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邦斯舅舅|Uncle Bunce

五、一对榛子钳[1]|V

属类: 双语小说 【分类】世界名著 -[作者: 巴尔扎克] 阅读:[21410]
《邦斯舅舅》是法国现实主义作家巴尔扎克创作的长篇小说,也是他生前完成的最后一部作品。《邦斯舅舅》写于1846至1847年之间,与其姊妹篇《贝姨》同属“穷亲戚”研究系列。]
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一八三五年,邦斯的不获美人青睐,意外地得到补偿,他像俗语所说的有了一根老年的拐杖。这个一生下来就老的人,居然从友谊中获得人生的依傍;社会既不容许他结婚,他便跟一个男人结合——也是个老头儿,也是个音乐家。倘使拉·封丹不曾写下那篇奇妙的寓言,我这本小传大可题作两位朋友[2]。但亵渎名著的行为,不是一切真正的作家都应当避免的吗?咱们的寓言家既然把心中的秘密和梦境写成了一篇杰作,那题目就应该永远归他。因为这首诗简直是一份神圣的产业,一所庙堂,前面像榜额似的标着两位朋友几个大字,将来每一代的人,全世界的人,都得恭恭敬敬进去瞻礼一番,只要有印刷术存在。

[2] 《拉·封丹寓言》第八卷第十一篇,描写两位生死之交的朋友。一天晚上,甲友忽然起床往访乙友。乙友闻讯,即全身武装,一手握剑,一手持钱袋,说道:“朋友,你半夜光临,必有大事。倘使你赌输了钱,这儿有钱;倘使你有仇,我马上替你去报仇;倘使你寂寞不寐,这儿有美丽的女奴奉献。”甲友回答说:“这些都不是的。我梦中看见你愁容惨惨,怕你遭了祸事,方才半夜奔来……”
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In the year 1835, chance avenged Pons for the indifference of womankind by finding him a prop for his declining years, as the saying goes; and he, who had been old from his cradle, found a support in friendship. Pons took to himself the only life-partner permitted to him among his kind—an old man and a fellow-musician. But for La Fontaine’s fable, Les Deux Amis, this sketch should have borne the title of The Two Friends; but to take the name of this divine story would surely be a deed of violence, a profanation from which every true man of letters would shrink. The title ought to be borne alone and for ever by the fabulist’s masterpiece, the revelation of his soul, and the record of his dreams; those three words were set once and for ever by the poet at the head of a page which is his by a sacred right of ownership; for it is a shrine before which all generations, all over the world, will kneel so long as the art of printing shall endure.

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邦斯的朋友是钢琴教授。两人的生活,人品,都非常调和,使邦斯大有相见恨晚之慨,因为他们直到一八三四年,方才在某个私塾的给奖典礼上认识。在违背了上帝的意旨,发源于伊甸园的茫茫人海中[3],两颗这样心心相印的灵魂恐怕是从来未有的。没有多少时候,两位音乐家变得你少不了我,我少不了你。彼此的信任,使他们在八天之内就跟亲兄弟一般。许模克简直不相信世界上会有一个邦斯,邦斯也不信世界上会有一个许模克。这几句已经把两个好人形容得够了。可是大众的头脑不一定喜欢简单的综合手法。为一般不肯轻易相信的人,必须再轻描淡写地说明一番。

[3] 基督教传说,亚当与夏娃在伊甸园中私食禁果,方有人世之苦,而生男育女之事亦系上帝所罚;故作者言人海是违背了上帝的意旨,发源于伊甸园的。
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Pons’ friend gave lessons on the pianoforte. They met and struck up an acquaintance in 1834, one prize day at a boarding-school; and so congenial were their ways of thinking and living, that Pons used to say that he had found his friend too late for his happiness. Never, perhaps, did two souls, so much alike, find each other in the great ocean of humanity which flowed forth, in disobedience to the will of God, from its source in the Garden of Eden. Before very long the two musicians could not live without each other. Confidences were exchanged, and in a week’s time they were like brothers. Schmucke (for that was his name) had not believed that such a man as Pons existed, nor had Pons imagined that a Schmucke was possible. Here already you have a sufficient description of the good couple; but it is not every mind that takes kindly to the concise synthetic method, and a certain amount of demonstration is necessary if the credulous are to accept the conclusion.

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这钢琴家是个德国人,像伟大的门德尔松般的德国人,像史丹贝脱般的德国人,像特莱旭克、希勒、曼尔、克兰茂、齐茂曼、卡克勃兰纳、埃士、胡兹、卡尔、伏尔夫、比克齐斯、克拉拉·维克般的德国人[4],尤其是像所有的德国人。虽是大作曲家,许模克只能做一个演奏家,因为他天生缺少胆气,而天才要在音乐上有所表现,就靠有胆气。好多德国人的天真并不能维持到老;倘使在相当的年龄上还有天真,那是像我们从河中引水灌田一般,特意从青春的泉源上汲取得来,使他们能够在科学、艺术或金钱方面有所成就的;因为天真可以祛除人家的疑心。为了这个目的,法国有些刁滑的家伙,用巴黎小商人的鄙俗来代替德国人的天真。可是许模克无意之中把童年的天真全部保存着,正如邦斯保存着帝政时代的遗迹。这高尚而地道的德国人,是演员而兼观众;他玩音乐玩给自己听。他住在巴黎好比一只夜莺住在森林里,孤独无偶地唱了二十年,直到遇见邦斯,才有了个跟自己的化身一样的伴侣。(参看《夏娃的女儿》[5] [6])

[5] 《夏娃的女儿》为巴尔扎克另一小说的题目。巴氏人物常在许多作品中先后出现,作者又以社会史家自命,故每喜加入“参考某书”一类的注脚,仿佛他的小说就是一部富于考证意味的历史。
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This pianist, was a German. A German, like the great Mendelssohn, and Steibelt, and Dreschok, and Hiller, and Leopold Hertz, Woertz, Karr, Wolff, Pixis, and Clara Wieck—and all Germans, generally speaking. Schmucke was a great musical composer doomed to remain a music master, so utterly did his character lack the audacity which a musical genius needs if he is to push his way to the front. A German’s naivete does not invariably last him through his life; in some cases it fails after a certain age; and even as a cultivator of the soil brings water from afar by means of irrigation channels, so, from the springs of his youth, does the Teuton draw the simplicity which disarms suspicion—the perennial supplies with which he fertilizes his labors in every field of science, art, or commerce. A crafty Frenchman here and there will turn a Parisian tradesman’s stupidity to good account in the same way. But Schmucke had kept his child’s simplicity much as Pons continued to wear his relics of the Empire—all unsuspectingly. The true and noble-hearted German was at once the theatre and the audience, making music within himself for himself alone. In this city of Paris he lived as a nightingale lives among the thickets; and for twenty years he sang on, mateless, till he met with a second self in Pons. [See Une Fille d’Eve.]

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邦斯和许模克两人的性格与感情,都有德国人那种婆婆妈妈的孩子气:例如爱花成癖,爱一切天然景致,在园子里砌些玻璃瓶底,把眼前大块文章的风景,缩成了小规模来欣赏[7];又如探求真理的脾气,使一个日耳曼学者穿着长筒靴,走上几百里地去寻访一点事实,而那事实就在院子的素馨花下,蹲在井栏旁边瞅着他笑;再如他们对微不足道的小事都需要找出一个形而上的意义,从而产生了李赫忒那种不可解的作品,霍夫曼那种荒诞不经的故事,和德国印行的那些救世济人的巨著,把芝麻绿豆的问题看作幽深玄妙,当作深渊一般的发掘,而掘到末了,一切都是德国人的捕风捉影。

[7] 玻璃瓶底系作围砌花坛之用,此习惯亦不限于德国。又瓶底玻璃之凸出部分能反映风景。
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Both Pons and Schmucke were abundantly given, both by heart and disposition, to the peculiarly German sentimentality which shows itself alike in childlike ways—in a passion for flowers, in that form of nature-worship which prompts a German to plant his garden-beds with big glass globes for the sake of seeing miniature pictures of the view which he can behold about him of a natural size; in the inquiring turn of mind that sets a learned Teuton trudging three hundred miles in his gaiters in search of a fact which smiles up in his face from a wayside spring, or lurks laughing under the jessamine leaves in the back-yard; or (to take a final instance) in the German craving to endow every least detail in creation with a spiritual significance, a craving which produces sometimes Hoffmann’s tipsiness in type, sometimes the folios with which Germany hedges the simplest questions round about, lest haply any fool should fall into her intellectual excavations; and, indeed, if you fathom these abysses, you find nothing but a German at the bottom.

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两人都是旧教徒,他们一同去望弥撒,奉行宗教仪式,可是跟儿童一样,根本没有什么可以向忏悔师说的。他们深信音乐是天国的语言,思想与情感还不能代表音乐,正如语言的不能完全表达思想与情感。因此,他们之间拿音乐来代替谈话,一问一答,可以无穷无尽地谈下去。而所谓谈话,无非像情人似的,加强自己胸中的信念。许模克的心不在焉,和邦斯的处处留神,正好异曲同工。邦斯是收藏家,许模克是幻想家:一个忙着抢救物质的美,一个专心研究精神的美。邦斯瞅着一只小瓷杯想买,许模克却在一旁擤着鼻子,想着罗西尼、贝里尼、贝多芬、莫扎特的某一个主题,推敲这乐句的动机是什么一种情操,或者它的下文又该是什么一种情操。许模克的理财原则是漠不关心,邦斯是为了嗜好而挥霍,结果殊途同归:每年十二月三十一日,两人的荷包里都一文不剩。

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Both friends were Catholics. They went to Mass and performed the duties of religion together; and, like children, found nothing to tell their confessors. It was their firm belief that music is to feeling and thought as thought and feeling are to speech; and of their converse on this system there was no end. Each made response to the other in orgies of sound, demonstrating their convictions, each for each, like lovers. Schmucke was as absent-minded as Pons was wide-awake. Pons was a collector, Schmucke a dreamer of dreams; Schmucke was a student of beauty seen by the soul, Pons a preserver of material beauty. Pons would catch sight of a china cup and buy it in the time that Schmucke took to blow his nose, wondering the while within himself whether the musical phrase that was ringing in his brain—the motif from Rossini or Bellini or Beethoven or Mozart—had its origin or its counterpart in the world of human thought and emotion. Schmucke’s economies were controlled by an absent mind, Pons was a spendthrift through passion, and for both the result was the same—they had not a penny on Saint Sylvester’s day.

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要没有这番友谊,邦斯也许早已悲伤得支持不住;但一朝有了一颗心可以倾诉自己的心,他日子又过得下去了。他第一次把痛苦倒在许模克心中的时候,淳朴的德国人便劝他,与其受那么大的委屈去吃人家的,不如和他一样在家里吃点面包跟乳酪。可怜邦斯不敢对许模克说出来:他的胃跟心是死冤家,凡是教心受不了的事,胃都满不在乎,它不惜任何代价要有一顿好饭尝尝,仿佛一个多情男子需要有个情妇给他……调戏调戏。日子一久,许模克终于了解了邦斯,因为他是十足地道的德国人,看事情不像法国人那样快;可是这样他倒反更喜爱邦斯了。要交情坚固,最好两个朋友中有一个自命为比另一个高明。许模克一发觉朋友的口腹之欲那么强,不由得在旁搓搓手,这种表情便是天使也不能加以责备。第二天,好心的德国人亲自去买了些精致的饭菜,把他们的中饭点缀一下,并且从那天起,他想法每天给朋友换口味;因为从他们同居之后,午饭总是一同在家里吃的。

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Perhaps Pons would have given way under his troubles if it had not been for this friendship; but life became bearable when he found some one to whom he could pour out his heart. The first time that he breathed a word of his difficulties, the good German had advised him to live as he himself did, and eat bread and cheese at home sooner than dine abroad at such a cost. Alas! Pons did not dare to confess that heart and stomach were at war within him, that he could digest affronts which pained his heart, and, cost what it might, a good dinner that satisfied his palate was a necessity to him, even as your gay Lothario must have a mistress to tease. In time Schmucke understood; not just at once, for he was too much of a Teuton to possess that gift of swift perception in which the French rejoice; Schmucke understood and loved poor Pons the better. Nothing so fortifies a friendship as a belief on the part of one friend that he is superior to the other. An angel could not have found a word to say to Schmucke rubbing his hands over the discovery of the hold that gluttony had gained over Pons. Indeed, the good German adorned their breakfast-table next morning with delicacies of which he went in search himself; and every day he was careful to provide something new for his friend, for they always breakfasted together at home.

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巴黎人爱讥讽的脾气是对什么都不留情的。倘以为这一对朋友能够幸免,那真是不认识巴黎了。许模克与邦斯,把各人精神的财富与物质的艰苦合在一块儿之后,想出个经济办法,在玛莱区幽静的诺曼底街上一幢幽静的屋子内,合租了一所公寓,虽然房间的分配很不平均,房租是各半负担的。他们常常一同出去,肩并肩地老走着同样几条大街,逛马路的闲人便替他们起了一个诨名,叫作“一对榛子钳”。有了这个绰号,我不必再描写许模克的面貌了,他之于邦斯,正如梵蒂冈的尼俄伯像之于米洛斯的维纳斯像[8]。

[8] 此二像均为古希腊最美的雕刻,巴尔扎克以为双璧,故引作邦斯与许模克之譬喻。
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If any one imagines that the pair could not escape ridicule in Paris, where nothing is respected, he cannot know that city. When Schmucke and Pons united their riches and poverty, they hit upon the economical expedient of lodging together, each paying half the rent of the very unequally divided second-floor of a house in the Rue de Normandie in the Marais. And as it often happened that they left home together and walked side by side along their beat of boulevard, the idlers of the quarter dubbed them "the pair of nutcrackers," a nickname which makes any portrait of Schmucke quite superfluous, for he was to Pons as the famous statue of the Nurse of Niobe in the Vatican is to the Tribune Venus.

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一对榛子钳家中的杂务,都以看门的西卜太太为中心。在这一幕使两老的生涯急转直下的悲剧中,西卜太太担任极重要的角色,所以她的面貌且待她登场的时候再描写。

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Mme. Cibot, portress of the house in the Rue de Normandie, was the pivot on which the domestic life of the nutcrackers turned; but Mme. Cibot plays so large a part in the drama which grew out of their double existence, that it will be more appropriate to give her portrait on her first appearance in this Scene of Parisian Life.

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关于两人的心境,还有一点需要说明。但这正是最不容易教一八四七年上的百分之九十九的读者了解的,不了解的原因或许在于铁路的勃兴使金融有了空前的发展。路局不是发行股票,借大家的钱吗?好吧,礼尚往来,让我们向它借用一个形象来做譬喻。列车在铁路上驶过的时候,不是有无数绝细的灰土在轨道上飞扬吗?那些在旅客眼中看不见的沙粒,要是飞进了旅客的肾脏,他们就要有剧烈的痛楚,害那个叫作石淋的可怕的病,而且是致命的。我们的社会正以火车一样的速度在钢轨上飞奔,它对于那些看不见的细沙是毫不介意的,可是灰土随时随地都在飞进那两位朋友的身体,使他们仿佛心脏里面生了结石[9]。他们对旁人的痛苦已经非常敏感,往往为了爱莫能助而在暗中难受,对自己身受的刺激当然更敏感到近于病态的地步。尽管到了老年,尽管连续不断地看到巴黎的悲剧,两颗年轻、天真、纯洁的心,始终没有变硬。他们俩越活下去,内心的痛苦越尖锐。凡是有操守的人,冷静的思想家,生活谨严的真正的诗人,不幸都是如此。

[9] 人的血液内有许多矿质,例如钙、有机酸、尿酸、胆脂素等,含量过多时,即于排泄器官(肝、胆囊与膀胱等)内结晶,此种结晶体在医学上称为“结石”。
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One thing remains to be said of the characters of the pair of friends; but this one thing is precisely the hardest to make clear to ninety-nine readers out of a hundred in this forty-seventh year of the nineteenth century, perhaps by reason of the prodigious financial development brought about by the railway system. It is a little thing, and yet it is so much. It is a question, in fact, of giving an idea of the extreme sensitiveness of their natures. Let us borrow an illustration from the railways, if only by way of retaliation, as it were, for the loans which they levy upon us. The railway train of to-day, tearing over the metals, grinds away fine particles of dust, grains so minute that a traveler cannot detect them with the eye; but let a single one of those invisible motes find its way into the kidneys, it will bring about that most excruciating, and sometimes fatal, disease known as gravel. And our society, rushing like a locomotive along its metaled track, is heedless of the all but imperceptible dust made by the grinding of the wheels; but it was otherwise with the two musicians; the invisible grains of sand sank perpetually into the very fibres of their being, causing them intolerable anguish of heart. Tender exceedingly to the pain of others, they wept for their own powerlessness to help; and their own susceptibilities were almost morbidly acute. Neither age nor the continual spectacle of the drama of Paris life had hardened two souls still young and childlike and pure; the longer they lived, indeed, the more keenly they felt their inward suffering; for so it is, alas! with natures unsullied by the world, with the quiet thinker, and with such poets among the poets as have never fallen into any excess.

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两老同居以后,因为职业相仿,起居行动像巴黎出租马车的牲口一样,自有一种同甘共苦的友爱的气息。不分冬夏,两人都七时起身,吃过早点,分头到各个私塾去教课,必要时也互相替代。到了中午,逢到排戏的日子,邦斯便上戏院去,所有空闲的时间他都在街上溜达。然后,两人到晚上又在戏院里见面,那是邦斯把许模克荐进去的。下面我们就得把推荐的经过说一说。

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Since the old men began housekeeping together, the day’s routine was very nearly the same for them both. They worked together in harness in the fraternal fashion of the Paris cab-horse; rising every morning, summer and winter, at seven o’clock, and setting out after breakfast to give music lessons in the boarding-schools, in which, upon occasion, they would take lessons for each other. Towards noon Pons repaired to his theatre, if there was a rehearsal on hand; but all his spare moments were spent in sauntering on the boulevards. Night found both of them in the orchestra at the theatre, for Pons had found a place for Schmucke, and upon this wise.

序号 英文/音标 中文解释 更多操作

avenge

[ə’vendʒ]

vt. 为 ... 报复; 报仇

indifference

[ɪn’dɪfrəns]

n.不重视;无兴趣;漠不关心

prop

[prɒp]

n.支柱;支持者;倚靠人

cradle

[’kreɪdl]

n.摇篮;发祥地;支架

kindly

[’kaɪndli]

adj.和蔼的;温和的;爽快的

synthetic

[sɪn’θetɪk]

adj.合成的;综合的

composer

[kəm’pəʊzə(r)]

n.创作者(尤指乐曲的)

doom

[duːm]

n.毁灭;厄运;判决;死亡

utterly

[’ʌtəli:]

adv.完全;全然;绝对

invariably

[ɪn’veəriəbli]

adv.不变地;总是;一贯地

cultivator

[’kʌltɪveɪtə(r)]

n.耕种者;耕耘机

irrigation

[ˌɪrɪ’ɡeɪʃn]

n.灌溉;【医】冲洗

disarm

[dɪs’ɑːm]

v.放下武器;裁军;解除武装;缓和

perennial

[pə’reniəl]

adj.永久的;反复出现的;多年生的

fertilize

[’fɜːtəlaɪz]

v.施肥;使肥沃;使丰富;【生】使受精;使受粉

relic

[’relɪk]

n.神圣的遗物;遗迹;纪念物

unsuspecting

[ˌʌnsə’spektɪŋ]

adj.无疑心的;无戒心的;未料到的

theatre

[ˈθɪətə]

n.戏院,剧场,电影院

Paris

[’pærɪs]

n.巴黎;重楼(百合科植物);帕里斯(姓氏)

thicket

[’θɪkɪt]

n.繁茂处;丛林;草丛

disposition

[ˌdɪspə’zɪʃn]

n.性情;倾向;安排;处置;控制;【计算机】 配置情况

miniature

[’mɪnətʃə(r)]

adj.小型的;小规模的

gaiter

[’ɡeɪtə(r)]

n.绑腿;长统橡胶靴;鞋罩;高帮松紧鞋

lurk

[lɜːk]

v.潜藏;潜伏;埋伏

jasmine

[’dʒæzmɪn]

n.茉莉;淡黄色

crave

[kreɪv]

v.渴望;热望;迫切需要;恳求

folio

[’fəʊliəʊ]

n.对开本;页码;张数;一页

abyss

[ə’bɪs]

n.深渊;无底洞

confessor

[kən’fesə(r)]

n.基督教信徒;忏悔牧师;男圣徒;神父

orgy

[’ɔːdʒi]

n.纵酒狂欢;放荡

motif

[məʊ’tiːf]

n.(音乐的)动机;主题;意念;装饰图案

Mozart

[’məʊtsɑːt]

n.莫扎特

penny

[’peni]

n.便士;【美】分

bearable

[’beərəbl]

adj.承受得住的;经得起的;可忍受的

sooner

[’suːnə]

adv. soon的比较级

dine

[daɪn]

v.用正餐;进餐

affront

[ə’frʌnt]

n.侮辱

mistress

[’mɪstrəs]

n.主妇;女主人;情妇

swift

[swɪft]

adj.快的;迅速的;敏捷的

fortify

[’fɔːtɪfaɪ]

v.加强;增强;筑防御工事于;(物质或精神上)支持或鼓励

adorn

[ə’dɔːn]

v.装饰;佩戴

delicacy

[’delɪkəsi]

n.柔弱;精致;优雅;谨慎;佳肴

riches

[’rɪtʃɪz]

n.财富;富有

rend

[rend]

v.撕破;分裂;劈开;强夺

unequal

[ʌn’iːkwəl]

adj.不相等的;不平等的;不胜任的

dub

[dʌb]

v.配音;轻点;起绰号,授予称号;打击

Parisian

[pəˈrɪzɪən]

n.巴黎人

railway

[’reɪlweɪ]

n.【C】铁路

sensitiveness

[’sensɪtɪvnɪs]

n.易感知;神经过敏

levy

[’levi]

n.征税;召集

grind

[ɡraɪnd]

v.磨;压迫;碾碎;磨得吱吱响;逐渐停顿

mote

[məʊt]

n.微尘;尘埃

kidney

[’kɪdni]

n.肾;腰子

excruciate

[ɪks’kruːʃɪˌeɪt]

vt.使苦恼;折磨;拷问

gravel

[’ɡrævl]

n.碎石

locomotive

[ˌləʊkə’məʊtɪv]

n.火车头

perpetual

[pə’petʃuəl]

adj.永久的;永恒的;一再往复的

weep

[wiːp]

v.流泪;哭泣;悲叹;渗出

susceptibility

[səˌseptə’bɪləti]

n.敏感性;感受性;磁化率(复数)susceptibilities:感情.

morbid

[’mɔːbɪd]

adj.病态的;不正常的

continual

[kən’tɪnjuəl]

adj.不断的;频繁的;连续的

spectacle

[’spektəkl]

n.景象;场面;奇观;壮观;公开展示;表相,假相

felted

[’feltɪd]

v. 把 ... 制成毡(使 ... 粘结)

inward

[’ɪnwəd]

adj.内部的;内心的;向内的;亲密的

thinker

[’θɪŋkə(r)]

n.思想者;思考者

excess

[ɪk’ses]

n.超过;过量;过剩

housekeeping

[’haʊskiːpɪŋ]

n.家务;持家,

boulevard

[’buːləvɑːd]

n.林荫大道

orchestra

[’ɔːkɪstrə]

n.管弦乐队

fraternal

[frə’tɜːnl]

adj.兄弟的;兄弟般的;【生】异卵双生的

简典