PARTLY BECAUSE of her youth and the glory of the day, partly because of her blossoming need for a cigarette, Cecilia Tallis half ran with her flowers along the path that went by the river, by the old diving pool with its mossy brick wall, before curving away through the oak woods. The accumulated inactivity of the summer weeks since finals also hurried her along; since coming home, her life had stood still and a fine day like this made her impatient, almost desperate.
The cool high shade of the woods was a relief, the sculpted2 intricacies of the tree trunks enchanting3. Once through the iron kissing gate, and past the rhododendrons beneath the ha-ha, she crossed the open parkland—sold off to a local farmer to graze his cows on—and came up behind the fountain and its retaining wall and the half-scale reproduction of Bernini’s Triton in the Piazza4 Barberini in Rome.
The muscular figure, squatting6 so comfortably on his shell, could blow through his conch a jet only two inches high, the pressure was so feeble, and water fell back over his head, down his stone locks and along the groove7 of his powerful spine8, leaving a glistening9 dark green stain. In an alien northern climate he was a long way from home, but he was beautiful in morning sunlight, and so were the four dolphins that supported the wavy-edged shell on which he sat. She looked at the improbable scales on the dolphins and on the Triton’s thighs10, and then toward the house. Her quickest way into the drawing room was across the lawn and terrace and through the French windows. But her childhood friend and university acquaintance, Robbie Turner, was on his knees, weeding along a rugosa hedge, and she did not feel like getting into conversation with him. Or at least, not now. Since coming down, landscape gardening had become his last craze but one. Now there was talk of medical college, which after a literature degree seemed rather pretentious11. And presumptuous12 too, since it was her father who would have to pay.
She refreshed the flowers by plunging13 them into the fountain’s basin, which was full-scale, deep and cold, and avoided Robbie by hurrying round to the front of the house—it was an excuse, she thought, to stay outside another few minutes. Morning sunlight, or any light, could not conceal14 the ugliness of the Tallis home—barely forty years old, bright orange brick, squat5, lead-paned baronial Gothic, to be condemned15 one day in an article by Pevsner, or one of his team, as a tragedy of wasted chances, and by a younger writer of the modern school as “charmless to a fault.” An Adam-style house had stood here until destroyed by fire in the late 1880s. What remained was the artificial lake and island with its two stone bridges supporting the driveway, and, by the water’s edge, a crumbling16 stuccoed temple. Cecilia’s grandfather, who grew up over an ironmonger’s shop and made the family fortune with a series of patents on padlocks, bolts, latches17 and hasps, had imposed on the new house his taste for all things solid, secure and functional18. Still, if one turned one’s back to the front entrance and glanced down the drive, ignoring the Friesians already congregating19 in the shade of widely spaced trees, the view was fine enough, giving an impression of timeless, unchanging calm which made her more certain than ever that she must soon be moving on.
She went indoors, quickly crossed the black and white tiled hall—how familiar her echoing steps, how annoying—and paused to catch her breath in the doorway20 of the drawing room. Dripping coolly onto her sandaled feet, the untidy bunch of rosebay willow21 herb and irises22 brought her to a better state of mind. The vase she was looking for was on an American cherry-wood table by the French windows which were slightly ajar. Their southeast aspect had permitted parallelograms of morning sunlight to advance across the powder-blue carpet. Her breathing slowed and her desire for a cigarette deepened, but still she hesitated by the door, momentarily held by the perfection of the scene—by the three faded Chesterfields grouped around the almost new Gothic fireplace in which stood a display of wintry sedge, by the unplayed, untuned harpsichord24 and the unused rosewood music stands, by the heavy velvet25 curtains, loosely restrained by an orange and blue tasseled26 rope, framing a partial view of cloudless sky and the yellow and gray mottled terrace where chamomile and feverfew grew between the paving cracks. A set of steps led down to the lawn on whose border Robbie still worked, and which extended to the Triton fountain fifty yards away.
All this—the river and flowers, running, which was something she rarely did these days, the fine ribbing of the oak trunks, the high-ceilinged room, the geometry of light, the pulse in her ears subsiding27 in the stillness—all this pleased her as the familiar was transformed into a delicious strangeness. But she also felt reproved for her homebound boredom28. She had returned from Cambridge with a vague notion that her family was owed an uninterrupted stretch of her company. But her father remained in town, and her mother, when she wasn’t nurturing29 her migraines, seemed distant, even unfriendly. Cecilia had carried up trays of tea to her mother’s room—as spectacularly squalid as her own—thinking some intimate conversations might develop. However, Emily Tallis wanted to share only tiny frets31 about the household, or she lay back against the pillows, her expression unreadable in the gloom, emptying her cup in wan30 silence. Briony was lost to her writing fantasies—what had seemed a passing fad23 was now an enveloping32 obsession33. Cecilia had seen them on the stairs that morning, her younger sister leading the cousins, poor things, who had arrived only yesterday, up to the nursery to rehearse the play Briony wanted to put on that evening, when Leon and his friend were expected. There was so little time, and already one of the twins had been detained by Betty in the scullery for some wrongdoing or other. Cecilia was not inclined to help—it was too hot, and whatever she did, the project would end in calamity34, with Briony expecting too much, and no one, especially the cousins, able to measure up to her frenetic vision.
Cecilia knew she could not go on wasting her days in the stews35 of her untidied room, lying on her bed in a haze36 of smoke, chin propped37 on her hand, pins and needles spreading up through her arm as she read her way through Richardson’s Clarissa. She had made a halfhearted start on a family tree, but on the paternal38 side, at least until her great-grandfather opened his humble39 hardware shop, the ancestors were irretrievably sunk in a bog40 of farm laboring41, with suspicious and confusing changes of surnames among the men, and common-law marriages unrecorded in the parish registers. She could not remain here, she knew she should make plans, but she did nothing. There were various possibilities, all equally unpressing. She had a little money in her account, enough to keep her modestly for a year or so. Leon repeatedly invited her to spend time with him in London. University friends were offering to help her find a job—a dull one certainly, but she would have her independence. She had interesting uncles and aunts on her mother’s side who were always happy to see her, including wild Hermione, mother of Lola and the boys, who even now was over in Paris with a lover who worked in the wireless42.
No one was holding Cecilia back, no one would care particularly if she left. It wasn’t torpor43 that kept her—she was often restless to the point of irritability44. She simply liked to feel that she was prevented from leaving, that she was needed. From time to time she persuaded herself she remained for Briony’s sake, or to help her mother, or because this really was her last sustained period at home and she would see it through. In fact, the thought of packing a suitcase and taking the morning train did not excite her. Leaving for leaving’s sake. Lingering here, bored and comfortable, was a form of self-punishment tinged45 with pleasure, or the expectation of it; if she went away something bad might happen or, worse, something good, something she could not afford to miss. And there was Robbie, who exasperated46 her with his affectation of distance, and his grand plans which he would only discuss with her father. They had known each other since they were seven, she and Robbie, and it bothered her that they were awkward when they talked. Even though she felt it was largely his fault—could his first have gone to his head?—she knew this was something she must clear up before she thought of leaving.
Through the open windows came the faint leathery scent47 of cow dung, always present except on the coldest days, and noticeable only to those who had been away. Robbie had put down his trowel and stood to roll a cigarette, a hangover from his Communist Party time—another abandoned fad, along with his ambitions in anthropology48, and the planned hike from Calais to Istanbul. Still, her own cigarettes were two flights up, in one of several possible pockets.
She advanced into the room, and thrust the flowers into the vase. It had once belonged to her Uncle Clem, whose funeral, or reburial, at the end of the war she remembered quite well: the gun carriage arriving at the country churchyard, the coffin49 draped in the regimental flag, the raised swords, the bugle50 at the graveside, and, most memorably51 for a five-year-old, her father weeping. Clem was his only sibling52. The story of how he had come by the vase was told in one of the last letters the young lieutenant53 wrote home. He was on liaison54 duties in the French sector55 and initiated56 a last-minute evacuation of a small town west of Verdun before it was shelled. Perhaps fifty women, children and old people were saved. Later, the mayor and other officials led Uncle Clem back through the town to a half-destroyed museum. The vase was taken from a shattered glass case and presented in gratitude57. There was no refusing, however inconvenient58 it might have seemed to fight a war with Meissen porcelain59 under one arm. A month later the vase was left for safety in a farmhouse60, and Lieutenant Tallis waded61 across a river in spate62 to retrieve63 it, returning the same way at midnight to join his unit. In the final days of the war, he was sent on patrol duties and gave the vase to a friend for safekeeping. It slowly found its way back to the regimental headquarters, and was delivered to the Tallis home some months after Uncle Clem’s burial.
There was really no point trying to arrange wildflowers. They had tumbled into their own symmetry, and it was certainly true that too even a distribution between the irises and the rosebay willow herb ruined the effect. She spent some minutes making adjustments in order to achieve a natural chaotic64 look. While she did so she wondered about going out to Robbie. It would save her from running upstairs. But she felt uncomfortable and hot, and would have liked to check her appearance in the large gilt65 mirror above the fireplace. But if he turned round—he was standing66 with his back to the house, smoking—he would see right into the room. At last she was finished and stood back again. Now her brother’s friend, Paul Marshall, might believe that the flowers had simply been dropped in the vase in the same carefree spirit with which they had been picked. It made no sense, she knew, arranging flowers before the water was in—but there it was; she couldn’t resist moving them around, and not everything people did could be in a correct, logical order, especially when they were alone. Her mother wanted flowers in the guest room and Cecilia was happy to oblige. The place to go for water was the kitchen. But Betty was preparing to cook tonight’s meal, and was in a terrorizing mood. Not only the little boy, Jackson or Pierrot, would be cowering—so too would the extra help from the village. Already, even from the drawing room, it was possible to hear an occasional muffled68 bad-tempered69 shout and the clang of a saucepan hitting the hob with unnatural70 force. If Cecilia went in now she would have to mediate71 between her mother’s vague instructions and Betty’s forceful state of mind. It surely made more sense to go outside and fill the vase at the fountain.
Sometime in her teens a friend of Cecilia’s father who worked in the Victoria and Albert Museum had come to examine the vase and declared it sound. It was genuine Meissen porcelain, the work of the great artist H?roldt, who painted it in 1726. It had most certainly once been the property of King August. Even though it was reckoned to be worth more than the other pieces in the Tallis home, which were mostly junk collected by Cecilia’s grandfather, Jack67 Tallis wanted the vase in use, in honor of his brother’s memory. It was not to be imprisoned72 behind a glass case. If it had survived the war, the reasoning went, then it could survive the Tallises. His wife did not disagree. The truth was, whatever its great value, and beyond its association, Emily Tallis did not much like the vase. Its little painted Chinese figures gathered formally in a garden around a table, with ornate plants and implausible birds, seemed fussy73 and oppressive. Chinoiserie in general bored her. Cecilia herself had no particular view, though she sometimes wondered just how much it might fetch at Sotheby’s. The vase was respected not for H?roldt’s mastery of polychrome enamels74 or the blue and gold interlacing strapwork and foliage75, but for Uncle Clem, and the lives he had saved, the river he had crossed at midnight, and his death just a week before the Armistice76. Flowers, especially wildflowers, seemed a proper tribute.
Cecilia gripped the cool porcelain in both hands as she stood on one foot, and with the other hooked the French windows open wide. As she stepped out into the brightness, the rising scent of warmed stone was like a friendly embrace. Two swallows were making passes over the fountain, and a chiffchaff’s song was piercing the air from within the sinewy77 gloom of the giant cedar78 of Lebanon. The flowers swung in the light breeze, tickling79 her face as she crossed the terrace and carefully negotiated the three crumbly steps down to the gravel80 path. Robbie turned suddenly at the sound of her approach.
“I was away in my thoughts,” he began to explain.
“Would you roll me one of your Bolshevik cigarettes?”
He threw his own cigarette aside, took the tin which lay on his jacket on the lawn and walked alongside her to the fountain. They were silent for a while.
“Beautiful day,” she then said through a sigh.
He was looking at her with amused suspicion. There was something between them, and even she had to acknowledge that a tame remark about the weather sounded perverse81.
“How’s Clarissa?” He was looking down at his fingers rolling the tobacco.
“Boring.”
“We mustn’t say so.”
“I wish she’d get on with it.”
“She does. And it gets better.”
They slowed, then stopped so that he could put the finishing touches to her roll-up.
She said, “I’d rather read Fielding any day.”
She felt she had said something stupid. Robbie was looking away across the park and the cows toward the oak wood that lined the river valley, the wood she had run through that morning. He might be thinking she was talking to him in code, suggestively conveying her taste for the full-blooded and sensual. That was a mistake, of course, and she was discomfited82 and had no idea how to put him right. She liked his eyes, she thought, the unblended mix of orange and green, made even more granular in sunlight. And she liked the fact that he was so tall. It was an interesting combination in a man, intelligence and sheer bulk. Cecilia had taken the cigarette and he was lighting83 it for her.
“I know what you mean,” he said as they walked the remaining few yards to the fountain. “There’s more life in Fielding, but he can be psychologically crude compared to Richardson.”
She set down the vase by the uneven84 steps that rose to the fountain’s stone basin. The last thing she wanted was an undergraduate debate on eighteenth-century literature. She didn’t think Fielding was crude at all, or that Richardson was a fine psychologist, but she wasn’t going to be drawn85 in, defending, defining, attacking. She was tired of that, and Robbie was tenacious86 in argument.
Instead she said, “Leon’s coming today, did you know?”
“I heard a rumor87. That’s marvelous.”
“He’s bringing a friend, this man Paul Marshall.”
“The chocolate millionaire. Oh no! And you’re giving him flowers!”
She smiled. Was he pretending to be jealous to conceal the fact that he was? She no longer understood him. They had fallen out of touch at Cambridge. It had been too difficult to do anything else. She changed the subject.
“The Old Man says you’re going to be a doctor.”
“I’m thinking about it.”
“You must love the student life.”
He looked away again, but this time for only a second or less, and when he turned to her she thought she saw a touch of irritation88. Had she sounded condescending89? She saw his eyes again, green and orange flecks90, like a boy’s marble. When he spoke91 he was perfectly92 pleasant.
“I know you never liked that sort of thing, Cee. But how else do you become a doctor?”
“That’s my point. Another six years. Why do it?”
He wasn’t offended. She was the one who was overinterpreting, and jittery93 in his presence, and she was annoyed with herself.
He was taking her question seriously. “No one’s really going to give me work as a landscape gardener. I don’t want to teach, or go in for the civil service. And medicine interests me . . .” He broke off as a thought occurred to him. “Look, I’ve agreed to pay your father back. That’s the arrangement.”
“That’s not what I meant at all.”
She was surprised that he should think she was raising the question of money. That was ungenerous of him. Her father had subsidized Robbie’s education all his life. Had anyone ever objected? She had thought she was imagining it, but in fact she was right—there was something trying in Robbie’s manner lately. He had a way of wrong-footing her whenever he could. Two days before he had rung the front doorbell—in itself odd, for he had always had the freedom of the house. When she was called down, he was standing outside asking in a loud, impersonal94 voice if he could borrow a book. As it happened, Polly was on all fours, washing the tiles in the entrance hall. Robbie made a great show of removing his boots which weren’t dirty at all, and then, as an afterthought, took his socks off as well, and tiptoed with comic exaggeration across the wet floor. Everything he did was designed to distance her. He was playacting the cleaning lady’s son come to the big house on an errand. They went into the library together, and when he found his book, she asked him to stay for a coffee. It was a pretense95, his dithering refusal—he was one of the most confident people she had ever met. She was being mocked, she knew. Rebuffed, she left the room and went upstairs and lay on the bed with Clarissa, and read without taking in a word, feeling her irritation and confusion grow. She was being mocked, or she was being punished—she did not know which was worse. Punished for being in a different circle at Cambridge, for not having a charlady for a mother; mocked for her poor degree—not that they actually awarded degrees to women anyway.
Awkwardly, for she still had her cigarette, she picked up the vase and balanced it on the rim96 of the basin. It would have made better sense to take the flowers out first, but she was too irritable97. Her hands were hot and dry and she had to grip the porcelain all the tighter. Robbie was silent, but she could tell from his expression—a forced, stretched smile that did not part his lips—that he regretted what he had said. That was no comfort either. This was what happened when they talked these days; one or the other was always in the wrong, trying to call back the last remark. There was no ease, no stability in the course of their conversations, no chance to relax. Instead, it was spikes98, traps, and awkward turns that caused her to dislike herself almost as much as she disliked him, though she did not doubt that he was mostly to blame. She hadn’t changed, but there was no question that he had. He was putting distance between himself and the family that had been completely open to him and given him everything. For this reason alone—expectation of his refusal, and her own displeasure in advance—she had not invited him to dinner that night. If he wanted distance, then let him have it.
Of the four dolphins whose tails supported the shell on which the Triton squatted99, the one nearest to Cecilia had its wide-open mouth stopped with moss1 and algae100. Its spherical101 stone eyeballs, as big as apples, were iridescent102 green. The whole statue had acquired around its northerly surfaces a bluish-green patina103, so that from certain approaches, and in low light, the muscle-bound Triton really seemed a hundred leagues under the sea. Bernini’s intention must have been for the water to trickle104 musically from the wide shell with its irregular edges into the basin below. But the pressure was too weak, so that instead the water slid soundlessly down the underside of the shell where opportunistic slime hung in dripping points, like stalactites in a limestone105 cave. The basin itself was over three feet deep and clear. The bottom was of a pale, creamy stone over which undulating white-edged rectangles of refracted sunlight divided and overlapped106.
Her idea was to lean over the parapet and hold the flowers in the vase while she lowered it on its side into the water, but it was at this point that Robbie, wanting to make amends107, tried to be helpful.
“Let me take that,” he said, stretching out a hand. “I’ll fill it for you, and you take the flowers.”
“I can manage, thanks.” She was already holding the vase over the basin.
But he said, “Look, I’ve got it.” And he had, tightly between forefinger108 and thumb. “Your cigarette will get wet. Take the flowers.”
This was a command on which he tried to confer urgent masculine authority. The effect on Cecilia was to cause her to tighten109 her grip. She had no time, and certainly no inclination110, to explain that plunging vase and flowers into the water would help with the natural look she wanted in the arrangement. She tightened111 her hold and twisted her body away from him. He was not so easily shaken off. With a sound like a dry twig112 snapping, a section of the lip of the vase came away in his hand, and split into two triangular113 pieces which dropped into the water and tumbled to the bottom in a synchronous114, seesawing115 motion, and lay there, several inches apart, writhing116 in the broken light.
Cecilia and Robbie froze in the attitude of their struggle. Their eyes met, and what she saw in the bilious117 mélange of green and orange was not shock, or guilt118, but a form of challenge, or even triumph. She had the presence of mind to set the ruined vase back down on the step before letting herself confront the significance of the accident. It was irresistible119, she knew, even delicious, for the graver it was, the worse it would be for Robbie. Her dead uncle, her father’s dear brother, the wasteful120 war, the treacherous121 crossing of the river, the preciousness beyond money, the heroism122 and goodness, all the years backed up behind the history of the vase reaching back to the genius of H?roldt, and beyond him to the mastery of the arcanists who had reinvented porcelain.
“You idiot! Look what you’ve done.”
He looked into the water, then he looked at back at her, and simply shook his head as he raised a hand to cover his mouth. By this gesture he assumed full responsibility, but at that moment, she hated him for the inadequacy123 of the response. He glanced toward the basin and sighed. For a moment he thought she was about to step backward onto the vase, and he raised his hand and pointed124, though he said nothing. Instead he began to unbutton his shirt. Immediately she knew what he was about. Intolerable. He had come to the house and removed his shoes and socks—well, she would show him then. She kicked off her sandals, unbuttoned her blouse and removed it, unfastened her skirt and stepped out of it and went to the basin wall. He stood with hands on his hips125 and stared as she climbed into the water in her underwear. Denying his help, any possibility of making amends, was his punishment. The unexpectedly freezing water that caused her to gasp126 was his punishment. She held her breath, and sank, leaving her hair fanned out across the surface. Drowning herself would be his punishment.
When she emerged a few seconds later with a piece of pottery127 in each hand, he knew better than to offer to help her out of the water. The frail128 white nymph, from whom water cascaded129 far more successfully than it did from the beefy Triton, carefully placed the pieces by the vase. She dressed quickly, turning her wet arms with difficulty through her silk sleeves, and tucking the unfastened blouse into the skirt. She picked up her sandals and thrust them under her arm, put the fragments in the pocket of her skirt and took up the vase. Her movements were savage130, and she would not meet his eye. He did not exist, he was banished131, and this was also the punishment. He stood there dumbly as she walked away from him, barefoot across the lawn, and he watched her darkened hair swing heavily across her shoulders, drenching132 her blouse. Then he turned and looked into the water in case there was a piece she had missed. It was difficult to see because the roiling133 surface had yet to recover its tranquillity134, and the turbulence135 was driven by the lingering spirit of her fury. He put his hand flat upon the surface, as though to quell136 it. She, meanwhile, had disappeared into the house.
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moss
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| n.苔，藓，地衣 | |
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sculpted
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| adj.经雕塑的 | |
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enchanting
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| a.讨人喜欢的 | |
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piazza
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| n.广场；走廊 | |
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squat
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| v.蹲坐，蹲下；n.蹲下；adj.矮胖的，粗矮的 | |
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squatting
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| v.像动物一样蹲下( squat的现在分词 )；非法擅自占用（土地或房屋）；为获得其所有权；而占用某片公共用地。 | |
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groove
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| n.沟，槽；凹线，（刻出的）线条，习惯 | |
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spine
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| n.脊柱，脊椎；(动植物的)刺；书脊 | |
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glistening
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| adj.闪耀的，反光的v.湿物闪耀，闪亮( glisten的现在分词 ) | |
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thighs
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| n.股，大腿( thigh的名词复数 )；食用的鸡（等的）腿 | |
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pretentious
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| adj.自命不凡的，自负的，炫耀的 | |
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presumptuous
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| adj.胆大妄为的，放肆的，冒昧的，冒失的 | |
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plunging
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| adj.跳进的，突进的v.颠簸( plunge的现在分词 )；暴跌；骤降；突降 | |
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conceal
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| v.隐藏，隐瞒，隐蔽 | |
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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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crumbling
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| adj.摇摇欲坠的 | |
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latches
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| n.（门窗的）门闩( latch的名词复数 )；碰锁v.理解( latch的第三人称单数 )；纠缠；用碰锁锁上（门等）；附着（在某物上） | |
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functional
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| adj.为实用而设计的，具备功能的，起作用的 | |
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congregating
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| （使）集合，聚集( congregate的现在分词 ) | |
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doorway
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| n.门口，(喻)入门；门路，途径 | |
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willow
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| n.柳树 | |
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irises
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| n.虹( iris的名词复数 )；虹膜；虹彩；鸢尾（花） | |
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fad
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| n.时尚；一时流行的狂热；一时的爱好 | |
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harpsichord
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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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tasseled
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| v.抽穗， （玉米）长穗须( tassel的过去式和过去分词 )；使抽穗， （为了使作物茁壮生长）摘去穗状雄花；用流苏装饰 | |
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subsiding
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| v.（土地）下陷（因在地下采矿）( subside的现在分词 )；减弱；下降至较低或正常水平；一下子坐在椅子等上 | |
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boredom
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| n.厌烦，厌倦，乏味，无聊 | |
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nurturing
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| 养育( nurture的现在分词 )； 培育； 滋长； 助长 | |
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wan
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| (wide area network)广域网 | |
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31
frets
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| 基质间片； 品丝（吉他等指板上定音的）( fret的名词复数 ) | |
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32
enveloping
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| v.包围，笼罩，包住( envelop的现在分词 ) | |
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33
obsession
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| n.困扰，无法摆脱的思想(或情感) | |
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34
calamity
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| n.灾害，祸患，不幸事件 | |
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35
stews
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| n.炖煮的菜肴( stew的名词复数 )；烦恼，焦虑v.炖( stew的第三人称单数 )；煨；思考；担忧 | |
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36
haze
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| n.霾，烟雾；懵懂，迷糊；vi.(over)变模糊 | |
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37
propped
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| 支撑，支持，维持( prop的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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38
paternal
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| adj.父亲的，像父亲的，父系的，父方的 | |
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39
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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40
bog
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| n.沼泽；室...陷入泥淖 | |
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41
laboring
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| n.劳动，操劳v.努力争取(for)( labor的现在分词 )；苦干；详细分析；（指引擎）缓慢而困难地运转 | |
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42
wireless
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| adj.无线的；n.无线电 | |
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43
torpor
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| n.迟钝；麻木；（动物的）冬眠 | |
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44
irritability
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| n.易怒 | |
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45
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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46
exasperated
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| adj.恼怒的 | |
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47
scent
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| n.气味，香味，香水，线索，嗅觉；v.嗅，发觉 | |
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48
anthropology
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| n.人类学 | |
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49
coffin
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| n.棺材，灵柩 | |
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50
bugle
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| n.军号，号角，喇叭；v.吹号，吹号召集 | |
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51
memorably
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| 难忘的 | |
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52
sibling
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| n.同胞手足(指兄、弟、姐或妹) | |
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53
lieutenant
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| n.陆军中尉，海军上尉；代理官员，副职官员 | |
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54
liaison
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| n.联系，（未婚男女间的）暖昧关系，私通 | |
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55
sector
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| n.部门，部分；防御地段，防区；扇形 | |
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56
initiated
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| n. 创始人 adj. 新加入的 vt. 开始，创始，启蒙，介绍加入 | |
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57
gratitude
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| adj.感激，感谢 | |
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58
inconvenient
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| adj.不方便的，令人感到麻烦的 | |
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59
porcelain
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| n.瓷；adj.瓷的，瓷制的 | |
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60
farmhouse
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| n.农场住宅（尤指主要住房） | |
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61
waded
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| （从水、泥等）蹚，走过，跋( wade的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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62
spate
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| n.泛滥，洪水，突然的一阵 | |
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63
retrieve
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| vt.重新得到，收回；挽回，补救；检索 | |
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64
chaotic
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| adj.混沌的，一片混乱的，一团糟的 | |
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65
gilt
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| adj.镀金的；n.金边证券 | |
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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
jack
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| n.插座，千斤顶，男人；v.抬起，提醒，扛举；n.（Jake）杰克 | |
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68
muffled
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| adj.（声音）被隔的；听不太清的；（衣服）裹严的；蒙住的v.压抑，捂住( muffle的过去式和过去分词 )；用厚厚的衣帽包着（自己） | |
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69
bad-tempered
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| adj.脾气坏的 | |
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70
unnatural
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| adj.不自然的；反常的 | |
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71
mediate
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| vi.调解，斡旋；vt.经调解解决；经斡旋促成 | |
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72
imprisoned
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| 下狱，监禁( imprison的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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73
fussy
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| adj.为琐事担忧的，过分装饰的，爱挑剔的 | |
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74
enamels
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| 搪瓷( enamel的名词复数 )； 珐琅； 釉药； 瓷漆 | |
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75
foliage
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| n.叶子，树叶，簇叶 | |
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76
armistice
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| n.休战，停战协定 | |
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77
sinewy
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| adj.多腱的，强壮有力的 | |
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78
cedar
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| n.雪松，香柏(木) | |
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79
tickling
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| 反馈，回授，自旋挠痒法 | |
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80
gravel
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| n.砂跞；砂砾层；结石 | |
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81
perverse
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| adj.刚愎的；坚持错误的，行为反常的 | |
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82
discomfited
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| v.使为难( discomfit的过去式和过去分词)；使狼狈；使挫折；挫败 | |
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83
lighting
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| n.照明，光线的明暗，舞台灯光 | |
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84
uneven
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| adj.不平坦的，不规则的，不均匀的 | |
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85
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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86
tenacious
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| adj.顽强的，固执的，记忆力强的，粘的 | |
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87
rumor
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| n.谣言，谣传，传说 | |
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88
irritation
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| n.激怒，恼怒，生气 | |
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89
condescending
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| adj.谦逊的,故意屈尊的 | |
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90
flecks
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| n.斑点，小点( fleck的名词复数 )；癍 | |
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91
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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92
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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93
jittery
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| adj. 神经过敏的, 战战兢兢的 | |
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94
impersonal
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| adj.无个人感情的，与个人无关的，非人称的 | |
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95
pretense
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| n.矫饰，做作，借口 | |
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96
rim
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| n.(圆物的)边，轮缘；边界 | |
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97
irritable
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| adj.急躁的；过敏的；易怒的 | |
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98
spikes
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| n.穗( spike的名词复数 )；跑鞋；（防滑）鞋钉；尖状物v.加烈酒于( spike的第三人称单数 )；偷偷地给某人的饮料加入（更多）酒精（ 或药物）；把尖状物钉入；打乱某人的计划 | |
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99
squatted
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| v.像动物一样蹲下( squat的过去式和过去分词 )；非法擅自占用（土地或房屋）；为获得其所有权；而占用某片公共用地。 | |
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100
algae
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| n.水藻，海藻 | |
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101
spherical
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| adj.球形的；球面的 | |
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102
iridescent
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| adj.彩虹色的，闪色的 | |
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103
patina
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| n.铜器上的绿锈，年久而产生的光泽 | |
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104
trickle
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| vi.淌，滴，流出，慢慢移动，逐渐消散 | |
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105
limestone
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| n.石灰石 | |
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106
overlapped
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| _adj.重叠的v.部分重叠( overlap的过去式和过去分词 )；（物体）部份重叠；交叠；（时间上）部份重叠 | |
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107
amends
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| n. 赔偿 | |
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108
forefinger
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| n.食指 | |
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109
tighten
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| v.(使)变紧；(使)绷紧 | |
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110
inclination
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| n.倾斜；点头；弯腰；斜坡；倾度；倾向；爱好 | |
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111
tightened
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| 收紧( tighten的过去式和过去分词 )； （使）变紧； （使）绷紧； 加紧 | |
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112
twig
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| n.小树枝，嫩枝；v.理解 | |
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113
triangular
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| adj.三角（形）的，三者间的 | |
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114
synchronous
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| adj.同步的 | |
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115
seesawing
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| v.使上下（来回）摇动( seesaw的现在分词 )；玩跷跷板，上下（来回）摇动 | |
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116
writhing
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| （因极度痛苦而）扭动或翻滚( writhe的现在分词 ) | |
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117
bilious
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| adj.胆汁过多的；易怒的 | |
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118
guilt
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| n.犯罪；内疚；过失，罪责 | |
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119
irresistible
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| adj.非常诱人的，无法拒绝的，无法抗拒的 | |
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120
wasteful
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| adj.（造成）浪费的，挥霍的 | |
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121
treacherous
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| adj.不可靠的，有暗藏的危险的；adj.背叛的，背信弃义的 | |
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122
heroism
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| n.大无畏精神，英勇 | |
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123
inadequacy
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| n.无法胜任，信心不足 | |
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124
pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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125
hips
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| abbr.high impact polystyrene 高冲击强度聚苯乙烯，耐冲性聚苯乙烯n.臀部( hip的名词复数 )；[建筑学]屋脊；臀围（尺寸）；臀部…的 | |
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126
gasp
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| n.喘息，气喘；v.喘息；气吁吁他说 | |
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127
pottery
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| n.陶器，陶器场 | |
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128
frail
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| adj.身体虚弱的；易损坏的 | |
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129
cascaded
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| 级联的 | |
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130
savage
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| adj.野蛮的；凶恶的，残暴的；n.未开化的人 | |
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131
banished
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| v.放逐，驱逐( banish的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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132
drenching
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| n.湿透v.使湿透( drench的现在分词 )；在某人（某物）上大量使用（某液体） | |
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133
roiling
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| v.搅混（液体）( roil的现在分词 )；使烦恼；使不安；使生气 | |
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134
tranquillity
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| n. 平静, 安静 | |
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135
turbulence
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| n.喧嚣，狂暴，骚乱，湍流 | |
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136
quell
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| v.压制，平息，减轻 | |
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