just a comradely sort of envy.
“When I wasn’t expecting it.” Rose dumped more groceries on the counter. “What a lot ofbother they are. Not to mention expense. Look at that bacon. And cream.”
“I could stand a bit of it,” the woman said.
SIMON COOKED a remarkable98 supper from the resources provided, while Rose did nothingmuch but stand around watching, and change the sheets.
“Country life,” she said. “I came here with some ideas about how I would live. I thought Iwould go for long walks on the deserted99 country roads. And the first time I did, I heard a carcoming tearing along on the gravel82 behind me. I got well off. Then I heard shots. I was terrified. Ihid in the bushes and a car came roaring past, weaving all over the road—and they were shootingout of the windows. I cut back through the fields and told the woman at the store I thought weshould call the police. She said oh, yes, weekends the boys get a case of beer in the car and theygo out shooting groundhogs. Then she said, what were you doing up that road anyway? I could seeshe thought going for walks by yourself was a lot more suspicious than shooting groundhogs.
There were lots of things like that. I don’t think I’d stay, but the job’s here and the rent’s cheap.
Not that she isn’t nice, the woman in the store. She tells fortunes. Cards and teacups.”
Simon said that he had been sent from Lyons to work on a farm in the mountains of Provence.
The people there lived and farmed very much as in the Middle Ages. They could not read or writeor speak French. When they got sick they waited either to die or to get better. They had never seena doctor, though a veterinarian came once a year to inspect the cows. Simon ran a pitchfork intohis foot, the wound became infected, he was feverish100 and had the greatest difficulty in persuadingthem to send for the veterinarian, who was then in the next village. At last they did, and theveterinarian came and gave Simon a shot with a great horse needle, and he got better. Thehousehold was bewildered and amused to see such measures taken on behalf of human life.
“Country life.”
“But here it is not so bad. This house could be made very comfort able,” said Simon, musing101.
“You should have a garden.”
“That was another idea I had, I tried to have a garden. Nothing did very well. I was lookingforward to the cabbages, I think cabbages are beautiful, but some worm got into them. It ate up theleaves till they looked like lace, and then they all turned yellow and lay on the ground.”
“Cabbages are a very hard thing to grow. You should try with something easier.” Simon left thetable and went to the window. “Point me out where you had your garden.”
“Along the fence. That’s where they had it before.”
“That is no good, it’s too close to the walnut102 tree. Walnut trees are bad for the soil.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“Well, it’s true. You should have it nearer the house. Tomorrow I will dig up a garden for you.
You’ll need a lot of fertilizer. Now. Sheep manure103 is the very best fertilizer. Do you know anyonearound here who has sheep? We will get several sacks of sheep manure and draw up a plan ofwhat to plant, though it’s too early yet, there could still be frost. You can start some thingsindoors, from seed. Tomatoes.”
“I thought you had to go back on the morning bus,” Rose said. They had driven up in her car.
“Monday is a light day. I will phone up and cancel. I’ll tell the girls in the office to say I have asore throat.”
“Sore throat?”
“Something like that.”
“It’s good that you’re here,” said Rose truthfully. “Otherwise I’d be spending my time thinkingabout that boy. I’d be trying not to, but it would keep coming at me. In unprotected moments. Iwould have been in a state of humiliation104.”
“That’s a pretty small thing to get into a state of humiliation about.” “So I see. It doesn’t takemuch with me.”
“Learn not to be so thin-skinned,” said Simon, as if he were taking her over, in a sensible way,along with the house and garden. “Radishes. Leaf lettuce105. Onions. Potatoes. Do you eat potatoes?”
Before he left they drew up a plan of the garden. He dug and worked the soil for her, though hehad to content himself with cow manure. Rose had to go to work, on Monday, but kept him in hermind all day. She saw him digging in the garden. She saw him naked peering down the cellarway.
A short, thick man, hairy, warm, with a crumpled106 comedian’s face. She knew what he would saywhen she got home. He would say, “I hope I done it to your satisfaction, mum,” and yank aforelock.
That was what he did, and she was so delighted she cried out, “Oh Simon, you idiot, you’re theman for my life!” Such was the privilege, the widespread sunlight of the moment, that she did notreflect that saying this might be unwise.
IN THE MIDDLE of the week she went to the store, not to buy anything, but to get her fortunetold. The woman looked in her cup and said, “Oh, you! You’ve met the man who will changeeverything.”
“Yes, I think so.”
“He will change your life. Oh Lord. You won’t stay here. I see fame.
I see water.”
“I don’t know about that. I think he wants to insulate my house.” “The change has begunalready.”
“Yes. I know it has. Yes.”
SHE COULD NOT REMEMBER what they had said about Simon coming again. She thought thathe was coming on the weekend. She expected him, and she went out and bought groceries, not atthe local store this time but at a supermarket several miles away. She hoped the woman at the storewouldn’t see her carrying the grocery bags into the house. She had wanted fresh vegetables andsteak and imported black cherries, and Camembert and pears. She had bought wine, too, and a pairof sheets covered with stylish107 garlands of blue and yellow flowers. She was thinking her palehaunches would show up well against them.
On Friday night she put the sheets on the bed and the cherries in a blue bowl. The wine waschilling, the cheese was getting soft. Around nine o’clock came the loud knock, the expectedjoking knock on the door. She was surprised that she hadn’t heard his car.
“Felt lonesome,” said the woman from the store. “So I just thought I’d drop in and—oh-oh.
You’re expecting your company.”
“Not really,” Rose said. Her heart had started thumping108 joyfully109 when she heard the knock andwas thumping still. “I don’t know when he’s arriving here,” she said. “Maybe tomorrow.”
“Bugger of a rain.”
The woman’s voice sounded hearty110 and practical, as if Rose might need distracting orconsoling.
“I just hope he isn’t driving in it, then,” Rose said.
“No sir, you wouldn’t want him driving in it.”
The woman ran her fingers through her short gray hair, shaking the rain out, and Rose knew sheought to offer her something. A glass of wine? She might become mellow111 and talkative, wantingto stay and finish the bottle. Here was a person Rose had talked to, plenty of times, a friend ofsorts, somebody she would have claimed to like, and she could hardly be bothered to acknowledgeher. It would have been the same at that moment with anyone who was not Simon. Anyone elseseemed accidental and irritating.
Rose could see what was coming. All the ordinary delights, consolations112, diversions, of lifewould be rolled up and packed away; the pleasure found in food, lilacs, music, thunder in thenight, would vanish. Nothing would do any more but to lie under Simon, nothing would do but togive way to pangs113 and convulsions.
She decided114 on tea. She thought she might as well put the time to use by having another go ather future.
“It’s not clear,” the woman said.
“What’s not?”
“I’m not able to get anything in focus tonight. That happens. No, to be honest, I can’t locatehim.”
“Can’t locate him?”
“In your future. I’m beat.”
Rose thought she was saying this out of ill-will, out of jealousy115. “Well, I’m not just concernedabout him.”
“Maybe I could do better if you had any possessions of his, just let me have it to hang on to.
Anything he had his hands on, do you have that?”
“Me,” said Rose. A cheap boast, at which the fortune-teller was obliged to laugh.
“No, seriously.”
“I don’t think so. I threw his cigarette butts116 out.”
AFTER THE WOMAN had gone Rose sat up waiting. Soon it was midnight. The rain came downhard. The next time she looked it was twenty to two. How could time so empty pass so quickly?
She put out the lights because she didn’t want to be caught sitting up. She undressed, but couldn’tlie down on the fresh sheets. She sat on in the kitchen, in the dark. From time to time she madefresh tea. Some light from the street light at the corner came into the room. The village had brightnew mercury vapor117 lights. She could see that light, a bit of the store, the church steps across theroad. The church no longer served the discreet118 and respectable Protestant sect119 that had built it, butproclaimed itself a Temple of Nazareth, also a Holiness Center, whatever that might be. Thingswere more askew here than Rose had noticed before. No retired120 farmers lived in these houses; infact there were no farms to retire from, just the poor fields covered with juniper. People workedthirty or forty miles away, in factories, in the Provincial121 Mental Hospital, or they didn’t work atall, they lived a mysterious life on the borders of criminality or a life of orderly craziness in theshade of the Holiness Center. People’s lives were surely more desperate than they used to be, andwhat could be more desperate than a woman of Rose’s age, sitting up all night in her dark kitchenwaiting for her lover? And this was a situation she had created, she had done it all herself, itseemed she never learned any lessons at all. She had turned Simon into the peg122 on which herhopes were hung and she could never manage now to turn him back into himself.
The mistake was in buying the wine, she thought, and the sheets and the cheese and the cherries.
Preparations court disaster. She hadn’t realized that till she opened the door and the commotion ofher heart turned from merriment to dismay, like the sound of a tower full of bells turned comically(but not for Rose) into a rusty123 foghorn124.
Hour after hour in the dark and the rain she foresaw what could happen. She could wait throughthe weekend, fortifying125 herself with excuses and sickening with doubt, never leaving the house incase the phone might ring. Back at work on Monday, dazed but slightly comforted by the realworld, she would get up the courage to write him a note, in care of the classics department.
“I was thinking we might plant the garden next weekend. I have bought a great array of seeds (alie, but she would buy them, if she heard from him). Do let me know if you’re coming, but don’tworry if you’ve made other plans.”
Then she would worry: did it sound too off-hand, with that mention of other plans? Wouldn’t itbe too pushy126, if she hadn’t tacked127 that on? All her confidence, her lightness of heart, would haveleaked away, but she would try to counterfeit128 it.
“If it’s too wet to work in the garden we could always go for a drive. Maybe we could shootsome groundhogs. Best, Rose.”
Then a further time of waiting, for which the weekend would have been only a casual trial run,a haphazard129 introduction to the serious, commonplace, miserable130 ritual. Putting her hand into themailbox and drawing the mail out without looking at it, refusing to leave the college until fiveo’clock, putting a cushion against the telephone to block her view of it; pretending inattention.
Watch-pot thinking. Sitting up late at night, drinking, never getting quite sick enough of thisfoolishness to give up on it because the waiting would be interspersed131 with such green andspringlike reveries, such convincing arguments as to his intentions. These would be enough, atsome point, to make her decide that he must have been taken ill, he would never have deserted herotherwise. She would phone the Kingston Hospital, ask about his condition, be told that he wasnot a patient. After that would come the day she went into the college library, picked up backcopies of the Kingston paper, searched the obituaries132 to discover if he had by any chance droppeddead. Then, giving in utterly133, cold and shaking, she would call him at the University. The girl inhis office would say he was gone. Gone to Europe, gone to California; he had only been teachingthere for a single term. Gone on a camping trip, gone to get married.
Or she might say, “Just a minute, please,” and turn Rose over to him, just like that.
“Yes?”
“Simon?”
“Yes.”
“It’s Rose.”
“Rose?” It wouldn’t be as drastic as that. It would be worse.
“I’ve been meaning to call you,” he would say, or, “Rose, how are you?” or even, “How is thatgarden?”
Better lose him now. But going by the phone she put her hand on it, to see if it was warm,maybe, or to encourage it.
Before it began to get light Monday morning she packed what she thought she would need intothe back of the car, and locked the house, with the Camembert still weeping on the kitchencounter; she drove off in a westerly direction. She meant to be gone a couple of days, until shecame to her senses and could face the sheets and the patch of readied earth and the place behindthe bed where she had put her hand to feel the draft. (Why did she bring her boots and her wintercoat, if this was the case?) She wrote a letter to the college— she could lie beautifully in letters,though not on the phone—in which she said that she had been called to Toronto by the terminalillness of a dear friend. (Perhaps she didn’t lie so beautifully after all, perhaps she overdid134 it.) Shehad been awake almost the whole weekend, drinking, not so very much, but steadily135. I’m nothaving any of it, she said out loud, very seriously and emphatically, as she loaded the car. And asshe crouched136 in the front seat, writing the letter, which she could more comfortably have written inthe house, she thought how many crazy letters she had written, how many overblown excuses shehad found, having to leave a place, or being afraid to leave a place, on account of some man.
Nobody knew the extent of her foolishness, friends who had known her twenty years didn’t knowhalf of the flights she had been on, the money she had spent, and the risks she had taken. Here shewas, she thought a bit later, driving a car, shutting down the windshield wipers as the rain finallylet up on a Monday morning at ten o’clock, stopping for gas, stopping to get a transfer of money,now that the banks were open; she was competent and cheery, she remembered what to do, whowould guess what mortifications, memories of mortification137, predictions, were beating in herhead? The most mortifying138 thing of all was simply hope, which burrows139 so deceitfully at first,masks itself cunningly, but not for long. In a week’s time it can be out trilling and twittering andsinging hymns140 at heaven’s gate. And it was busy even now, telling her that Simon might beturning into her driveway at this very moment, might be standing at her door with his handstogether, praying, mocking, apologizing. Memento mori.
Even so, even if that were true, what would happen some day, some morning? Some morningshe could wake up and she would know by his breathing that he was awake beside her and nottouching her, and that she was not supposed to touch him. So much female touching141 is asking (thisis what she would have learned, or learned again, from him); women’s tenderness is greedy, theirsensuality is dishonest. She would lie there wishing she had some plain defect, something hershame could curl around and protect. As it was, she would have to be ashamed of, burdened by,the whole physical fact of herself, the whole outspread naked digesting putrefying fact. Her fleshcould seem disastrous142; thick and porous143, gray and spotty. His body would not be in question, itnever would be; he would be the one who condemned144 and forgave and how could she ever knowif he would forgive her again? Come here, he could tell her, or go away. Never since Patrick hadshe been the free person, the one with that power; maybe she had used it all up, all that wascoming to her.
Or she might hear him at a party, saying, “And then I knew I’d be all right, I knew it was alucky sign.” Telling his story to some tarty unworthy girl in a leopard-spotted silk, or—far worse—to a gentle long-haired girl in an embroidered smock, who would lead him by the hand, sooneror later, through a doorway into a room or landscape where Rose couldn’t follow.
Yes, but wasn’t it possible nothing like that would happen, wasn’t it possible there’d be nothingbut kindness, and sheep manure, and deep spring nights with the frogs singing? A failure toappear, on the first weekend, or to telephone, might have meant nothing but a different timetable;no ominous145 sign at all. Thinking like this, every twenty miles or so, she slowed, even looked for aplace to turn around. Then she did not do it, she speeded up, thinking she would drive a littlefurther to make sure her head was clear. Thoughts of herself sitting in the kitchen, images of loss,poured over her again. And so it was, back and forth, as if the rear end of the car was held by amagnetic force, which ebbed146 and strengthened, ebbed and strengthened again, but the strength wasnever quite enough to make her turn, and after a while she became almost impersonally147 curious,seeing it as a real physical force and wondering if it was getting weaker, as she drove, if at somepoint far ahead the car and she would leap free of it, and she would recognize the moment whenshe left its field.
So she kept driving. Muskoka; the Lakehead; the Manitoba border. Sometimes she slept in thecar, pulled off to the side of the road for an hour or so. In Manitoba it was too cold to do that; shechecked into a motel. She ate in roadside restaurants. Before she entered a restaurant she combedher hair and made up her face and put on that distant, dreamy, short-sighted look women wearwhen they think some man may be watching them. It was too much to say that she really expectedSimon to be there, but it seemed she did not entirely148 rule him out.
The force did weaken, with distance. It was as simple as that, though the distance, she thoughtafterwards, would have to be covered by car, or by bus, or bicycle; you couldn’t get the sameresults by flying. In a prairie town within sight of the Cypress149 Hills she recognized the change. Shehad driven all night until the sun came up behind her and she felt calm and clearheaded as you doat such times. She went into a café and ordered coffee and fried eggs. She sat at the counterlooking at the usual things there are behind café counters — the coffee- pots and the bright,probably stale pieces of lemon and raspberry pie, the thick glass dishes they put ice-cream or jelloin. It was those dishes that told her of her changed state. She could not have said she found themshapely, or eloquent150, without misstating the case. All she could have said was that she saw them ina way that wouldn’t be possible to a person in any stage of love. She felt their solidity with aconvalescent gratitude151 whose weight settled comfortably into her brains and feet. She realized thenthat she had come into this café without the least far-fetched idea of Simon, so it seemed the worldhad stopped being a stage where she might meet him, and gone back to being itself. During thatbountifully clear half-hour before her breakfast made her so sleepy she had to get to a motel,where she fell asleep with her clothes on and the curtains open to the sun, she thought how loveremoves the world for you, and just as surely when it’s going well as when it’s going badly. Thisshouldn’t have been, and wasn’t, a surprise to her; the surprise was that she so much wanted,required, everything to be there for her, thick and plain as ice-cream dishes, so that it seemed toher it might not be the disappointment, the losses, the dissolution, she had been running from, anymore than the opposite of those things; the celebration and shock of love, the dazzling alteration152.
Even if that was safe, she couldn’t accept it. Either way you were robbed of something—a privatebalance spring, a little dry kernel153 of probity154. So she thought.
She wrote to the college that while in Toronto attending the deathbed of her friend she had runinto an old acquaintance who had offered her a job on the west coast, and that she was going thereimmediately. She supposed they could make trouble for her but she also supposed, rightly, thatthey would not bother, since the terms of her employment, and particularly her pay, were not quiteregular. She wrote to the agency from which she rented the house; she wrote to the woman at thestore, good luck and good-bye. On the Hope-Princeton highway she got out of the car and stood inthe cool rain of the coastal155 mountains. She felt relatively156 safe, and exhausted157, and sane158, though sheknew she had left some people behind who would not agree with that.
Luck was with her. In Vancouver she met a man she knew who was casting a new televisionseries. It was to be produced on the west coast and concerned a family, or pseudo-family, ofeccentrics and drifters using an old house on Salt Spring Island as their home or headquarters.
Rose got the role of the woman who owned the house, the pseudo-mother. Just as she had said inthe letter; a job on the west coast, possibly the best job she had ever had. Some special make-uptechniques, aging techniques, had to be used on her face; the makeup159 man joked that if the serieswas a success, and ran for a few years, these techniques would not be necessary.
A word everybody at the coast was using was fragile. They spoke of feeling fragile today, ofbeing in a fragile state. Not me, Rose said, I am getting a distinct feeling of being made of oldhorsehide. The wind and sun on the prairies had browned and roughened her skin. She slapped hercreased brown neck, to emphasize the word horse-hide. She was already beginning to adopt someof the turns of phrase, the mannerisms, of the character she was to play.
A YEAR OR SO LATER Rose was out on the deck of one of the B.C. ferries, wearing a dingysweater and a head scarf. She had to creep around among the lifeboats, keeping an eye on a prettyyoung girl who was freezing in cut-off jeans and a halter. According to the script, the woman Roseplayed was afraid this young girl meant to jump off the boat because she was pregnant.
Filming this scene, they collected a sizeable crowd. When they broke and walked towards thesheltered part of the deck, to put on their coats and drink coffee, a woman in the crowd reached outand touched Rose’s arm.
“You won’t remember me,” she said, and in fact Rose did not remember her. Then this womanbegan to talk about Kingston, the couple who had given the party, even about the death of Rose’scat. Rose recognized her as the woman who had been doing the paper on suicide. But she lookedquite different; she was wearing an expensive beige pant-suit, a beige and white scarf around herhair; she was no longer fringed and soiled and stringy and mutinous-looking. She introduced ahusband, who grunted160 at Rose as if to say that if she expected him to make a big fuss about her,she had another thing coming. He moved away and the woman said, “Poor Simon. You know hedied.”
Then she wanted to know if they were going to be shooting any more scenes. Rose knew whyshe asked. She wanted to get into the background or even the foreground of these scenes so thatshe could call up her friends and tell them to watch her. If she called the people who had been atthat party she would have to say that she knew the series was utter tripe161 but that she had beenpersuaded to be in a scene, for the fun of it.
“Died?”
The woman took off her scarf and the wind blew her hair across her face.
“Cancer of the pancreas,” she said, and turned to face the wind so that she could put the scarf onagain, more to her satisfaction. Her voice seemed to Rose knowledgeable162 and sly. “I don’t knowhow well you knew him,” she said. Was that to make Rose wonder how well she knew him? Thatslyness could ask for help, as well as measure victories and surprises. She tucked her chin in,knotting the scarf.
“So sad,” she said, business-like now. “Sad. He had it for a long time.”
Somebody was calling Rose’s name; she had to go back to the scene. The girl didn’t throwherself into the sea. They didn’t have things like that happening in the series. Such things alwaysthreatened to happen but they didn’t happen, except now and then to peripheral163 and unappealingcharacters. People watching trusted that they would be protected from predictable disasters, alsofrom those shifts of emphasis that throw the story line open to question, the disarrangementswhich demand new judgments and solutions, and throw the windows open on inappropriateunforgettable scenery.
Simon’s dying struck Rose as that kind of disarrangement. It was preposterous164, it was unfair,that such a chunk of information should have been left out, and that Rose even at this late datecould have thought herself the only person who could seriously lack power.
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1
chattering
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| n. （机器振动发出的）咔嗒声，(鸟等)鸣，啁啾 adj. 喋喋不休的，啾啾声的 动词chatter的现在分词形式 | |
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gravy
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| n.肉汁；轻易得来的钱，外快 | |
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askew
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| adv.斜地；adj.歪斜的 | |
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brass
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| n.黄铜；黄铜器，铜管乐器 | |
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skull
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| n.头骨；颅骨 | |
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seethe
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| vi.拥挤，云集；发怒，激动，骚动 | |
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velvet
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| n.丝绒，天鹅绒；adj.丝绒制的，柔软的 | |
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galleons
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| n.大型帆船( galleon的名词复数 ) | |
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costly
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| adj.昂贵的，价值高的，豪华的 | |
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belly
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| n.肚子，腹部；(像肚子一样)鼓起的部分，膛 | |
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batter
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| v.接连重击；磨损；n.牛奶面糊；击球员 | |
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ivy
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| n.常青藤，常春藤 | |
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eyebrows
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| 眉毛( eyebrow的名词复数 ) | |
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sprightly
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| adj.愉快的，活泼的 | |
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affected
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| adj.不自然的，假装的 | |
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beads
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| n.（空心）小珠子( bead的名词复数 )；水珠；珠子项链 | |
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crooked
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| adj.弯曲的；不诚实的，狡猾的，不正当的 | |
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embroidered
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| adj．绣花的 | |
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spool
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| n.（缠录音带等的）卷盘（轴）；v.把…绕在卷轴上 | |
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tilted
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| v. 倾斜的 | |
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bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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puffed
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| adj.疏松的v.使喷出( puff的过去式和过去分词 )；喷着汽（或烟）移动；吹嘘；吹捧 | |
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bust
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| vt.打破；vi.爆裂；n.半身像；胸部 | |
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patchwork
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| n.混杂物；拼缝物 | |
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penetrated
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| adj. 击穿的，鞭辟入里的 动词penetrate的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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doomed
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| 命定的 | |
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judgments
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| 判断( judgment的名词复数 )； 鉴定； 评价； 审判 | |
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dryer
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| n.干衣机，干燥剂 | |
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horrified
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| a.(表现出)恐惧的 | |
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farmhouse
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| n.农场住宅（尤指主要住房） | |
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jugs
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| （有柄及小口的）水壶( jug的名词复数 ) | |
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primitive
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| adj.原始的；简单的；n.原(始)人，原始事物 | |
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hummingbird
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| n.蜂鸟 | |
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witty
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| adj.机智的，风趣的 | |
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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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abashed
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| adj.窘迫的，尴尬的v.使羞愧，使局促，使窘迫( abash的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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goodwill
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| n.善意，亲善，信誉，声誉 | |
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anecdote
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| n.轶事，趣闻，短故事 | |
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desperately
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| adv.极度渴望地，绝望地，孤注一掷地 | |
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maternally
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spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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muddled
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| adj.混乱的；糊涂的；头脑昏昏然的v.弄乱，弄糟( muddle的过去式)；使糊涂；对付，混日子 | |
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43
tinged
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| v.（使）发丁丁声( ting的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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guile
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| n.诈术 | |
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tricky
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| adj.狡猾的，奸诈的；(工作等)棘手的，微妙的 | |
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46
bragging
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| v.自夸，吹嘘( brag的现在分词 )；大话 | |
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47
curiously
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| adv.有求知欲地；好问地；奇特地 | |
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48
softened
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| （使）变软( soften的过去式和过去分词 )； 缓解打击； 缓和； 安慰 | |
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bloody
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| adj.非常的的；流血的；残忍的；adv.很；vt.血染 | |
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devoutly
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| adv.虔诚地，虔敬地，衷心地 | |
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banal
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| adj.陈腐的，平庸的 | |
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52
abortions
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| n.小产( abortion的名词复数 )；小产胎儿；（计划）等中止或夭折；败育 | |
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53
rejection
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| n.拒绝，被拒，抛弃，被弃 | |
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54
flunking
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| v.( flunk的现在分词 )；（使）（考试、某学科的成绩等）不及格；评定（某人）不及格；（因不及格而） 退学 | |
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triumphant
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| adj.胜利的，成功的；狂欢的，喜悦的 | |
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confrontation
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| n.对抗，对峙，冲突 | |
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humiliated
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| 感到羞愧的 | |
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solicitous
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| adj.热切的，挂念的 | |
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intimacy
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| n.熟悉，亲密，密切关系，亲昵的言行 | |
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60
longing
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| n.（for）渴望 | |
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emaciated
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| adj.衰弱的，消瘦的 | |
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obsessed
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| adj.心神不宁的,鬼迷心窍的,沉迷的 | |
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63
marrow
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| n.骨髓；精华；活力 | |
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64
glazed
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| adj.光滑的，像玻璃的；上过釉的；呆滞无神的v.装玻璃( glaze的过去式)；上釉于，上光；（目光）变得呆滞无神 | |
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65
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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66
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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67
vaguely
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| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
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68
inviting
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| adj.诱人的，引人注目的 | |
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69
promising
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| adj.有希望的，有前途的 | |
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70
ailments
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| 疾病（尤指慢性病），不适( ailment的名词复数 ) | |
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71
fatigue
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| n.疲劳，劳累 | |
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72
apprehension
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| n.理解，领悟；逮捕，拘捕；忧虑 | |
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73
acting
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| n.演戏，行为，假装；adj.代理的，临时的，演出用的 | |
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74
exhaustion
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| n.耗尽枯竭，疲惫，筋疲力尽，竭尽，详尽无遗的论述 | |
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75
boredom
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| n.厌烦，厌倦，乏味，无聊 | |
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76
virtue
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| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
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77
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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78
doorway
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| n.门口，(喻)入门；门路，途径 | |
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79
impudent
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| adj.鲁莽的，卑鄙的，厚颜无耻的 | |
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80
commotion
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| n.骚动，动乱 | |
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81
inspection
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| n.检查，审查，检阅 | |
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82
gravel
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| n.砂跞；砂砾层；结石 | |
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83
outskirts
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| n.郊外，郊区 | |
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84
chilly
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| adj.凉快的，寒冷的 | |
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85
inadequate
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| adj.(for,to)不充足的，不适当的 | |
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86
insulation
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| n.隔离；绝缘；隔热 | |
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87
maple
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| n.槭树，枫树，槭木 | |
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88
playwright
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| n.剧作家，编写剧本的人 | |
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89
shafted
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| 有箭杆的，有柄的，有羽轴的 | |
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90
disapproval
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| n.反对，不赞成 | |
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91
virtuous
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| adj.有品德的，善良的，贞洁的，有效力的 | |
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92
chunk
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| n.厚片，大块，相当大的部分（数量） | |
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93
humble
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| adj.谦卑的，恭顺的；地位低下的；v.降低，贬低 | |
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94
memento
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| n.纪念品，令人回忆的东西 | |
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95
smacking
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| 活泼的，发出响声的，精力充沛的 | |
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96
malice
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| n.恶意，怨恨，蓄意；[律]预谋 | |
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97
censure
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| v./n.责备；非难；责难 | |
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98
remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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99
deserted
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| adj.荒芜的，荒废的，无人的，被遗弃的 | |
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100
feverish
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| adj.发烧的，狂热的，兴奋的 | |
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101
musing
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| n. 沉思，冥想 adj. 沉思的, 冥想的 动词muse的现在分词形式 | |
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102
walnut
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| n.胡桃，胡桃木，胡桃色，茶色 | |
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103
manure
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| n.粪，肥，肥粒；vt.施肥 | |
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104
humiliation
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| n.羞辱 | |
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105
lettuce
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| n.莴苣；生菜 | |
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106
crumpled
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| adj. 弯扭的, 变皱的 动词crumple的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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107
stylish
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| adj.流行的，时髦的；漂亮的，气派的 | |
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108
thumping
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| adj.重大的，巨大的；重击的；尺码大的；极好的adv.极端地；非常地v.重击(thump的现在分词)；狠打；怦怦地跳；全力支持 | |
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109
joyfully
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| adv. 喜悦地, 高兴地 | |
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110
hearty
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| adj.热情友好的；衷心的；尽情的，纵情的 | |
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111
mellow
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| adj.柔和的；熟透的；v.变柔和；(使)成熟 | |
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112
consolations
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| n.安慰，慰问( consolation的名词复数 )；起安慰作用的人（或事物） | |
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113
pangs
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| 突然的剧痛( pang的名词复数 )； 悲痛 | |
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114
decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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115
jealousy
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| n.妒忌，嫉妒，猜忌 | |
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116
butts
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| 笑柄( butt的名词复数 )； （武器或工具的）粗大的一端； 屁股； 烟蒂 | |
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117
vapor
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| n.蒸汽，雾气 | |
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118
discreet
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| adj.(言行)谨慎的；慎重的；有判断力的 | |
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119
sect
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| n.派别，宗教，学派，派系 | |
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120
retired
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| adj.隐退的，退休的，退役的 | |
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121
provincial
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| adj.省的，地方的；n．外省人，乡下人 | |
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122
peg
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| n.木栓，木钉；vt.用木钉钉，用短桩固定 | |
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123
rusty
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| adj.生锈的；锈色的；荒废了的 | |
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124
foghorn
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| n..雾号（浓雾信号） | |
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125
fortifying
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| 筑防御工事于( fortify的现在分词 )； 筑堡于； 增强； 强化（食品） | |
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126
pushy
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| adj.固执己见的，一意孤行的 | |
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127
tacked
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| 用平头钉钉( tack的过去式和过去分词 )； 附加，增补； 帆船抢风行驶，用粗线脚缝 | |
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128
counterfeit
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| vt.伪造，仿造；adj.伪造的，假冒的 | |
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129
haphazard
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| adj.无计划的，随意的，杂乱无章的 | |
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130
miserable
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| adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的 | |
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131
interspersed
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| adj.[医]散开的；点缀的v.intersperse的过去式和过去分词 | |
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132
obituaries
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| 讣告，讣闻( obituary的名词复数 ) | |
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133
utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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134
overdid
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| v.做得过分( overdo的过去式 )；太夸张；把…煮得太久；（工作等）过度 | |
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135
steadily
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| adv.稳定地；不变地；持续地 | |
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136
crouched
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| v.屈膝，蹲伏( crouch的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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137
mortification
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| n.耻辱，屈辱 | |
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138
mortifying
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| adj.抑制的，苦修的v.使受辱( mortify的现在分词 )；伤害（人的感情）；克制；抑制（肉体、情感等） | |
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139
burrows
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| n.地洞( burrow的名词复数 )v.挖掘（洞穴），挖洞( burrow的第三人称单数 )；翻寻 | |
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140
hymns
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| n.赞美诗，圣歌，颂歌( hymn的名词复数 ) | |
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141
touching
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| adj.动人的，使人感伤的 | |
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142
disastrous
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| adj.灾难性的，造成灾害的；极坏的，很糟的 | |
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143
porous
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| adj.可渗透的，多孔的 | |
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144
condemned
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| adj. 被责难的, 被宣告有罪的 动词condemn的过去式和过去分词 | |
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145
ominous
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| adj.不祥的，不吉的，预兆的，预示的 | |
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146
ebbed
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| （指潮水）退( ebb的过去式和过去分词 )； 落； 减少； 衰落 | |
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147
impersonally
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| ad.非人称地 | |
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148
entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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149
cypress
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| n.柏树 | |
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150
eloquent
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| adj.雄辩的，口才流利的；明白显示出的 | |
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151
gratitude
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| adj.感激，感谢 | |
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152
alteration
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| n.变更，改变；蚀变 | |
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153
kernel
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| n.(果实的)核，仁；(问题)的中心，核心 | |
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154
probity
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| n.刚直；廉洁，正直 | |
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155
coastal
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| adj.海岸的，沿海的，沿岸的 | |
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156
relatively
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| adv.比较...地，相对地 | |
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157
exhausted
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| adj.极其疲惫的，精疲力尽的 | |
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158
sane
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| adj.心智健全的，神志清醒的，明智的，稳健的 | |
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159
makeup
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| n.组织；性格；化装品 | |
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160
grunted
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| （猪等）作呼噜声( grunt的过去式和过去分词 )； （指人）发出类似的哼声； 咕哝着说 | |
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161
tripe
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| n.废话，肚子, 内脏 | |
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162
knowledgeable
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| adj.知识渊博的；有见识的 | |
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163
peripheral
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| adj.周边的，外围的 | |
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164
preposterous
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| adj.荒谬的，可笑的 | |
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