HEROES who have endured the heavy labour of reading to the end the story of The Unpresentable Appearance of Colonel Crane are aware that his achievement was the first of a series of feats1 counted impossible, like the quests of the Arthurian knights2. For the purpose of this tale, in which the Colonel is but a secondary figure, it is enough to say that he was long known and respected, before his last escapade, as a respectable and retired3 military man in a residential4 part of Surrey, with a sunburnt complexion5 and an interest in savage6 mythology7. As a fact, however, he had gathered the sunburn and the savage myths some time before he had managed to collect the respectability and the suburban8 residence. In his early youth he had been a traveller of the adventurous9 and even restless sort; and he only concerns this story because he was a member of a sort of club or clique10 of young men whose adventurousness11 verged12 on extravagance. They were all eccentrics of one kind or another, some professing13 extreme revolutionary and some extreme reactionary14 opinions,[40] and some both. Among the latter may be classed Mr. Robert Owen Hood15, the somewhat unlegal lawyer who is the hero of this tale.
Robert Owen Hood was Crane’s most intimate and incongruous friend. Hood was from the first as sedentary as Crane was adventurous. Hood was to the end as casual as Crane was conventional. The prefix16 of Robert Owen was a relic17 of a vague revolutionary tradition in his family; but he inherited along with it a little money that allowed him to neglect the law and cultivate a taste for liberty and for drifting and dreaming in lost corners of the country, especially in the little hills between the Severn and the Thames. In the upper reaches of the latter river is an islet in which he loved especially to sit fishing, a shabby but not commonplace figure clad in grey, with a mane of rust18-coloured hair and a long face with a large chin, rather like Napoleon. Beside him, on the occasion now in question, stood the striking contrast of his alert military friend in full travelling kit19; being on the point of starting for one of his odysseys20 in the South Seas.
“Well,” demanded the impatient traveller in a tone of remonstrance21, “have you caught anything?”
“You once asked me,” replied the angler placidly22, “what I meant by calling you a materialist23. That is what I meant by calling you a materialist.”
“If one must be a materialist or a madman,” snorted the soldier, “give me materialism24.”
[41]“On the contrary,” replied his friend, “your fad25 is far madder than mine. And I doubt if it’s any more fruitful. The moment men like you see a man sitting by a river with a rod, they are insanely impelled26 to ask him what he has caught. But when you go off to shoot big game, as you call it, nobody asks you what you have caught. Nobody expects you to bring home a hippopotamus27 for supper. Nobody has ever seen you walking up Pall28 Mall, followed respectfully by a captive giraffe. Your bag of elephants, though enormous, seems singularly unobtrusive; left in the cloak-room, no doubt. Personally, I doubt if you ever catch anything. It’s all decorously hidden in desert sand and dust and distance. But what I catch is something far more elusive29, and as slippery as any fish. It is the soul of England.”
“I should think you’d catch a cold if not a fish,” answered Crane, “sitting dangling30 your feet in a pool like that. I like to move about a little more. Dreaming is all very well in its way.”
At this point a symbolic31 cloud ought to have come across the sun, and a certain shadow of mystery and silence must rest for a moment upon the narrative32. For it was at this moment that James Crane, being blind with inspiration, uttered his celebrated33 Prophecy, upon which this improbable narrative turns. As was commonly the case with men uttering omens34, he was utterly35 unconscious of anything[42] ominous36 about what he said. A moment after he would probably not know that he had said it. A moment after, it was as if a cloud of strange shape had indeed passed from the face of the sun.
The prophecy had taken the form of a proverb. In due time the patient, the all-suffering reader, may learn what proverb. As it happened, indeed, the conversation had largely consisted of proverbs; as is often the case with men like Hood, whose hearts are with that old English country life from which all the proverbs came. But it was Crane who said:
“It’s all very well to be fond of England; but a man who wants to help England mustn’t let the grass grow under his feet.”
“And that’s just what I want to do,” answered Hood. “That’s exactly what even your poor tired people in big towns really want to do. When a wretched clerk walks down Threadneedle Street, wouldn’t he be really delighted if he could look down and see the grass growing under his feet; a magic green carpet in the middle of the pavement? It would be like a fairy-tale.”
“Well, but he wouldn’t sit like a stone as you do,” replied the other. “A man might let the grass grow under his feet without actually letting the ivy38 grow up his legs. That sounds like a fairy-tale too, if you like, but there’s no proverb to recommend it.”
“Oh, there are proverbs on my side, if you come to that,” answered Hood laughing. “I might remind[43] you about the rolling stone that gathers no moss39.”
“Well, who wants to gather moss except a few fussy40 old ladies?” demanded Crane. “Yes, I’m a rolling stone, I suppose; and I go rolling round the earth as the earth goes rolling round the sun. But I’ll tell you what; there’s one kind of stone that does really gather moss.”
“A gravestone,” said Crane.
There was a silence, and Hood sat gazing with his owlish face at the dim pool in which the dark woods were mirrored. At last he said:
“Moss isn’t the only thing found on that. Sometimes there is the word Resurgam.”
“Well, I hope you will,” said Crane genially43. “But the trumpet44 will have to be pretty loud to wake you up. It’s my opinion you’ll be too late for the Day of Judgment45.”
“Now if this were a true dramatic dialogue,” remarked Hood, “I should answer that it would be better for you if you were. But it hardly seems a Christian46 sentiment for a parting. Are you really off to-day?”
“Yes, to-night,” replied his friend. “Sure you won’t come with me to the Cannibal Islands?”
“I prefer my own island,” said Mr. Owen Hood.
When his friend had gone he continued to gaze abstractedly at the tranquil47 topsy-turvydom in the green mirror of the pool, nor did he change his[44] posture48 and hardly moved his head. This might be partly explained by the still habits of a fisherman; but to tell the truth, it was not easy to discover whether the solitary49 lawyer really wanted to catch any fish. He often carried a volume of Isaak Walton in his pocket, having a love of the old English literature as of the old English landscape. But if he was an angler, he certainly was not a very complete angler.
But the truth is that Owen Hood had not been quite candid50 with his friend about the spell that held him to that particular islet in the Upper Thames. If he had said, as he was quite capable of saying, that he expected to catch the miraculous51 draught52 of fishes or the whale that swallowed Jonah, or even the great sea-serpent, his expressions would have been merely symbolical54. But they would have been the symbol of something as unique and unattainable. For Mr. Owen Hood was really fishing for something that very few fishermen ever catch; and that was a dream of his boyhood, and something that had happened on that lonely spot long ago.
Years before, when he was a very young man, he had sat fishing on that island one evening as the twilight55 turned to dark, and two or three broad bands of silver were all that was left of the sunset behind the darkening trees. The birds were dropping out of the sky and there was no noise except the soft noises of the river. Suddenly and without a sound,[45] as comes a veritable vision, a girl had come out of the woods opposite. She spoke56 to him across the stream, asking him he hardly knew what, which he answered he hardly knew how. She was dressed in white and carried a bunch of bluebells57 loose in her hand; her hair in a straight fringe of gold was low on her forehead; she was pale like ivory, and her pale eyelids58 had a sort of flutter as of nervous emotion. There came on him a strangling sense of stupidity. But he must have managed to speak civilly, for she lingered; and he must have said something to amuse her, for she laughed. Then followed the incident he could never analyse, though he was an introspective person. Making a gesture towards something, she managed to drop her loose blue flowers into the water. He knew not what sort of whirlwind was in his head, but it seemed to him that prodigious59 things were happening, as in an epic60 of the gods, of which all visible things were but the small signs. Before he knew where he was he was standing61 dripping on the other bank; for he had splashed in somehow and saved the bunch as if it had been a baby drowning. Of all the things she said he could only recall one sentence, that repeated itself perpetually in his mind: “You’ll catch your death of cold.”
He only caught the cold and not the death; yet even the notion of the latter did not somehow seem disproportionate. The doctor, to whom he was[46] forced to give some sort of explanation of his immersion62, was much interested in the story, or what he heard of it, having a pleasure in working out the pedigrees of the county families and the relationships of the best houses in the neighbourhood. By some rich process of elimination63 he deduced that the lady must be Miss Elizabeth Seymour from Marley Court. The doctor spoke with a respectful relish64 of such things; he was a rising young practitioner65 named Hunter, afterwards a neighbour of Colonel Crane. He shared Hood’s admiration66 for the local landscape, and said it was owing to the beautiful way in which Marley Court was kept up.
“It’s land-owners like that,” he said, “who have made England. It’s all very well for Radicals67 to talk; but where should we be without the land-owners?”
“Oh, I’m all for land-owners,” said Hood rather wearily. “I like them so much I should like more of them. More and more land-owners. Hundreds and thousands of them.”
It is doubtful whether Dr. Hunter quite followed his enthusiasm, or even his meaning; but Hood had reason later to remember this little conversation; so far as he was in a mood to remember any conversations except one.
Anyhow, it were vain to disguise from the intelligent though exhausted68 reader that this was probably[47] the true origin of Mr. Hood’s habit of sitting solidly on that island and gazing abstractedly at that bank. All through the years when he felt his first youth was passing, and even when he seemed to be drifting towards middle age, he haunted that valley like a ghost, waiting for something that never came again. It is by no means certain, in the last and most subtle analysis, that he even expected it to come again. Somehow it seemed too like a miracle for that. Only this place had become the shrine69 of the miracle; and he felt that if anything ever did happen there, he must be there to see. And so it came about that he was there to see when things did happen; and rather queer things had happened before the end.
One morning he saw an extraordinary thing. That indeed would not have seemed extraordinary to most people; but it was quite apocalyptic70 to him. A dusty man came out of the woods carrying what looked like dusty pieces of timber, and proceeded to erect71 on the bank what turned out to be a sort of hoarding72, a very large wooden notice-board on which was written in enormous letters: “To Be Sold,” with remarks in smaller letters about the land and the name of the land agents. For the first time for years Owen Hood stood up in his place and left his fishing, and shouted questions across the river. The man answered with the greatest patience[48] and good-humour; but it is probable that he went away convinced that he had been talking to a wandering lunatic.
That was the beginning of what was for Owen Hood a crawling nightmare. The change advanced slowly, by a process covering years, but it seemed to him all the time that he was helpless and paralysed in its presence, precisely73 as a man is paralysed in an actual nightmare. He laughed with an almost horrible laughter to think that a man in a modern society is supposed to be master of his fate and free to pursue his pleasures; when he has not power to prevent the daylight he looks on from being darkened, or the air he breathes from being turned to poison, or the silence that is his full possession from being shaken with the cacophony74 of hell. There was something, he thought grimly, in Dr. Hunter’s simple admiration for agricultural aristocracy. There was something in quite primitive75 and even barbarous aristocracy. Feudal76 lords went in fitfully for fights and forays; they put collars round the necks of some serfs; they occasionally put halters round the necks of a few of them. But they did not wage war day and night against the five senses of man.
There had appeared first on the river-bank small sheds and shanties77, for workmen who seemed to be rather lengthily78 occupied in putting up larger sheds and shanties. To the very last, when the factory[49] was finished, it was not easy for a traditional eye to distinguish between what was temporary and what was permanent. It did not look as if any of it could be permanent, if there was anything natural in the nature of things, so to speak. But whatever was the name and nature of that amorphous79 thing, it swelled80 and increased and even multiplied without clear division; until there stood on the river-bank a great black patchwork81 block of buildings terminating in a tall brick factory chimney from which a stream of smoke mounted into the silent sky. A heap of some sort of débris, scrapped82 iron and similar things, lay in the foreground; and a broken bar, red with rust, had fallen on the spot where the girl had been standing when she brought bluebells out of the wood.
He did not leave his island. Rural and romantic and sedentary as he may have seemed, he was not the son of an old revolutionist for nothing. It was not altogether in vain that his father had called him Robert Owen or that his friends had sometimes called him Robin83 Hood. Sometimes, indeed, his soul sank within him with a mortal sickness that was near to suicide, but more often he marched up and down in a militant84 fashion, being delighted to see the tall wild-flowers waving on the banks like flags within a stone’s-throw of all he hated, and muttering, “Throw out the banners on the outward wall.” He had already, when the estate of Marley Court was[50] broken up for building, taken some steps to establish himself on the island, had built a sort of hut there, in which it was possible to picnic for considerable periods.
One morning when dawn was still radiant behind the dark factory and light lay in a satin sheen upon the water, there crept out upon that satin something like a thickening thread of a different colour and material. It was a thin ribbon of some other liquid that did not mingle85 with the water, but lay on top of it wavering like a worm; and Owen Hood watched it as a man watches a snake. It looked like a snake, having opalescent86 colours not without intrinsic beauty; but to him it was a very symbolic snake; like the serpent that destroyed Eden. A few days afterwards there were a score of snakes covering the surface; little crawling rivers that moved on the river but did not mix with it, being as alien as witch’s oils. Later there came darker liquids with no pretensions87 to beauty, black and brown flakes88 of grease that floated heavily.
It was highly characteristic of Hood that to the last he was rather hazy89 about the nature and purpose of the factory; and therefore about the ingredients of the chemicals that were floating into the river; beyond the fact that they were mostly of the oily sort and floated on the water in flakes and lumps, and that something resembling petrol seemed to predominate,[51] used perhaps rather for power than raw material. He had heard a rustic90 rumour91 that the enterprise was devoted92 to hair-dye. It smelt93 rather like a soap factory. So far as he ever understood it, he gathered that it was devoted to what might be considered as a golden mean between hair-dye and soap, some kind of new and highly hygienic cosmetics94. There had been a yet more feverish95 fashion in these things, since Professor Hake had written his great book proving that cosmetics were of all things the most hygienic. And Hood had seen many of the meadows of his childhood now brightened and adorned96 by large notices inscribed97 “Why Grow Old?” with the portrait of a young woman grinning in a regrettable manner. The appropriate name on the notices was Bliss98, and he gathered that it all had something to do with the great factory.
Resolved to know a little more than this about the matter, he began to make inquiries99 and complaints, and engaged in a correspondence which ended in an actual interview with some of the principal persons involved. The correspondence had gone on for a long time before it came anywhere near to anything so natural as that. Indeed, the correspondence for a long time was entirely100 on his side. For the big businesses are quite as unbusinesslike as the Government departments; they are no better in efficiency and much worse in manners. But he obtained his interview[52] at last, and it was with a sense of sour amusement that he came face to face with four people whom he wanted to meet.
One was Sir Samuel Bliss, for he had not yet performed those party services which led to his being known to us all as Lord Normantowers. He was a small, alert man like a ferret, with bristles101 of grey beard and hair, and active or even agitated102 movements. The second was his manager, Mr. Low, a stout103, dark man with a thick nose and thick rings, who eyed strangers with a curious heavy suspicion like a congested sense of injury. It is believed that he expected to be persecuted104. The third man was something of a surprise, for he was no other than his old friend Dr. Horace Hunter, as healthy and hearty105 as ever, but even better dressed; as he now had a great official appointment as some kind of medical inspector106 of the sanitary107 conditions of the district. But the fourth man was the greatest surprise of all. For it appeared that their conference was honoured by so great a figure in the scientific world as Professor Hake himself, who had revolutionized the modern mind with his new discoveries about the complexion in relation to health. When Hood realized who he was, a light of somewhat sinister108 understanding dawned on his long face.
On this occasion the Professor advanced an even more interesting theory. He was a big, blond man[53] with blinking eyes and a bull neck; and doubtless there was more in him than met the eye, as is the way with great men. He spoke last, and his theory was expounded109 with a certain air of finality. The manager had already stated that it was quite impossible for large quantities of petrol to have escaped, as only a given amount was used in the factory. Sir Samuel had explained, in what seemed an irascible and even irrelevant110 manner, that he had presented several parks to the public, and had the dormitories of his work-people decorated in the simplest and best taste, and nobody could accuse him of vandalism or not caring for beauty and all that. Then it was that Professor Hake explained the theory of the Protective Screen. Even if it were possible, he said, for some thin film of petrol to appear on the water, as it would not mix with the water the latter would actually be kept in a clearer condition. It would act, as it were, as a Cap; as does the gelatinous Cap upon certain preserved foods.
“That is a very interesting view,” observed Hood; “I suppose you will write another book about that?”
“I think we are all the more privileged,” remarked Bliss, “in hearing of the discovery in this personal fashion, before our expert has laid it before the public.”
“Yes,” said Hood, “your expert is very expert, isn’t he—in writing books?”
[54]Sir Samuel Bliss stiffened111 in all his bristles. “I trust,” he said, “you are not implying any doubt that our expert is an expert.”
“I have no doubt of your expert,” answered Hood gravely, “I do not doubt either that he is expert or that he is yours.”
“Really, gentlemen,” cried Bliss in a sort of radiance of protest, “I think such an insinuation about a man in Professor Hake’s position——”
“Not at all, not at all,” said Hood soothingly112, “I’m sure it’s a most comfortable position.”
The Professor blinked at him, but a light burned in the eyeballs under the heavy eyelids.
“If you come here talking like that—” he began, when Hood cut off his speech by speaking across him to somebody else, with a cheerful rudeness that was like a kick in its contempt.
“And what do you say, my dear doctor?” he observed, addressing Hunter. “You used to be almost as romantic as myself about the amenities113 of this place. Do you remember how much you admired the landlords for keeping the place quiet and select; and how you said the old families preserved the beauty of old England?”
There was a silence, and then the young doctor spoke.
“Well, it doesn’t follow a fellow can’t believe in progress. That’s what’s the matter with you, Hood; you don’t believe in progress. We must move with[55] the times; and somebody always has to suffer. Besides, it doesn’t matter so much about river-water nowadays. It doesn’t even matter so much about the main water-supply. When the new Bill is passed, people will be obliged to use the Bulton Filter in any case.”
“I see,” said Hood reflectively. “You first make a mess of the water for money, and then make a virtue114 of forcing people to clean it themselves.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Hunter angrily.
“Well, I was thinking at the moment,” said Hood in his rather cryptic115 way. “I was thinking about Mr. Bulton. The man who owns the filters. I was wondering whether he might join us. We seem such a happy family party.”
“I cannot see the use of prolonging this preposterous116 conversation,” said Sir Samuel.
“Don’t call the poor Professor’s theory preposterous,” remonstrated117 Hood. “A little fanciful, perhaps. And as for the doctor’s view, surely there’s nothing preposterous in that. You don’t think the chemicals will poison all the fish I catch, do you, Doctor?”
“They will adapt themselves by natural selection,” said Hood dreamily. “They will develop organs suitable to an oily environment—will learn to love petrol.”
[56]“Oh, I have no time for this nonsense,” said Hunter, and was turning to go, when Hood stepped in front of him and looked at him very steadily119.
“You mustn’t call natural selection nonsense,” he said. “I know all about that, at any rate. I can’t tell whether liquids tipped off the shore will fall into the river, because I don’t understand hydraulics. I don’t know whether your machinery120 makes a hell of a noise every morning, for I’ve never studied acoustics121. I don’t know whether it stinks122 or not, because I haven’t read your expert’s book on ‘The Nose.’ But I know all about adaptation to environment. I know that some of the lower organisms do really change with their changing conditions. I know there are creatures so low that they do survive by surrendering to every succession of mud and slime; and when things are slow they are slow, and when things are fast they are fast, and when things are filthy123 they are filthy. I thank you for convincing me of that.”
He did not wait for a reply, but walked out of the room after bowing curtly to the rest; and that was the end of the great conference on the question of riparian rights and perhaps the end of Thames Conservancy and of the old aristocratic England, with its good and ill.
The general public never heard very much about it; at least until one catastrophic scene which was to follow. There was some faint ripple124 of the question[57] some months later, when Dr. Horace Hunter was standing for Parliament in that division. One or two questions were asked about his duties in relation to river pollution; but it was soon apparent that no party particularly wished to force the issue against the best opinions advanced on the other side. The greatest living authority on hygiene125, Professor Hake, had actually written to The Times (in the interests of science) to say that in such a hypothetical case as that mentioned, a medical man could only do what Dr. Hunter had apparently126 done. It so happened that the chief captain of industry in that part of the Thames Valley, Sir Samuel Bliss, had himself, after gravely weighing the rival policies, decided127 to Vote for Hunter. The great organizer’s own mind was detached and philosophical128 in the matter; but it seems that his manager, a Mr. Low, was of the same politics and a more practical and pushful spirit; warmly urging the claims of Hunter on his work-people; pointing out the many practical advantages they would gain by voting for that physician, and the still more practical disadvantages they might suffer by not doing so. Hence it followed that the blue ribbons, which were the local badges of the Hunterians, were not only to be found attached to the iron railings and wooden posts of the factory, but to various human figures, known as “hands,” which moved to and fro in it.
Hood took no interest in the election; but while[58] it was proceeding129 he followed the matter a little further in another form. He was a lawyer, a lazy, but in some ways a learned one; for, his tastes being studious, he had originally learned the trade he had never used. More in defiance130 than in hope, he once carried the matter into the Courts, pleading his own cause on the basis of a law of Henry the Third against frightening the fish of the King’s liege subjects in the Thames Valley. The judge, in giving judgment, complimented him on the ability and plausibility131 of his contention132, but ultimately rejected it on grounds equally historic and remote. His lordship argued that no test seemed to be provided for ascertaining133 the degree of fear in the fish, or whether it amounted to that bodily fear of which the law took cognizance. But the learned judge pointed134 out the precedent135 of a law of Richard the Second against certain witches who had frightened children; which had been interpreted by so great an authority as Coke in the sense that the child “must return and of his own will testify to his fear.” It did not seem to be alleged136 that any one of the fish in question had returned and laid any such testimony137 before any proper authority; and he therefore gave judgment for the defendants138. And when the learned judge happened to meet Lord Normantowers (as he was by this time) out at dinner that evening, he was gaily139 rallied and congratulated by that new nobleman on the lucidity140 and finality of[59] his judgment. Indeed, the learned judge had really relished141 the logic142 both of his own and Hood’s contention; but the conclusion was what he would have come to in any case. For our judges are not hampered143 by any hide-bound code; they are progressive, like Dr. Hunter, and ally themselves on principle with the progressive forces of the age, especially those they are likely to meet out at dinner.
But it was this abortive144 law case that led up to something that altogether obliterated145 it in a blaze of glory, so far as Mr. Owen Hood was concerned. He had just left the courts, and turning down the streets that led in the direction of the station, he made his way thither146 in something of a brown study, as was his wont147. The streets were filled with faces; it struck him for the first time that there were thousands and thousands of people in the world. There were more faces at the railway station, and then, when he had glanced idly at four or five of them, he saw one that was to him as incredible as the face of the dead.
She was coming casually148 out of the tea-room, carrying a handbag, just like anybody else. That mystical perversity149 of his mind, which had insisted on sealing up the sacred memory like something hardly to be sought in mere53 curiosity, had fixed150 it in its original colours and setting, like something of which no detail could be changed without the vision dissolving. He would have conceived it almost impossible[60] that she could appear in anything but white or out of anything but a wood. And he found himself turned topsy-turvy by an old and common incredulity of men in his condition; being startled by the coincidence that blue suited her as well as white; and that in what he remembered of that woodland there was something else; something to be said even for teashops and railway stations.
She stopped in front of him and her pale, fluttering eyelids lifted from her blue-grey eyes.
“Why,” she said, “you are the boy that jumped in the river!”
“I’m no longer a boy,” answered Hood, “but I’m ready to jump in the river again.”
“Well, don’t jump on the railway-line,” she said, as he turned with a swiftness suggestive of something of the kind.
“To tell you the truth,” he said, “I was thinking of jumping into your railway-train. Do you mind if I jump into your railway-train?”
“Well, I’m going to Birkstead,” she said rather doubtfully.
Mr. Owen Hood did not in the least care where she was going, as he had resolved to go there; but as a matter of fact, he remembered a wayside station on that line that lay very near to what he had in view; so he tumbled into the carriage if possible with more alacrity151; and landscapes shot by them as[61] they sat looking in a dazed and almost foolish fashion at each other. At last the girl smiled with a sense of the absurdity152 of the thing.
“I heard about you from a friend of yours,” she said; “he came to call on us soon after it happened; at least that was when he first came. You know Dr. Hunter, don’t you?”
“Yes,” replied Owen, a shadow coming over his shining hour. “Do you—do you know him well?”
“I know him pretty well now,” said Miss Elizabeth Seymour.
The shadow on his spirit blackened swiftly; he suspected something quite suddenly and savagely153. Hunter, in Crane’s old phrase, was not a man who let the grass grow under his feet. It was so like him to have somehow used the incident as an introduction to the Seymours. Things were always stepping-stones for Hunter, and the little rock in the river had been a stepping-stone to the country house. But was the country house a stepping-stone to something else? Suddenly Hood realized that all his angers had been very abstract angers. He had never hated a man before.
At that moment the train stopped at the station of Cowford.
“I wish you’d get out here with me,” he said abruptly154, “only for a little—and it might be the last time. I want you to do something.”
[62]She looked at him with a curious expression and said in a rather low voice, “What do you want me to do?”
“I want you to come and pick bluebells,” he said harshly.
“I remember!” she said suddenly. “When you get to the top of this hill you see the wood where the bluebells were, and your little island beyond.”
“Come on and see it,” said Owen.
They stepped on the crest156 of the hill and stood. Below them the black factory belched157 its livid smoke into the air; and where the wood had been were rows of little houses like boxes, built of dirty yellow brick.
Hood spoke. “And when you shall see the abomination of desolation sitting in the Holy of Holies—isn’t that when the world is supposed to end? I wish the world would end now; with you and me standing on a hill.”
She was staring at the place with parted lips and more than her ordinary pallor; he knew she understood something monstrous158 and symbolic in the scene; yet her first remark was jerky and trivial. On the nearest of the yellow brick boxes were visible the cheap colours of various advertisements; and larger than the rest a blue poster proclaiming “Vote for Hunter.” With a final touch of tragic159 pathos,[63] Hood remembered that it was the last and most sensational160 day of the election. But the girl had already found her voice.
“Is that Dr. Hunter?” she asked with commonplace curiosity; “is he standing for Parliament?”
A load that lay on Hood’s mind like a rock suddenly rose like an eagle; and he felt as if the hill he stood on were higher than Everest. By the insight of his own insanity161, he knew well enough that she would have known well enough whether Hunter was standing, if—if there had been anything like what he supposed. The removal of the steadying weight staggered him, and he had something quite indefensible.
“I thought you would know. I thought you and he were probably—well, the truth is I thought you were engaged, though I really don’t know why.”
“I can’t imagine why,” said Elizabeth Seymour. “I heard he was engaged to Lord Normantowers’s daughter. They’ve got our old place now, you know.”
There was a silence and then Hood spoke suddenly in a loud and cheerful voice.
“Well, what I say is ‘Vote for Hunter,’” he said heartily162. “After all, why not vote for Hunter? Good old Hunter! I hope he’ll be a Member of Parliament. I hope he’ll be Prime Minister. I hope he’ll be President of the World State that Wells[64] talks about. By George, he deserves to be Emperor of the Solar System.”
“But why,” she protested, “why should he deserve all that?”
“For not being engaged to you, of course,” he replied.
“Oh!” she said, and something of a secret shiver in her voice went through him like a silver bell.
Abruptly, all of a sudden, the rage of raillery seemed to leave his voice and his face, so that his Napoleonic profile looked earnest and eager and much younger, like the profile of the young Napoleon. His wide shoulders lost the slight stoop that books had given them, and his rather wild red hair fell away from his lifted head.
“There is one thing I must tell you about him,” he said, “and one thing you must hear about me. My friends tell me I am a drifter and a dreamer; that I let the grass grow under my feet; I must tell you at least how and why I once let it grow. Three days after that day by the river, I talked to Hunter; he was attending me and he talked about it and you. Of course he knew nothing about either. But he is a practical man; a very practical man; he does not dream or drift. From the way he talked I knew he was considering even then how the accident could be turned to account; to his account and perhaps to mine too; for he is good-natured; yes, he is quite good-natured. I think that if I had taken his hint[65] and formed a sort of social partnership163, I might have known you six years sooner, not as a memory, but—an acquaintance. And I could not do it. Judge me how you will, I could not bring myself to do it. That is what is meant by being born with a bee in the bonnet164, with an impediment in the speech, with a stumbling-block in the path, with a sulky scruple165 in the soul. I could not bear to approach you by that door, with that gross and grinning flunkey holding it open. I could not bear that suffocatingly166 substantial snob167 to bulk so big in my story or know so much of my secret. A revulsion I could never utter made me feel that the vision should remain my own even by remaining unfulfilled; but it should not be vulgarized. That is what is meant by being a failure in life. And when my best friend made a prophecy about me, and said there was something I should never do, I thought he was right.”
“Why, what do you mean?” she asked rather faintly, “what was it you would never do?”
“Never mind that now,” he said, with the shadow of a returning smile. “Rather strange things are stirring in me just now, and who knows but I may attempt something yet? But before all else, I must make clear for once what I am and for what I lived. There are men like me in the world; I am far from thinking they are the best or the most valuable; but they exist, to confound all the clever people and the realists and the new novelists. There has been and[66] there is only one thing for me; something that in the normal sense I never even knew. I walked about the world blind, with my eyes turned inwards, looking at you. For days after a night when I had dreamed of you, I was broken; like a man who had seen a ghost. I read over and over the great and grave lines of the old poets, because they alone were worthy168 of you. And when I saw you again by chance, I thought the world had already ended; and it was that return and tryst169 beyond the grave that is too good to be true.”
“I do not think,” she answered in a low voice, “that the belief is too good to be true.”
As he looked at her a thrill went through him like a message too swift to be understood; and at the back of his mind something awoke that repeated again and again like a song the same words: “too good to be true.” There was always something pathetic, even in her days of pride, about the short-sighted look of her half-closed eyes; but it was for other reasons that they were now blinking in the strong white sunlight, almost as if they were blind. They were blind and bright with tears: she mastered her voice and it was steady.
“You talk about failures,” she said. “I suppose most people would call me a failure and all my people failures now; except those who would say we never failed, because we never had to try. Anyhow, we’re all poor enough now; I don’t know[67] whether you know that I’m teaching music. I dare say we deserved to go. I dare say we were useless. Some of us tried to be harmless. But—but now I must say something, about some of us who tried rather hard to be harmless—in that way. The new people will tell you those ideals were Victorian and Tennysonian, and all the rest of it—well, it doesn’t matter what they say. They know quite as little about us as we about them. But to you, when you talk like that ... what can I do, but tell you that if we were stiff, if we were cold, if we were careful and conservative, it was because deep down in our souls some of us did believe that there might be loyalty170 and love like that, for which a woman might well wait even to the end of the world. What is it to these people if we choose not to be drugged or distracted with anything less worthy? But it would be hard indeed if when I find it does exist after all ... hard on you, harder on me, if when I had really found it at last....” The catch in her voice came again and silence caught and held her.
He took one stride forward as into the heart of a whirlwind; and they met on the top of that windy hill as if they had come from the ends of the earth.
“This is an epic,” he said, “which is rather an action than a word. I have lived with words too long.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean you have turned me into a man of action,”[68] he replied. “So long as you were in the past, nothing was better than the past. So long as you were only a dream, nothing was better than dreaming. But now I am going to do something that no man has ever done before.”
He turned towards the valley and flung out his hand with a gesture, almost as if the hand had held a sword.
“I am going to break the Prophecy,” he cried in a loud voice. “I am going to defy the omens of my doom171 and make fun of my evil star. Those who called me a failure shall own I have succeeded where all humanity has failed. The real hero is not he who is bold enough to fulfil the predictions, but he who is bold enough to falsify them. And you shall see one falsified to-night.”
“What in the world are you going to do?” she asked.
He laughed suddenly. “The first thing to do,” he cried, swinging round with a new air of resolution and even cheerfulness, “the very first thing to do is to Vote For Hunter. Or, at any rate, help to get him into Parliament.”
“But why in the world,” she asked wondering, “should you want so much to get Dr. Hunter into Parliament?”
“Well, one must do something,” he said with an appearance of easy good sense, “to celebrate the occasion. We must do something; and after all he[69] must go somewhere, poor devil. You will say, why not throw him into the river? It would relieve the feelings and make a splash. But I’m going to make something much bigger than a splash. Besides, I don’t want him in my nice river. I’d much rather pick him up and throw him all the way to Westminster. Much more sensible and suitable. Obviously there ought to be a brass172 band and a torchlight procession somewhere to-night; and why shouldn’t he have a bit of the fun?”
He stopped suddenly as if surprised at his own words: for indeed his own phrase had fallen, for him, with the significance of a falling star.
“Of course!” he muttered. “A torchlight procession! I’ve been feeling that what I wanted was trumpets173 and what I really want is torches. Yes, I believe it could be done! Yes, the hour is come! By stars and blazes, I will give him a torchlight procession!”
He had been almost dancing with excitement on the top of the ridge174; now he suddenly went bounding down the slope beyond, calling to the girl to follow, as carelessly as if they had been two children playing at hide and seek. Strangely enough, perhaps, she did follow; more strangely still when we consider the extravagant175 scenes through which she allowed herself to be led. They were scenes more insanely incongruous with all her sensitive and even secretive dignity than if she had been changing hats[70] with a costermonger on a Bank Holiday. For there the world would only be loud with vulgarity, and here it was also loud with lies. She could never have described that Saturnalia of a political election; but she did dimly feel the double impression of a harlequinade at the end of a pantomime and of Hood’s phrase about the end of the world. It was as if a Bank Holiday could also be a Day of Judgment. But as the farce176 could no longer offend her, so the tragedy could no longer terrify. She went through it all with a wan37 smile, which perhaps nobody in the world would have known her well enough to interpret. It was not in the normal sense excitement; yet it was something much more positive than patience. In a sense perhaps, more than ever before in her lonely life, she was walled up in her ivory tower; but it was all alight within, as if it were lit with candles or lined with gold.
Hood’s impetuous movements brought them to the bank of the river and the outer offices of the factory, all of which were covered with the coloured posters of the candidature, and one of which was obviously fitted up as a busy and bustling177 committee-room. Hood actually met Mr. Low coming out of it, buttoned up in a fur coat and bursting with speechless efficiency. But Mr. Low’s beady black eyes glistened178 with an astonishment179 bordering on suspicion when Hood in the most hearty fashion offered his sympathy and co-operation. That strange subconscious[71] fear, that underlay180 all the wealthy manager’s success and security in this country, always came to the surface at the sight of Owen Hood’s long ironical181 face. Just at that moment, however, one of the local agents rushed at him in a distracted fashion, with telegrams in his hand. They were short of canvassers; they were short of cars; they were short of speakers; the crowd at Little Puddleton had been waiting half an hour; Dr. Hunter could not get round to them till ten past nine, and so on. The agent in his agony would probably have hailed a Margate nigger and entrusted182 him with the cause of the great National Party, without any really philosophical inquiry183 into the nigger’s theory of citizenship184. For all such over-practical push and bustle185 in our time is always utterly unpractical at the last minute and in the long run. On that night Robert Owen Hood would have been encouraged to go anywhere and say anything; and he did. It might be interesting to imagine what the lady thought about it; but it is possible that she did not think about it. She had a radiantly abstracted sense of passing through a number of ugly rooms and sheds with flaring186 gas and stacks of leaflets behind which little irritable187 men ran about like rabbits. The walls were covered with large allegorical pictures printed in line or in a few bright colours, representing Dr. Hunter as clad in armour188, as slaying189 dragons, as rescuing ladies rather like classical goddesses, and so[72] on. Lest it should be too literally190 understood that Dr. Hunter was in the habit of killing191 dragons in his daily round, as a form of field-sport, the dragon was inscribed with its name in large letters. Apparently its name was “National Extravagance.” Lest there should be any doubt about the alternative which Dr. Hunter had discovered as a corrective to extravagance, the sword which he was thrusting through the dragon’s body was inscribed with the word “Economy.” Elizabeth Seymour, through whose happy but bewildered mind these pictures passed, could not but reflect vaguely192 that she herself had lately but to practise a good deal of economy and resist a good many temptations to extravagance; but it would never have occurred to her unaided imagination to conceive the action as that of plunging193 a sword into a scaly194 monster of immense size. In the central committee-room they actually came face to face for a moment with the candidate, who came in very hot and breathless with a silk hat on the back of his head; where he had possibly forgotten it, for he certainly did not remove it. She was a little ashamed of being sensitive about such trifles; but she came to the conclusion that she would not like to have a husband standing for Parliament.
“We’ve rounded up all those people down Bleak195 Row,” said Dr. Hunter. “No good going down The Hole and those filthy places. No votes there. Streets ought to be abolished and the people too.”
[73]“Well, we’ve had a very good meeting in the Masonic Hall,” said the agent cheerfully. “Lord Normantowers spoke, and really he got through all right. Told some stories, you know; and they stood it capitally.”
“And now,” said Owen Hood, slapping his hands together in an almost convivial196 manner, “what about this torchlight procession?”
“This what procession?” asked the agent.
“Do you mean to tell me,” said Hood sternly, “that arrangements are not complete for the torchlight procession of Dr. Hunter? That you are going to let this night of triumph pass without kindling197 a hundred flames to light the path of the conqueror198? Do you realize that the hearts of a whole people have spontaneously stirred and chosen him? That the suffering poor murmured in their sleep ‘Vote For Hunter’ long before the Caucus199 came by a providential coincidence to the same conclusion? Would not the people in The Hole set fire to their last poor sticks of furniture to do him honour? Why, from this chair alone——”
He caught up the chair on which Hunter had been sitting and began to break it enthusiastically. In this he was hastily checked; but he actually succeeded in carrying the company with him in his proposal, thus urged at the eleventh hour.
By nightfall he had actually organized his torchlight procession, escorting the triumphant200 Hunter,[74] covered with blue ribbons, to the riverside, rather as if the worthy doctor were to be baptized like a convert or drowned like a witch. For that matter, Hood might possibly intend to burn the witch; for he brandished201 a blazing torch he carried so as to make a sort of halo round Hunter’s astonished countenance202. Then, springing on the scrap-heap by the brink203 of the river, he addressed the crowd for the last time.
“Fellow-citizens, we meet upon the shore of the Thames, the Thames which is to Englishmen all that the Tiber ever was to Romans. We meet in a valley which has been almost as much the haunt of English poets as of English birds. Never was there an art so native to our island as our old national tradition of landscape-painting in water-colour; never was that water-colour so luminous204 or so delicate as when dedicated205 to these holy waters. It was in such a scene that one of the most exquisite206 of our elder poets repeated as a burden to his meditations207 the single line, ‘Sweet Thames, run softly till I end my song.’
“Rumours have been heard of some intention to trouble these waters; but we have been amply reassured208. Names that now stand as high as those of our national poets and painters are a warrant that the stream is still as clear and pure and beneficent as of old. We all know the beautiful work that Mr. Bulton has done in the matter of filters. Dr.[75] Hunter supports Mr. Bulton. I mean Mr. Bulton supports Dr. Hunter. I may also mention no less a man than Mr. Low. Sweet Thames, run softly till I end my song.
“But, then, for that matter, we all support Dr. Hunter. I myself have always found him quite supportable; I should say quite satisfactory. He is truly a progressive, and nothing gives me greater pleasure than to watch him progress. As somebody said, I lie awake at night; and in the silence of the whole universe, I seem to hear him climbing, climbing, climbing. All the numerous patients among whom he has laboured so successfully in this locality will join in a heartfelt expression of joy if he passes to the higher world of Westminster. I trust I shall not be misunderstood. Sweet Thames, run softly till I end my song.
“My only purpose to-night is to express that unanimity209. There may have been times when I differed from Dr. Hunter; but I am glad to say that all that is passed, and I have now nothing but the most friendly feelings towards him, for reasons which I will not mention, though I have plenty to say. In token of this reconciliation210 I here solemnly cast from me this torch. As that firebrand is quenched211 in the cool crystal waters of that sacred stream, so shall all such feuds212 perish in the healing pool of universal peace.”
[76]Before anybody knew what he was doing, he had whirled his flambeau in a flaming wheel round his head and sent it flying like a meteor out into the dim eddies213 of the river.
The next moment a short, sharp cry was uttered, and every face in that crowd was staring at the river. All the faces were visibly staring, for they were all lit up as by a ghastly firelight by a wide wan unnatural214 flame that leapt up from the very surface of the stream; a flame that the crowd watched as it might have watched a comet.
“There,” cried Owen Hood, turning suddenly on the girl and seizing her arm, as if demanding congratulations. “So much for old Crane’s prophecy!”
“Who in the world is Old Crane?” she asked, “and what did he prophesy215? Is he something like Old Moore?”
“Only an old friend,” said Hood hastily, “only an old friend of mine. It’s what he said that’s so important. He didn’t like my moping about with books and a fishing-rod, and he said, standing on that very island, ‘You may know a lot; but I don’t think you’ll ever set the Thames on fire. I’ll eat my hat if you do.’”
But the story of how old Crane ate his hat is one upon which some readers at least can now look back as on labour and suffering bravely endured. And if it be possible for any of them to desire to know[77] any more either about Mr. Crane or Mr. Hood, then must they gird themselves for the ordeal216 of reading the story of The Unobtrusive Traffic of Captain Pierce, and their trials are for a time deferred217.
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1
feats
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| 功绩，伟业，技艺( feat的名词复数 ) | |
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knights
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| 骑士； （中古时代的）武士( knight的名词复数 )； 骑士； 爵士； （国际象棋中）马 | |
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retired
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| adj.隐退的，退休的，退役的 | |
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residential
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| adj.提供住宿的；居住的；住宅的 | |
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complexion
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| n.肤色；情况，局面；气质，性格 | |
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savage
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| adj.野蛮的；凶恶的，残暴的；n.未开化的人 | |
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mythology
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| n.神话，神话学，神话集 | |
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suburban
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| adj.城郊的，在郊区的 | |
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adventurous
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| adj.爱冒险的；惊心动魄的，惊险的，刺激的 | |
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clique
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| n.朋党派系，小集团 | |
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adventurousness
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verged
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| 接近，逼近（verge的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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professing
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| 声称( profess的现在分词 )； 宣称； 公开表明； 信奉 | |
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reactionary
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| n.反动者，反动主义者；adj.反动的，反动主义的，反对改革的 | |
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hood
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| n.头巾，兜帽，覆盖；v.罩上，以头巾覆盖 | |
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16
prefix
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| n.前缀；vt.加…作为前缀；置于前面 | |
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relic
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| n.神圣的遗物，遗迹，纪念物 | |
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rust
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| n.锈；v.生锈；(脑子)衰退 | |
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kit
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| n.用具包，成套工具；随身携带物 | |
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odysseys
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| n.长途的冒险行程( odyssey的名词复数 ) | |
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remonstrance
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| n抗议，抱怨 | |
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placidly
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| adv.平稳地，平静地 | |
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materialist
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| n. 唯物主义者 | |
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materialism
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| n.［哲］唯物主义，唯物论；物质至上 | |
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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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impelled
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| v.推动、推进或敦促某人做某事( impel的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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hippopotamus
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| n.河马 | |
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pall
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| v.覆盖，使平淡无味；n.柩衣，棺罩；棺材；帷幕 | |
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elusive
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| adj.难以表达(捉摸)的；令人困惑的；逃避的 | |
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dangling
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| 悬吊着( dangle的现在分词 )； 摆动不定； 用某事物诱惑…； 吊胃口 | |
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symbolic
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| adj.象征性的，符号的，象征主义的 | |
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narrative
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| n.叙述，故事；adj.叙事的，故事体的 | |
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celebrated
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omens
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utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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ominous
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| adj.不祥的，不吉的，预兆的，预示的 | |
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wan
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| (wide area network)广域网 | |
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ivy
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| n.常青藤，常春藤 | |
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moss
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| n.苔，藓，地衣 | |
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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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rambling
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| adj.[建]凌乱的，杂乱的 | |
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geologist
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| n.地质学家 | |
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genially
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| adv.亲切地，和蔼地；快活地 | |
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trumpet
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| n.喇叭，喇叭声；v.吹喇叭，吹嘘 | |
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judgment
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| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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Christian
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| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
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tranquil
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| adj. 安静的, 宁静的, 稳定的, 不变的 | |
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posture
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| n.姿势，姿态，心态，态度；v.作出某种姿势 | |
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solitary
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| adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士 | |
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candid
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| adj.公正的，正直的；坦率的 | |
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miraculous
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| adj.像奇迹一样的，不可思议的 | |
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52
draught
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| n.拉，牵引，拖；一网（饮，吸，阵)；顿服药量，通风；v.起草，设计 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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symbolical
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| a.象征性的 | |
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twilight
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| n.暮光，黄昏；暮年，晚期，衰落时期 | |
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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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bluebells
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| n.圆叶风铃草( bluebell的名词复数 ) | |
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58
eyelids
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| n.眼睑( eyelid的名词复数 )；眼睛也不眨一下；不露声色；面不改色 | |
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prodigious
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| adj.惊人的，奇妙的；异常的；巨大的；庞大的 | |
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epic
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| n.史诗，叙事诗；adj.史诗般的，壮丽的 | |
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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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62
immersion
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| n.沉浸；专心 | |
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63
elimination
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| n.排除，消除，消灭 | |
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64
relish
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| n.滋味，享受，爱好，调味品；vt.加调味料，享受，品味；vi.有滋味 | |
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65
practitioner
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| n.实践者，从事者；(医生或律师等)开业者 | |
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66
admiration
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| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
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67
radicals
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| n.激进分子( radical的名词复数 )；根基；基本原理；[数学]根数 | |
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68
exhausted
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| adj.极其疲惫的，精疲力尽的 | |
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69
shrine
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| n.圣地，神龛，庙；v.将...置于神龛内，把...奉为神圣 | |
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70
apocalyptic
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| adj.预示灾祸的，启示的 | |
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71
erect
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| n./v.树立，建立，使竖立；adj.直立的，垂直的 | |
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72
hoarding
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| n.贮藏；积蓄；临时围墙；囤积v.积蓄并储藏（某物）( hoard的现在分词 ) | |
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73
precisely
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| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
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74
cacophony
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| n.刺耳的声音 | |
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75
primitive
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| adj.原始的；简单的；n.原(始)人，原始事物 | |
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76
feudal
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| adj.封建的，封地的，领地的 | |
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77
shanties
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| n.简陋的小木屋( shanty的名词复数 )；铁皮棚屋；船工号子；船歌 | |
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78
lengthily
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| adv.长，冗长地 | |
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79
amorphous
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| adj.无定形的 | |
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80
swelled
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|
| 增强( swell的过去式和过去分词 )； 肿胀； （使）凸出； 充满（激情） | |
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81
patchwork
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| n.混杂物；拼缝物 | |
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82
scrapped
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| 废弃(scrap的过去式与过去分词)； 打架 | |
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83
robin
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| n.知更鸟，红襟鸟 | |
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84
militant
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| adj.激进的，好斗的；n.激进分子，斗士 | |
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85
mingle
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| vt.使混合，使相混；vi.混合起来；相交往 | |
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86
opalescent
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| adj.乳色的，乳白的 | |
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87
pretensions
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| 自称( pretension的名词复数 )； 自命不凡； 要求； 权力 | |
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88
flakes
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| 小薄片( flake的名词复数 )； （尤指）碎片； 雪花； 古怪的人 | |
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89
hazy
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| adj.有薄雾的，朦胧的；不肯定的，模糊的 | |
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90
rustic
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| adj.乡村的，有乡村特色的；n.乡下人，乡巴佬 | |
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91
rumour
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| n.谣言，谣传，传闻 | |
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92
devoted
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| adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的 | |
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93
smelt
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| v.熔解，熔炼；n.银白鱼，胡瓜鱼 | |
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94
cosmetics
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| n.化妆品 | |
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95
feverish
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| adj.发烧的，狂热的，兴奋的 | |
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96
adorned
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| [计]被修饰的 | |
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97
inscribed
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| v.写，刻( inscribe的过去式和过去分词 )；内接 | |
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98
bliss
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| n.狂喜，福佑，天赐的福 | |
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99
inquiries
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| n.调查( inquiry的名词复数 )；疑问；探究；打听 | |
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100
entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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101
bristles
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| 短而硬的毛发，刷子毛( bristle的名词复数 ) | |
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102
agitated
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| adj.被鼓动的，不安的 | |
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104
persecuted
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| （尤指宗教或政治信仰的）迫害(~sb. for sth.)( persecute的过去式和过去分词 )； 烦扰，困扰或骚扰某人 | |
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105
hearty
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| adj.热情友好的；衷心的；尽情的，纵情的 | |
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106
inspector
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| n.检查员，监察员，视察员 | |
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107
sanitary
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| adj.卫生方面的，卫生的，清洁的，卫生的 | |
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108
sinister
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| adj.不吉利的，凶恶的，左边的 | |
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109
expounded
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| 论述，详细讲解( expound的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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110
irrelevant
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| adj.不恰当的，无关系的，不相干的 | |
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111
stiffened
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| 加强的 | |
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112
soothingly
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| adv.抚慰地，安慰地；镇痛地 | |
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113
amenities
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| n.令人愉快的事物；礼仪；礼节；便利设施；礼仪( amenity的名词复数 )；便利设施；（环境等的）舒适；（性情等的）愉快 | |
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114
virtue
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| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
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115
cryptic
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| adj.秘密的，神秘的，含义模糊的 | |
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116
preposterous
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| adj.荒谬的，可笑的 | |
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117
remonstrated
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| v.抗议( remonstrate的过去式和过去分词 )；告诫 | |
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118
curtly
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| adv.简短地 | |
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119
steadily
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| adv.稳定地；不变地；持续地 | |
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120
machinery
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| n.(总称)机械，机器；机构 | |
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121
acoustics
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| n.声学，(复)音响效果，音响装置 | |
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122
stinks
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| v.散发出恶臭( stink的第三人称单数 )；发臭味；名声臭；糟透 | |
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123
filthy
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| adj.卑劣的；恶劣的，肮脏的 | |
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124
ripple
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|
| n.涟波，涟漪，波纹，粗钢梳；vt.使...起涟漪，使起波纹； vi.呈波浪状，起伏前进 | |
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125
hygiene
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| n.健康法，卫生学 （a.hygienic） | |
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126
apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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127
decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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128
philosophical
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| adj.哲学家的，哲学上的，达观的 | |
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129
proceeding
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| n.行动，进行，(pl.)会议录，学报 | |
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130
defiance
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| n.挑战，挑衅，蔑视，违抗 | |
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131
plausibility
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| n. 似有道理, 能言善辩 | |
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132
contention
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| n.争论，争辩，论战；论点，主张 | |
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133
ascertaining
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| v.弄清，确定，查明( ascertain的现在分词 ) | |
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134
pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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135
precedent
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|
| n.先例，前例；惯例；adj.在前的，在先的 | |
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136
alleged
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| a.被指控的，嫌疑的 | |
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137
testimony
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| n.证词；见证，证明 | |
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138
defendants
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| 被告( defendant的名词复数 ) | |
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139
gaily
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| adv.欢乐地，高兴地 | |
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140
lucidity
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| n.明朗，清晰，透明 | |
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141
relished
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| v.欣赏( relish的过去式和过去分词 )；从…获得乐趣；渴望 | |
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142
logic
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| n.逻辑(学)；逻辑性 | |
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143
hampered
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| 妨碍，束缚，限制( hamper的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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144
abortive
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| adj.不成功的，发育不全的 | |
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145
obliterated
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|
| v.除去( obliterate的过去式和过去分词 )；涂去；擦掉；彻底破坏或毁灭 | |
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146
thither
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|
| adv.向那里；adj.在那边的，对岸的 | |
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147
wont
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| adj.习惯于；v.习惯；n.习惯 | |
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148
casually
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| adv.漠不关心地，无动于衷地，不负责任地 | |
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149
perversity
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| n.任性；刚愎自用 | |
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150
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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151
alacrity
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| n.敏捷，轻快，乐意 | |
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152
absurdity
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| n.荒谬，愚蠢；谬论 | |
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153
savagely
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| adv. 野蛮地，残酷地 | |
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154
abruptly
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| adv.突然地，出其不意地 | |
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155
winding
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| n.绕，缠，绕组，线圈 | |
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156
crest
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| n.顶点；饰章；羽冠；vt.达到顶点；vi.形成浪尖 | |
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157
belched
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| v.打嗝( belch的过去式和过去分词 )；喷出，吐出；打（嗝）；嗳（气） | |
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158
monstrous
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|
| adj.巨大的；恐怖的；可耻的，丢脸的 | |
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159
tragic
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| adj.悲剧的，悲剧性的，悲惨的 | |
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160
sensational
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| adj.使人感动的，非常好的，轰动的，耸人听闻的 | |
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161
insanity
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| n.疯狂，精神错乱；极端的愚蠢，荒唐 | |
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162
heartily
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| adv.衷心地，诚恳地，十分，很 | |
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163
partnership
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| n.合作关系，伙伴关系 | |
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164
bonnet
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| n.无边女帽；童帽 | |
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165
scruple
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| n./v.顾忌，迟疑 | |
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166
suffocatingly
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| 令人窒息地 | |
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167
snob
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| n.势利小人，自以为高雅、有学问的人 | |
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168
worthy
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| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
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169
tryst
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| n.约会；v.与…幽会 | |
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170
loyalty
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| n.忠诚，忠心 | |
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171
doom
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| n.厄运，劫数；v.注定，命定 | |
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172
brass
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| n.黄铜；黄铜器，铜管乐器 | |
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173
trumpets
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| 喇叭( trumpet的名词复数 )； 小号； 喇叭形物； （尤指）绽开的水仙花 | |
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174
ridge
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| n.山脊；鼻梁；分水岭 | |
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175
extravagant
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|
| adj.奢侈的；过分的；(言行等)放肆的 | |
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176
farce
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| n.闹剧，笑剧，滑稽戏；胡闹 | |
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177
bustling
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| adj.喧闹的 | |
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178
glistened
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| v.湿物闪耀，闪亮( glisten的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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179
astonishment
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| n.惊奇，惊异 | |
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180
underlay
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| v.位于或存在于（某物）之下( underlie的过去式 )；构成…的基础（或起因），引起n.衬垫物 | |
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181
ironical
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|
| adj.讽刺的，冷嘲的 | |
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182
entrusted
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| v.委托，托付( entrust的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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183
inquiry
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| n.打听，询问，调查，查问 | |
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184
citizenship
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| n.市民权，公民权，国民的义务(身份) | |
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185
bustle
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| v.喧扰地忙乱，匆忙，奔忙；n.忙碌；喧闹 | |
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186
flaring
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| a.火焰摇曳的，过份艳丽的 | |
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187
irritable
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| adj.急躁的；过敏的；易怒的 | |
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188
armour
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| （=armor）n.盔甲；装甲部队 | |
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189
slaying
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| 杀戮。 | |
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190
literally
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| adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实 | |
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191
killing
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| n.巨额利润；突然赚大钱，发大财 | |
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192
vaguely
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| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
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193
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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194
scaly
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| adj.鱼鳞状的；干燥粗糙的 | |
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195
bleak
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| adj.(天气)阴冷的；凄凉的；暗淡的 | |
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convivial
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| adj.狂欢的，欢乐的 | |
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197
kindling
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| n. 点火, 可燃物 动词kindle的现在分词形式 | |
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conqueror
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| n.征服者，胜利者 | |
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199
caucus
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| n.秘密会议；干部会议；v.（参加）干部开会议 | |
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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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brandished
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| v.挥舞( brandish的过去式和过去分词 )；炫耀 | |
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202
countenance
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| n.脸色，面容；面部表情；vt.支持，赞同 | |
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203
brink
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| n.(悬崖、河流等的)边缘，边沿 | |
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204
luminous
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| adj.发光的，发亮的；光明的；明白易懂的；有启发的 | |
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dedicated
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| adj.一心一意的；献身的；热诚的 | |
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exquisite
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| adj.精美的；敏锐的；剧烈的，感觉强烈的 | |
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207
meditations
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| 默想( meditation的名词复数 )； 默念； 沉思； 冥想 | |
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208
reassured
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| adj.使消除疑虑的；使放心的v.再保证，恢复信心( reassure的过去式和过去分词) | |
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209
unanimity
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| n.全体一致，一致同意 | |
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reconciliation
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| n.和解，和谐，一致 | |
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211
quenched
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| 解（渴）( quench的过去式和过去分词 )； 终止（某事物）； （用水）扑灭（火焰等）； 将（热物体）放入水中急速冷却 | |
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212
feuds
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| n.长期不和，世仇( feud的名词复数 ) | |
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213
eddies
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| （水、烟等的）漩涡，涡流( eddy的名词复数 ) | |
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unnatural
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| adj.不自然的；反常的 | |
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prophesy
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| v.预言；预示 | |
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ordeal
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| n.苦难经历，（尤指对品格、耐力的）严峻考验 | |
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217
deferred
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| adj.延期的，缓召的v.拖延，延缓，推迟( defer的过去式和过去分词 )；服从某人的意愿，遵从 | |
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